Easy on the eyes, or hard to categorize: Classification decreases the appeal of facial blendsPosted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science on 2013-08-26 18:43Z by Steven |
Easy on the eyes, or hard to categorize: Classification decreases the appeal of facial blends
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Available online 2013-08-25
DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2013.08.004
Jamin Halberstadt, Professor of Psychology
University of Otago, New Zealand
Piotr Winkielman, Professor of Psychology
University of California, San Diego
Social information processing often involves categorization. When such categorization is difficult, the disfluency may elicit negative affect that could generalize to a variety of stimulus judgments. In the current studies we experimentally apply this theoretical analysis to two classic and highly socially relevant facial attractiveness phenomena: the beauty-in-averageness effect and the appeal of bi-racial faces. Studies 1 and 2 show that same-race (Caucasian-Caucasian) morphs are rated as more attractive than the individual faces composing them – a classic “beauty-in-averageness effect.” Critically, however, this effect is reduced or eliminated when participants first classify the faces in terms of their “parents,” and only if that classification is difficult. Studies 3 and 4 extend these results to show that classifying bi-racial individuals in terms of their racial identity reduces perceivers’ ratings of attractiveness and reverses perceivers’ tendency to smile at them, as measured by facial electromyography (EMG). Together, these four studies support the proposal that facial attractiveness is partially a function of the experience of social categorization, and that such experience depends critically on the nature of the categories into which an individual can be classified.
Highlights
- Facial attractiveness is partially due to the ease with which faces can be categorized
- The attractiveness of face morphs is eliminated when participants first classify the faces
- Bi-racial faces are less attractive when they are first classified by race
- Participants smile less at cross-race faces after classifying them by race
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