Skin Deep: Debating Body Image: 234 (Issues)

Skin deep : debating body image - Volume 234

---

In many cases, humans subconsciously attribute positive characteristics, such as intelligence and honesty, to physically attractive people. Men, on average, tend to be attracted to women who have a youthful appearance and exhibit features such as a symmetrical face , [14] full breasts, full lips, and a low waist-hip ratio. Generally, physical attractiveness can be viewed from a number of perspectives; with universal perceptions being common to all human cultures , cultural and social aspects, and individual subjective preferences.

The perception of attractiveness can have a significant effect on how people are judged in terms of employment or social opportunities, friendship, sexual behavior, and marriage. Some physical features are attractive in both men and women, particularly bodily [19] and facial symmetry, [20] [21] [22] [23] although one contrary report suggests that "absolute flawlessness" with perfect symmetry can be "disturbing". A study of the reports of college students regarding those traits in individuals which make for attractiveness and repulsiveness argued that static traits, such as beauty or ugliness of features, hold a position subordinate to groups of physical elements like expressive behavior, affectionate disposition, grace of manner, aristocratic bearing, social accomplishments and personal habits.

Grammer and colleagues have identified eight "pillars" of beauty: Most studies of the brain activations associated with the perception of attractiveness show photographs of faces to their participants and let them or a comparable group of people rate the attractiveness of these faces. Such studies consistently find that activity in certain parts of the orbitofrontal cortex increases with increasing attractiveness of faces.

With regard to brain activation related to the perception of attractive bodies, one study with heterosexual participants suggests that activity in the nucleus accumbens and the anterior cingulate cortex increases with increasing attractiveness. The same study finds that for faces and bodies alike, the medial part of the orbitofrontal cortex responds with greater activity to both very attractive and very unattractive pictures.

Women, on average, tend to be more attracted to men who have a relatively narrow waist, a V-shaped torso, and broad shoulders. Women also tend to be more attracted to men who are taller than they are, and display a high degree of facial symmetry , as well as relatively masculine facial dimorphism. Studies have shown that ovulating heterosexual women prefer faces with masculine traits associated with increased exposure to testosterone during key developmental stages, such as a broad forehead, prominent nose and cheekbones, large jaw and strong chin.

Female respondents in the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle were significantly more likely to choose a masculine face than those in menses and luteal phases , [37] or in those taking hormonal contraception. It is suggested that the masculinity of facial features is a reliable indication of good health, or, alternatively, that masculine-looking males are more likely to achieve high status.

A study found that the same genetic factors cause facial masculinity in both males and females such that a male with a more masculine face would likely have a sister with a more masculine face due to the siblings having shared genes. The study also found that, although female faces that were more feminine were judged to be more attractive, there was no association between male facial masculinity and male facial attractiveness for female judges. With these findings, the study reasoned that if a woman were to reproduce with a man with a more masculine face, then her daughters would also inherit a more masculine face, making the daughters less attractive.

The study concluded that there must be other factors that advantage the genetics for masculine male faces to offset their reproductive disadvantage in terms of "health", "fertility" and "facial attractiveness" when the same genetics are present in females. The study reasoned that the "selective advantage" for masculine male faces must "have or had " been due to some factor that is not directly tied to female perceptions of male facial attractiveness. In a study of gay men in China, researchers said that tops preferred feminized male faces, bottoms preferred masculinized male faces and versatiles had no preference for either feminized or masculinized male faces.

In pre-modern Chinese literature, the ideal man in caizi jiaren romances was said to have "rosy lips, sparkling white teeth" and a " jasper -like face" Chinese: In Middle English literature, a beautiful man should have a long, broad and strong face. A study that used Chinese, Malay and Indian judges said that Chinese men with orthognathism where the mouth is flat and in-line with the rest of the face were judged to be the most attractive and Chinese men with a protruding mandible where the jaw projects outward were judged to be the least attractive.

Symmetrical faces and bodies may be signs of good inheritance to women of child-bearing age seeking to create healthy offspring. Studies suggest women are less attracted to men with asymmetrical faces, [56] and symmetrical faces correlate with long term mental performance [57] and are an indication that a man has experienced "fewer genetic and environmental disturbances such as diseases, toxins, malnutrition or genetic mutations" while growing. Studies have also suggested that women at peak fertility were more likely to fantasize about men with greater facial symmetry, [58] and other studies have found that male symmetry was the only factor that could significantly predict the likelihood of a woman experiencing orgasm during sex.

Women with partners possessing greater symmetry reported significantly more copulatory female orgasms than were reported by women with partners possessing low symmetry, even with many potential confounding variables controlled. It has been argued that masculine facial dimorphism in men and symmetry in faces are signals advertising genetic quality in potential mates.

They are also more likely to be prone to infidelity. Double-blind studies found that women prefer the scent of men who are rated as facially attractive. Studies have explored the genetic basis behind such issues as facial symmetry and body scent and how they influence physical attraction. In one study in which women wore men's T-shirts, researchers found that women were more attracted to the bodily scents in shirts of men who had a different type of gene section within the DNA called major histocompatibility complex MHC.

Women judge the faces of men who are heterozygous at all three MHC loci to be more attractive than the faces of men who are homozygous at one or more of these loci. Additionally, a second experiment with genotyped women raters, found these preferences were independent of the degree of MHC similarity between the men and the female rater.

With MHC heterozygosity independently seen as a genetic advantage, the results suggest that facial attractiveness in men may be a measure of genetic quality. A OkCupid study on , of its male and female dating site users found that women are, except those during their early to mid-twenties, open to relationships with both somewhat older and somewhat younger men; they have a larger potential dating pool than men until age At age 20, women, in a "dramatic change", begin sending private messages to significantly older men. At age 29 they become "even more open to older men".

Male desirability to women peaks in the late 20s and does not fall below the average for all men until For the Romans especially, "beardlessness" and "smooth young bodies" were considered beautiful to both men and women. Today, men and women's attitudes towards male beauty has changed. For example, body hair on men may even be preferred see below. The study said that more feminine men tended to prefer relatively older men than themselves and more masculine men tended to prefer relatively younger men than themselves.

The physique of a slim waist, broad shoulders and muscular chest are often found to be attractive to females. Other researchers found waist-to-chest ratio the largest determinant of male attractiveness, with body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio not as significant.

Associated Data

Women focus primarily on the ratio waist to chest or more specifically waist to shoulder. This is analogous to the waist to hip ratio WHR that men prefer. Key body image for a man in the eyes of a woman would include big shoulders, chest, and upper back, and a slim waist area. The research also found that when a college female's waist to hip ratio went up, their body image satisfaction decreased. Some research has shown that body weight may have a stronger effect than WHR when it comes to perceiving attractiveness of the opposite sex.

It was found that waist to hip ratio played a smaller role in body preference than body weight in regards to both sexes. Psychologists Viren Swami and Martin J. Tovee compared female preference for male attractiveness cross culturally, between Britain and Malaysia. They found that females placed more importance on WCR and therefore body shape in urban areas of Britain and Malaysia, while females in rural areas placed more importance on BMI therefore weight and body size.

Females have been found to desire males that are normal weight and have the average WHR for a male. Females view these males as attractive and healthy.

Males who had the average WHR but were overweight or underweight are not perceived as attractive to females. This suggests that WHR is not a major factor in male attractiveness, but a combination of body weight and a typical male WHR seem to be the most attractive. Research has shown that men who have a higher waist to hip ratio and a higher salary are perceived as more attractive to women. A study found that an abdomen that protrudes was the "least attractive" trait for men. In Middle English literature, a beautiful man should have a flat abdomen.

Men's bodies portrayed in magazines marketed to men are more muscular than the men's bodies portrayed in magazines marketed to women. From this, some have concluded that men perceive a more muscular male body to be ideal, as distinct from a woman's ideal male, which is less muscular than what men perceive to be ideal. In a study of stated profile preferences on Match.

In pre-modern Chinese literature, such as in Romance of the Western Chamber , a type of masculinity called "scholar masculinity" is depicted wherein the "ideal male lover" is "weak, vulnerable, feminine, and pedantic ". In Middle English literature, a beautiful man should have thick, broad shoulders, a square and muscular chest, a muscular back, strong sides that taper to a small waist, large hands and arms and legs with huge muscles. A study, of 25, heterosexual men found that men who perceived themselves as having a large penis were more satisfied with their own appearance.

A study criticized previous studies based on the fact that they relied on images and used terms such as "small", "medium", and "large" when asking for female preference. It was found that women overestimated the actual size of the penises they have experimented with when asked in a follow-up survey. The study concluded that women on average preferred the 6.

Penises with larger girth were preferred for one-time partners. Females' sexual attraction towards males may be determined by the height of the man. Other studies have shown that heterosexual women often prefer men taller than they are rather than a man with above average height. While women usually desire men to be at least the same height as themselves or taller, several other factors also determine male attractiveness, and the male-taller norm is not universal.

One study by Stulp found that "women were most likely to choose a speed-dater 25 cm taller than themselves. Additionally, women seem more receptive to an erect posture than men, though both prefer it as an element within beauty. In romances in Middle English literature, all of the "ideal" male heroes are tall, and the vast majority of the "valiant" male heroes are tall too.

Studies based in the United States, New Zealand, and China have shown that women rate men with no trunk chest and abdominal hair as most attractive, and that attractiveness ratings decline as hairiness increases. In a study using Finnish women, women with hairy fathers were more likely to prefer hairy men, suggesting that preference for hairy men is the result of either genetics or imprinting.

Testosterone has been shown to darken skin color in laboratory experiments. Manual laborers who spent extended periods of time outside developed a darker skin tone due to exposure to the sun. As a consequence, an association between dark skin and the lower classes developed.

There was a problem providing the content you requested

Light skin became an aesthetic ideal because it symbolized wealth. Including assumptions about a person's race, socioeconomic class, intelligence, and physical attractiveness.

A scientific review published in , identified from a vast body of empirical research that skin colour as well as skin tone tend to be preferred as they act as indicators of good health. More specifically, these indicators are thought to suggest to potential mates that the beholder has strong or good genes capable of fighting off disease. According to one study Yee N. More recent research has suggested that redder and yellower skin tones, [] reflecting higher levels of oxygenated blood, [] carotenoid and to a lesser extent melanin pigment, and net dietary intakes of fruit and vegetables, [] appear healthier, and therefore more attractive.

Research indicates that heterosexual men tend to be attracted to young [] and beautiful women [] with bodily symmetry. Research has attempted to determine which facial features communicate attractiveness. Facial symmetry has been shown to be considered attractive in women, [] [] and men have been found to prefer full lips, [] high forehead, broad face, small chin, small nose, short and narrow jaw, high cheekbones, [56] [] clear and smooth skin, and wide-set eyes.

The explanation given is that because the ring tends to fade with age and medical problems, a prominent limbal ring gives an honest indicator of youth. In Persian literature, beautiful women are said to have noses like hazelnuts. In a cross-cultural study, more neotenized i. In a cross-cultural study, Marcinkowska et al. The higher the National Health Index of a country, the more were the feminized faces preferred over the masculinized faces.

Among the countries surveyed, Japan had the highest femininity preference and Nepal had the lowest femininity preference. Cunningham of the Department of Psychology at the University of Louisville found, using a panel of East Asian , Hispanic and White judges, that the Asian, Hispanic and White female faces found most attractive were those that had "neonate large eyes, greater distance between eyes, and small noses" [] and his study led him to conclude that "large eyes" were the most "effective" of the "neonate cues".

In computer face averaging tests, women with averaged faces have been shown to be considered more attractive. Commenting on the prevalence of whiteness in supposed beauty ideals in his book White Lies: Race and the Myth of Whiteness , Maurice Berger states that the schematic rendering in the idealized face of a study conducted with American subjects had "straight hair," "light skin," "almond-shaped eyes," "thin, arched eyebrows," "a long, thin nose, closely set and tiny nostrils" and "a large mouth and thin lips", [] though the author of the study stated that there was consistency between his results and those conducted on other races.

Scholar Liu Jieyu says in the article White Collar Beauties , "The criterion of beauty is both arbitrary and gendered. The implicit consensus is that women who have fair skin and a slim figure with symmetrical facial features are pretty. One psychologist speculated there were two opposing principles of female beauty: So on average, symmetrical features are one ideal, while unusual, stand-out features are another.

However, that particular University of Toronto study looked only at white women. A study that used Chinese, Malay and Indian judges said that Chinese women with orthognathism where the mouth is flat and in-line with the rest of the face were judged to be the most attractive and Chinese women with a protruding mandible where the jaw projects outward were judged to be the least attractive. A study, by Wilkins, Chan and Kaiser found correlations between perceived femininity and attractiveness, that is, women's faces which were seen as more feminine were judged by both men and women to be more attractive.

A component of the female beauty ideal in Persian literature is for women to have faces like a full moon.

In Arabian society in the Middle Ages, a component of the female beauty ideal was for women to have round faces which were like a "full moon". In Japan, during the Edo period , a component of the female beauty ideal was for women to have long and narrow faces which were shaped like ovals. In Jewish Rabbinic literature , the rabbis considered full lips to be the ideal type of lips for women.

Historically, in Chinese and Japanese literature, the feminine ideal was said to include small lips. Classical Persian literature, paintings, and miniatures portrayed traits such as long black curly hair, a small mouth, long arched eyebrows, large almond shaped eyes, a small nose, and beauty spots as being beautiful for women.

A study where photographs of several women were manipulated so that their faces would be shown with either the natural eye color of the model or with the other color showed that, on average, brown-eyed men have no preference regarding eye color, but blue-eyed men prefer women of the same eye color. Through the East Asian blepharoplasty cosmetic surgery procedure, Asian women can permanently alter the structure of their eyelid. Some people have argued that this alteration is done to resemble the structure of a Western eyelid [] while other people have argued that this is generally done solely to emulate the appearance of naturally occurring Asian double eyelids.

A study that investigated whether or not an eyelid crease makes Chinese-descent women more attractive using photo-manipulated photographs of young Chinese-descent women's eyes found that the "medium upper eyelid crease" was considered most attractive by all three groups of both sexes: Similarly, all three groups of both genders found the absence of an eye crease to be least attractive on Chinese women. In the late sixteenth century, Japanese people considered epicanthic folds to be beautiful.

In Arabian society in the Middle Ages, a component of the female beauty ideal was for women to have dark black eyes which are large and long and in the shape of almonds. Furthermore, the eyes should be lustrous, and they should have long eyelashes. A source written in , said that a component of the Persian female beauty ideal was for women to have large eyes which are black in color. In Chinese, the phrase "lucent irises, lustrous teeth" Chinese: In Japan, during the Edo period , one piece of evidence, the appearance of the "formal wife" of Tokugawa Iesada as determined by " bone anthropologist " Suzuki Hisashi, indicates that large eyes were considered attractive for women, but, another piece of evidence, the Japanese text "Customs, Manners, and Fashions of the Capital" Japanese: Cross-cultural data shows that the reproductive success of women is tied to their youth and physical attractiveness [] such as the pre-industrial Sami where the most reproductively successful women were 15 years younger than their man.

As men age, they tend to seek a mate who is ever younger. After age 26, men have a larger potential dating pool than women on the site; and by age 48, their pool is almost twice as large. The median year-old male user searches for women aged 22 to 35, while the median year-old male searches for women 27 to The age skew is even greater with messages to other users; the median year-old male messages teenage girls as often as women his own age, while mostly ignoring women a few years older than him. That's why most of the models you see in magazines are teenagers".

Pheromones detected by female hormone markers reflects female fertility and the reproductive value mean. However, the study sets up a framework where "taboos against sex with young girls" are purposely diminished, and biased their sample by removing any participant over the age of 30, with a mean participant age of Signals of fertility in women are often also seen as signals of youth. The evolutionary perspective proposes the idea that when it comes to sexual reproduction, the minimal parental investment required by men gives them the ability and want to simply reproduce 'as much as possible.

This may explain why combating age declines in attractiveness occurs from a younger age in women than in men. For example, the removal of one's body hair is considered a very feminine thing to do. Shaving reverts one's appearance to a more youthful stage [] and although this may not be an honest signal, men will interpret this as a reflection of increased fertile value. Research supports this, showing hairlessness to considered sexually attractive by men.

Research has shown that most heterosexual men enjoy the sight of female breasts , [] with a preference for large, firm breasts. A study by Groyecka et al. These findings are coherent with previous research that link breast attractiveness with female youthfulness. Unlike breast size, breast ptosis seems to be a universal marker of female breast attractiveness. A study showed that men prefer symmetrical breasts. Women who have more symmetrical breasts tend to have more children. Historical literature often includes specific features of individuals or a gender that are considered desirable.

These have often become a matter of convention, and should be interpreted with caution. In Arabian society in the Middle Ages, a component of the female beauty ideal was for women to have small breasts. Biological anthropologist Helen E. Fisher of the Center for Human Evolution Studies in the Department of Anthropology of Rutgers University said that, "perhaps, the fleshy, rounded buttocks Caro , professor in the Center for Population Biology and the Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology, at University of California, Davis , rejected that as being a necessary conclusion, stating that female fatty deposits on the hips improve "individual fitness of the female", regardless of sexual selection.

In a study, black men were more likely than white men to use the words "big" or "large" to describe their conception of an attractive woman's posterior. Availability of food influences which female body size is attractive which may have evolutionary reasons. Societies with food scarcities prefer larger female body size than societies that have plenty of food.

In Western society males who are hungry prefer a larger female body size than they do when not hungry. BMI has been criticised for conflating fat and muscle, and more recent studies have concentrated on body composition. Among Australian university students, the most attractive body composition for women In the United States, women overestimate men's preferences for thinness in a mate.

In one study, American women were asked to choose what their ideal build was and what they thought the build most attractive to men was. Women chose slimmer than average figures for both choices. When American men were independently asked to choose the female build most attractive to them, the men chose figures of average build. This indicates that women may be misled as to how thin men prefer women to be. East Asians have historically preferred women whose bodies had small features.

For example, during the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history, women in Chinese harems wanted to have a thin body in order to be attractive for the Chinese emperor. Later, during the Tang Dynasty , a less thin body type was seen as most attractive for Chinese women. In the Victorian era , women who adhered to Victorian ideals were expected to limit their food consumption to attain the ideal slim figure. A WHR of 0. Women within the 0.

Both men and women judge women with smaller waist-to-hip ratios more attractive. In Chinese, the phrase "willow waist" Chinese: In the Victorian era , a small waist was considered the main trait of a beautiful woman. Most men tend to be taller than their female partners. Having said this, height is a more important factor for a woman when choosing a man than it is for a man choosing a woman. In Middle English literature, 'tallness' is a characteristic of ideally beautiful women.

Works (273)

A study by Swami et al. Marco Bertamini criticized the Swami et al. Using this data, he similarly found that men usually have slightly proportionately longer legs than women or that differences in leg length proportion may not exist between men and women. These findings made him rule out the possibility that a preference for women with proportionately longer legs than men is due proportionately longer legs being a secondary sex characteristic of women.

According to some studies, most men prefer women with small feet, [] [] such as in ancient China where foot binding was practiced. In Jewish Rabbinic literature , the rabbis considered small feet to be the ideal type of feet for women. Men have been found to prefer long-haired women. Hair therefore indicates health and nutrition during the last 2—3 years. Lustrous hair is also often a cross-cultural preference. A component of the female beauty ideal in Persian literature is for women to have black hair, [] which was also preferred in Arabian society in the Middle Ages. The way an individual moves can indicate health and even age and influence attractiveness.

Similarly, the perceived attractiveness of males doubled when they moved with a swagger in their shoulders. A preference for lighter-skinned women has been documented among certain populations. Skin radiance or glowing skin may influence perception of beauty and physical attractiveness. There are some subtle changes in women's perceived attractiveness across the menstrual cycle. During their most fertile phase , we can observe some changes in women's behavior and physiology. A study conducted by G. Miller examined the amount of tip earnings by lap dancers across the menstrual cycle.

He found that dancers received nearly 15 USD more when they were near ovulation than during the rest of the month. This suggests that women either are more attractive during ovulation phase, or they experience a significant change in their behavior. Bobst and Lobmaier created 20 prototyped photographs, some of a female during ovulation and some during the luteal phase.

Men were asked to choose the more attractive, the more caring and the more flirtatious faces. They found a significant preference for the follicular phase ovulation. This suggests that subtle shape differences in faces occurring during the female's ovulation phase are sufficient to attract men more. Men and women had to judge photographs of women's faces taken during their fertile phase. They were all rated more attractive than during non-fertile phase. They are some subtle visible cues to ovulation in women's faces, and they are perceived as more attractive, leading to the idea that it could be an adaptive mechanism to raise a female's mate value at that specific time when probability of conception is at its highest.

Women's attractiveness, as perceived by men and women, slightly differs across her menstrual cycle, being at peak when she is in her ovulation phase. They explained that the function of the effects of menstrual cycle phase on preferences for apparent health and self-resemblance in faces is to increase the likelihood of pregnancy. Similarly, female prefer the scent of symmetrical men and masculine faces during fertile phases as well as stereotypical male displays such as social presence, and direct intrasexual competitiveness.

During the follicular phase fertile , females prefer more male's traits testosterone dependent traits such as face shape than when in non-fertile phase. But not only females' preferences vary across cycle, their behaviours as well. Effectively, men respond differently to females when they are on ovulatory cycle, [] because females act differently. Women in the ovulatory phase are flirtier with males showing genetic fitness markers than in low fertile phase. High estrogen level women may also be viewed as healthier or to have a more feminine face.

Similarly, a study investigated the capacity of women to select high quality males based on their facial attractiveness. They found that facial attractiveness correlated with semen quality good, normal, or bad depending on sperm morphology and motility. The more attractive a man's face is, linked to his sperm being of better quality.

Sexual ornaments are seen in many organisms; in humans, females have sexual ornamentation in the form of breasts and buttocks. The physical attraction to sexual ornaments is associated with gynoid fat, as opposed to android fat, which is considered unattractive. The activation of estrogen receptors around the female skeletal tissue causes gynoid fat to be deposited in the breasts, buttocks, hips and thighs, producing an overall typical female body shape. Sexual ornaments are considered attractive features as they are thought to indicate high mate value, fertility, [] and the ability to provide good care to offspring.

They are sexually selected traits present for the purpose of honest signalling and capturing the visual attention of the opposite sex, most commonly associated with females capturing the visual attention of males. It has been proposed that these ornaments have evolved in order to advertise personal quality and reproductive value.

The evolution of these ornaments is also associated with female-female competition in order to gain material benefits provided by resourceful and high status males. It is thought that this is associated with the long-term pair bonding humans engage in; human females engage in extended sexual activity outside of their fertile period. In other animal species, even other primate species, these advertisements of reproductive value are not permanent. Usually, it is the point at which the female is at her most fertile, she displays sexual swellings.

Adolescence is the period of time whereby humans experience puberty , and experience anatomical changes to their bodies through the increase of sex hormones released in the body. Adolescent exaggeration is the period of time at which sexual ornaments are maximised, and peak gynoid fat content is reached. Female breasts develop at this stage not only to prepare for reproduction, but also due to competition with other females in displaying their reproductive value and quality to males. For both men and women, there appear to be universal criteria of attractiveness both within and across cultures and ethnic groups.

Some evolutionary psychologists, including David Buss, have argued that this long-term relationship difference may be a consequence of ancestral humans who selected partners based on secondary sexual characteristics , as well as general indicators of fitness which allowed for greater reproductive success as a result of higher fertility in those partners, [] although a male's ability to provide resources for offspring was likely signaled less by physical features.

Studies have shown that women pay greater attention to physical traits than they do directly to earning capability or potential to commit, [] including muscularity, fitness and masculinity of features; the latter preference was observed to vary during a woman's period, with women preferring more masculine features during the late-follicular fertile phase of the menstrual cycle.

Heterosexual men were only aroused by women. This study verified arousal in the test subjects by connecting them to brain imaging devices. Bonnie Adrian's book, Framing the Bride , discusses the emphasis Taiwanese brides place on physical attractiveness for their wedding photographs. Globalization and western ideals of beauty have spread and have become more prevalent in Asian societies where brides go through hours of hair and makeup to "transform everyday women with their individual characteristics into generic look-alike beauties in three hours' time.

According to strategic pluralism theory, men may have correspondingly evolved to pursue reproductive strategies that are contingent on their own physical attractiveness. More physically attractive men accrue reproductive benefits from spending more time seeking multiple mating partners and relatively less time investing in offspring. In contrast, the reproductive effort of physically less attractive men, who therefore will not have the same mating opportunities, is better allocated either to investing heavily in accruing resources, or investing in their mates and offspring and spending relatively less time seeking additional mates.

Several studies have suggested that people are generally attracted to people who look like them , [] and they generally evaluate faces that exhibit features of their own ethnic or racial group as being more attractive. However, this effect can be reversed. This might depend on how attractiveness is conceptualized: Again, findings are more ambiguous when looking for the desiring, pleasure related component of attractiveness. A study by R. Hall in , which examined determinations of physical attractiveness by having subjects look at the faces of women, found that race was sometimes a factor in these evaluations.

Perceptions of physical attractiveness contribute to generalized assumptions based on those attractions. Individuals assume that when someone is beautiful, then they have many other positive attributes that make the attractive person more likeable. This could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy , as, from a young age, attractive people receive more attention that helps them develop these characteristics.

It was explained that people pay closer attention to those they find physically beautiful or attractive, and thus perceiving attractive individuals with greater distinctive accuracy. The study believes this accuracy to be subjective to the eye of the beholder.

Issue Description

Even though connections and confounds with other variables could not be excluded, the effects of attractiveness in this study were the same size as the ones for other demographic variables. In developed western societies, women tend to be judged for their physical appearance over their other qualities and the pressure to engage in beauty work is much higher for women than men.

Similarly, subjective responses were only taken once per condition to prevent participants from guessing the aim of the experiment and thus reducing the possibility of demand characteristics. This approach has been used by previous similar studies e. Median illusion and control questionnaire scores for both female a and male b participants. Greater agreement was found following synchronous open bars compared to asynchronous filled bars stroking for the illusion but not control questions.

Error bars show interquartile range. Greater amplitudes were found following synchronous stroking. Error bars show standard errors. Experiment two aimed to investigate affective responses to illusory ownership over both LB and SB body sizes using a new cohort of participants. To control for possible confounding variables that may effect body satisfaction, additional measures and screening were completed for this sample see table 1 , table S2 , and below.

Social economic status was measured with years of education as an index; all participants had a minimum of 12 years education i. Self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg self esteem scale [31]. A global score of 2. The experimental set-up was identical to that used for experiment one without SCR. An additional task, perceptual judgments of hip size, was measured using a cm ruler. The BISS is a six-item scale designed to measure body satisfaction at a particular instance in time.

The BISS correlates with other body satisfaction measures and demonstrates internal consistency and construct validity [34]. Higher BISS scores represent higher body satisfaction. The FRS consists of nine numbered silhouetted bodies ranging from emaciated to obese. Participants select images that represent both their ideal and current body size.

The FRS has good test-retest reliability [35]. The questionnaire consists of items rated on a seven-point Likert scale, except six items asking about frequency of behaviour. The questionnaire can be divided into four subscales dietary restraint, eating concern, weight concern, and shape concern , or a single global measure. Because the global score was used to define clinical cut-off [33] it was this score that was used for all subsequent analysis.

Additional measures were also taken to examine individual differences; details can be found in methods S1. The full body illusion over wider LB and slimmer SB body types was performed as in experiment one. However, to prevent the experiment being too long and to limit the number of repetitions of the subjective questionnaires, only synchronous conditions were used.

Due to the small size manipulations in the illusion, the cognitive knowledge of being in an experiment, as well as other individual characteristics that may influence emotion, affective responses were hypothesized to be much smaller than any perceptual changes. Therefore, when measuring body satisfaction a longer duration of stroking was given s , compared to when measuring perceptual responses, for the participants to be fully immersed in the illusion. Thus allowing more time not only for the perceptual recalibration, but also for the subsequent hypothesized affective response.

In addition, the longer duration also provided a longer period between repetition of the BISS and FRS, reducing the likelihood of participants simply repeating remembered responses. The questions were delivered through the HMDs in a random order with the responses given verbally. To protect participant confidentiality the experimenter could not see the questions and reverse scoring was implemented. Next, participants were asked to make perceptual judgments of their own hip size, for which the HMD screens were blank so that the participants had no vision of either their own body or that of the mannequin.

Participants were required to hold a cm ruler using the index finger and thumb of both hands with their arms outstretched in front of them. Participants then adjusted the distance between their index fingers to correspond with the perceived actual distance between their own hips.

Whilst making the judgments participants could only move their right hand, with their left hand held in position by the experimenter preventing them from aligning their hands with sides of their body. For each trial, three separate judgments were made before and after each period of 60 s stroking, bringing their hands to their sides between each judgment.

This was repeated three times to gain sufficient power for reliable statistical analysis. It was made clear to participants that these judgments were to reflect perceived width of their own body and not that of the mannequin. Finally, after an additional 60 s of stroking, participants answered a modified version of the illusion questionnaire see table S1. Each participant completed the entire procedure s stroking with pre and post-illusion BISS and FRS responses, three trials of 60 s stroking each with three pre and three post illusion hip size judgments and 60 s of stroking followed by the ownership questionnaire for both LB and SB conditions separated by minute break.

The order of conditions was counterbalanced across participants. The duration of the entire experiment was approximately 90 minutes including the minute break in between body size conditions. Experiment one established equally strong illusions of ownership with the large and small mannequins for both male and female participants. For the questionnaire data an illusion score was calculated by averaging across all three illusion questions. Similarly, a control score was calculated by averaging across the two control questions.

The data were ordinal and not normally distributed Shapiro-Wilk test so were analysed using non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank tests, for which effect size is indicated by the probability of superiority for dependent measures PS dep. Wilcoxon signed rank tests revealed a significant effect of synchrony in the LB condition for both sexes Males: The same was true of the SB condition Males: A further two questions were included in the questionnaire asking directly about the perceptual effects of the illusion: Effect size is indicated by partial eta squared np 2.

Although this may reflect a slight heightened response to seeing a knife for females, lack of a significant interaction suggests that this was not modulated by the illusion. Therefore, experiment one demonstrates equivalent illusion strength between males and females as well as for both body size conditions. These results mean that the paradigm is suitable to examine possible links to emotional experience experiment two as the conditions are matched in terms of vividness of the illusion.

After confirming the suitability of the paradigm, the second experiment then aimed to establish affective responses with pre and post-illusion body satisfaction measures. For additional results see table S1 and results S1. The effects on perceived body size were measured using perceptual hip size judgments that were calculated as the distance between the inner edge of left and right index fingers on the ruler.

This was then converted into a percentage of actual hip size for each participant in each condition with actual hip distance taken as the distance between the outer edges of the body at the hipbones. The data were normally distributed Shapiro-Wilk test , but violated homogeneity assumptions, which was not rectified by transformation.

Thus, illusory ownership of a slimmer body caused decreases in perceived actual body width. Sex differences were analysed using a change in hip judgment score described below. Medians of pre and post-illusion hip judgments for the large a and small b body conditions Error bars show interquartile range. Medians of pre and post-illusion body satisfaction BISS scores for the large c and small b body conditions. Scores of male participants are depicted by open triangles and females by filled circles. The emotional effects of the illusion were calculated by comparing pre and post-illusion body satisfaction scores.

These were calculated for each participant in each condition by taking a mean of the six BISS responses after reverse scoring. As the data were not normally distributed Shapiro-Wilk test and ordinal Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used. Importantly, these results provide the first experimental evidence for a direct link between affective and perceptual body representations using multisensory illusions, demonstrating increases in body satisfaction following illusory ownership over a slimmer body.

A change in BISS score was calculated by subtracting pre from post-illusion scores such that positive and negative values represented increases and decreases in body satisfaction respectively and did not represent an absolute change. For additional results see table S2 and results S2.

Further supplementary analysis was conducted to investigate the possible effects of condition order results S3 and participant height results S4 on each of the experimental measures. The current study was the first to experimentally manipulate perceived body size using multisensory illusions demonstrating a direct link between perceptual and affective body representations. After determining that neither sex of the participant nor illusory body size affected illusion strength it was shown that ownership over a slimmer body significantly decreases perceived body width and increases body satisfaction.

Linking the body to emotional experience is not a new concept. For example, experiments investigating embodied cognition demonstrate that bodily posture and action not only express current emotional state but also facilitate it [37]. Our results extend these ideas, demonstrating that perception of our own body size can have a direct influence on emotional experience. Neural networks associated with body perception including posterior parietal [38] and premotor areas [39] , have previously been investigated independently from networks involved with emotional experience that incorporate the insula and the anterior cingulate cortex [40].

Identification of emotional changes driven by altered body perception, however, suggests these networks to be functionally connected. Indeed, reduced grey matter volume in both networks has been found in ED patients [41].

Moreover, these areas are also found to be activated during tasks requiring body size comparison with media images using healthy controls [42]. The absence of asynchronous conditions in experiment two meant that a direct comparison of the effects of illusory ownership to a non-ownership control condition was not possible. Therefore, simply viewing an ideal body without ownership is more likely to elicit decreases in body satisfaction rather than the increases observed in the current study. However, these previous body comparison studies use images taken from a third person perspective and thus are not directly comparable to the current study, in which the mannequin body was seen from a first person perspective.

Visual perspective is found to play a significant role for body ownership in multisensory body illusions [47] , [48] and although it has not been investigated directly in terms of body satisfaction it is thought that third person perspective is more important due to social connotations how the body is viewed by other people [45] , [49]. Therefore, based on current knowledge, it is unlikely that simply viewing an ideal body from a first person perspective would increase body satisfaction without ownership, although further investigation into the role of visual perspective in body satisfaction is required.

Decreases in hip size judgments are also unlikely to be explained purely by the size of the prior visual input of a slimmer body. Not only were participants explicitly instructed to make judgments of the perceived size of their own body and not that of the mannequin, but also our results are compatible with numerous previous studies, which have consistently demonstrated that multisensory illusions and not just visual input of a distorted body size can modulate size perception of own body parts [24] , [25] , [26] , [28] , [38]. Interestingly, the current data did not reveal sex differences in perceptual or emotional responses to the illusion.

This supports previous findings of equivalent perceptual responses to multisensory illusions [20]. However, whereas this was only demonstrated previously using a male mannequin leaving the possibility of females having a stronger illusion with a female mannequin, the current study confirms similar illusion strength using sex-matched mannequins.

Conversely, the current results do not support the notion of increased emotional responses for females. Because of the repetition of the BISS in a short time frame and the relatively small alteration of body size, the experiment may not be sensitive enough to tease apart subtle sex differences. However, much of the research to date has focused on body dissatisfaction , such that men are less likely to be dissatisfied with an overweight body and more dissatisfied with an underweight body, e.

Demonstrated here, however, was an increase in body satisfaction , such that whilst men may not be as disturbed by feeling fat, they may have equivalent positive effects of feeling slim. Contrary to predictions, illusory ownership over a wider body did not reduce body satisfaction or increase perceptual body size.

One reason for a lack of emotional response could be due to the mannequin physic, as even in the LB condition the mannequin had a flat stomach and muscle definition meaning that the experimental manipulation did not produce a true socially undesirable fat body type. This suggests that the observed emotional effects may not be caused by body size per se but that body shape is also important. This may also help to explain the lack of sex difference in emotional effects of the illusion. Indeed, some studies investigating multisensory illusions have found asymmetries of illusion effects for larger and smaller limbs.

However, contrary to the current findings, such studies tend to demonstrate stronger effects for larger body parts implying that body representations adapt more readily to increases rather than decreases in size [51] — [53]. Not all multisensory illusions appear to have asymmetric effects in regards to changes in body size, however, as equivalent perceptual effects have been found for illusions of owning giant and doll sized legs [29]. Thus it suggested that contractions of the body representation can occur easily as long as relative body proportions are maintained [29] , [53].

In the current study, not only did both large and small body illusions maintain bodily proportions and elicit equivalently strong subjective experience, but also it was only the smaller body that produced a significant change in perceived hip size. Therefore, the current findings cannot be explained by the brain adapting more readily to expansions of the body. Alternatively our results may be explained by a general overestimation of actual body size.

Individuals of low and normal weight the majority of the current sample tend to overestimate actual body size, whereas overweight individuals underestimate actual body size [12]. Thus the larger body in the LB condition, may not actually be perceived as larger by most participants, but instead as close to their normal perceived body size.

This, along with the mannequin physic, may also help to explain the lack of systematic affective response for the LB condition, as not all participants perceive the larger body to actually be larger than there own. Responses to the Figure rating scale FRS were not significantly affected by the illusion in either body size condition. One reason for this may be that, because the wording of the question did not explicitly refer to how the body feels, participants were basing their judgments on cognitive knowledge of actual body size rather than a subjective feeling of body size [54].

Additionally, as the scale consists of only nine figures set out in size order, participants can easily remember which figure they selected previously [55] thus making cognitive based judgments more likely. Feelings of body size were measured in the illusion questionnaire, as two questions were included that directly asked about whether the participant felt thinner or fatter than normal see table S1. Responses to these questions did not, however, reveal any significant differences between conditions although anecdotally some participants did spontaneously report explicit changes.

This, together with the non-significant FRS results, may suggest that body satisfaction can be increased with only implicit perceptual judgments of hip size changes in body size. Future studies should therefore use greater manipulations of body size to examine the effect of more explicit perceptual changes on body satisfaction, which are likely to be more pronounced.

Although illusory ownership over a wider body did not have an overall effect on body satisfaction, increases in body satisfaction were found to correspond with higher ED psychopathology. Initially this finding seems counter-intuitive, as EDs are thought to correspond with greater sensitivity to body size and thus should be more dissatisfied with a larger body. Therefore, although the mannequin in the LB condition did not conscribe to universal ideals as it did in the SB condition and so did not increase body satisfaction universally across participants , it may be that the greater dissatisfaction an individual has towards their own body, the better slimmer , this new mannequin body appears in comparison.

Furthermore, when viewing their own body, individuals with EDs pay more attention to areas associated with anxiety [56]. From first person perspective the stomach is the most salient of these body parts and, as such, may receive greater attention in those with higher ED psychopathology more than overall body width. Therefore, for these individuals the feeling of having a flat stomach may become more important for body satisfaction than body width.

Although attending to anxiety provoking body parts body checking tends to decrease body satisfaction even in healthy individuals [57] , positive feedback from such checks can lead to a temporary feeling of being thin [14] and thus increase body satisfaction. The mannequin stomach is not only flat but also rigid made from hard fibreglass such that, as the experimenter strokes the torso this may provide positive feedback of a flat, smooth stomach, which is more important and heavily attended to by individuals with higher ED psychopathology.

Although these data do not answer the debate about body perception in ED they do add to our current knowledge demonstrating that changes in emotional response to a perceptual body illusion are related to ED psychopathology, even in a non-clinical sample. This finding is compatible with the idea of fluctuating body representations in ED [14] in respect to the affective body representation, but importantly demonstrating this with positive fluctuations increases in body satisfaction and thus may be more clinically relevant.

Demonstrating a positive affective response with the full body illusion that is modulated by ED psychopathology may suggest clinical applications for these methods. Some clinical treatments already incorporate virtual reality techniques to address anxiety-provoking environments [58] as well as body perception [59]. Moreover, multisensory illusions have already had some therapeutic success for other disorders thought to involve abnormalities in the cortical body representation e.

Evidence for neural abnormalities related to body perception has also been found in EDs [40]. However, further research into underlying pathophysiology of EDs and the mechanisms underlying the affective responses to multisensory illusions, as well as longevity of any after-effects, is required before these methods can be considered for the clinic. In sum, the current study provides the first experimental evidence for a direct link between body perception and body satisfaction using multisensory illusions.

Moreover, non-clinical levels of ED psychopathology were related to affective responses to the illusion of owning a larger wider body suggesting a significant role of body perception in ED. The authors would like to thank Dr. Alexander Skoglund for technical support and writing the code for the experimental paradigms. Medians, z statistics and p values uncorrected for each questionnaire item used for experiment two.

Questions 1 to 6 were also used for experiment one. Correlation matrix of control variables. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Published online Jan Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer.

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Received Sep 11; Accepted Dec 5. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Additional measures used for experiment two. Additional analysis of questionnaire items for experiment two.

• The Limitations of Intercultural Training
• Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements (Energy and the Environment)
• Go, Tell It on the Mountain: Three Christmas Pageants for Church Schools
• Icon and Devotion: Sacred Spaces in Imperial Russia
• The Light and other Collected Poems
• Dalla relazione di cura alla relazione di prossimità: L’approccio delle capability alle persone con disabilità a cura di Mario Biggeri e Nicolò Bellanca (Italian Edition)