Relationships: Physical Attractiveness

Psychologists have long noticed that physical attractiveness plays a major part in the formation of relationships, and proposed various explanations of why this is the case.

Some of these explanations are based on evolutionary theory, such as the idea that people with symmetrical faces are more often viewed as more attractive because it is a sign of health and genetic fitness.

In this study note social psychological explanations of why attractiveness is so important for both short-term and long-term relationships are examined.

Halo Effect and Matching Hypothesis

One explanation for the importance of attractiveness is the halo effect.

The halo effect is the idea that people who are judged to be attractive are typically perceived in a positive light. For example, Dion et al. (1972) found that attractive people are consistently rated as successful, kind and sociable when compared with unattractive people. This means that we not only believe that good-looking people are more physically attractive, we expect them to have other desirable characteristics as well and tend to behave more positively towards them.

However, in real life people also use common sense to estimate whether a prospective partner will find us attractive, and therefore they don't automatically go for the most attractive person around, but choose a partner who matches their own level of physical attractiveness. This is referred to as the matching hypothesis. 

According to the matching hypothesis, a person’s choice of partner is a balance between a desire to have the most physically attractive partner possible and their wish to avoid being rejected by someone who is 'way out of their league'.  As a result, people often settle for a partner who has roughly the same level of physical attractiveness.

Research Examining Physical Attractiveness

Exam Hint: Research studies can be presented as both knowledge and evaluation in the exam; however, it is important that students are clear with how they are using research in their answer.

The idea of halo effect was supported by Palmer and Peterson (2012), who asked participants to rate attractive and unattractive people in terms of how politically competent and knowledgeable they believed them to be. It was found that attractive people were consistently rated higher on these characteristics compared to unattractive ones.

Original research into the matching hypothesis was conducted by Elaine Walster (who first proposed the matching hypothesis) and her colleagues in 1966.  They invited 752 first-year students at the University of Minnesota to attend a dance party. They were randomly matched to a partner; however, when students were picking up their tickets, they were secretly judged by a panel in terms of attractiveness. During the intervals at the dance party, and 4 to 6 months later, students were asked whether they found their partner attractive and whether they would like to go on a second date with them. Contrary to the matching hypothesis predictions, students expressed higher appreciation of their partner if the partner was attractive, regardless of their own level of attractiveness.

However, Feingold (1988) found supportive evidence for the matching hypothesis by carrying out a meta-analysis of 17 studies using real-life couples. He established a strong correlation between the partners’ ratings of attractiveness, just as predicted by the matching hypothesis.

Evaluation of Physical Attractiveness

Exam Hint: The first evaluation point demonstrates how research (see above) can be used to write effective evaluation.

(1) The matching hypothesis is to some extent supported by research. For example, Feingold (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of 17 studies, and found a strong correlation between partners’ ratings of attractiveness. This shows that people tend to choose a partner who has a similar level of physical attractiveness to themselves, just as the matching hypothesis predicts.

(2) However, in addition to Walster et al.’s original study that failed to support the hypothesis, other research has also failed to provide conclusive evidence for matching hypothesis. For example, Taylor et al. (2011) investigated the activity log on a dating website and found that website users were more likely to try and arrange a meeting with a potential partner who was more physically attractive than them. These findings contradict the matching hypothesis, as according to its predictions, website users should seek more dates with a person who is similar in terms of attractiveness, because it provides them with a better chance of being accepted by a potential partner.

(3) There are significant individual differences in terms of the importance that people place on physical attractiveness in terms of relationships. Towhey (1979) gave participants photos of strangers and some biographical information about them; participants were asked to rate how much they liked the people on photographs. Towhey found that physical attractiveness was more important for participants who displayed sexist attitudes (measured by a specially designed questionnaire). This suggests that, depending on the individual, physical appearance may or may not be a significant factor in attractiveness, while the matching hypothesis suggests it is always the main one.

(4) Another weakness of the matching hypothesis is that it mainly applies to short-term relationships. However, when choosing a partner for long-term relationships, people tend to focus more on similarity of values and needs satisfaction, rather than physical attractiveness. This questions the validity of the matching hypothesis, as it will only describe a limited number of relationships. Furthermore, the matching hypothesis ignores the fact that people may compensate for the lack of physical attractiveness with other qualities, such as intellect or sociability. This compensation explains repeatedly occurring examples of older, less attractive men being married to attractive younger women; something that the matching hypothesis cannot account for.

Evaluation: Issues & Debates

Physical attractiveness seems to be an important factor in forming relationships across cultures. For example, Cunningham et al. (1995) found that white, Asian and Hispanic males, despite being from different cultures, rated females with prominent cheekbones, small noses and large eyes as highly attractive. This universality of findings suggests that using attractiveness as a decisive factor in choosing a partner might be a genetically reproduced mechanism, aiding sexual selection. This gives support to the nature side of nature-nurture debate as it shows that human behaviour is mainly a result of biological rather than environmental influences.

On the other hand, the matching hypothesis may be suffering from a beta-bias, as it assumes that men and women are very similar in their view of the importance of physical attractiveness. Research, however, suggests that this may not be the case. For example, Meltzer et al. (2014) found that men rate their long-term relationships more satisfying if their partner is physically attractive, while for women their partner’s attractiveness didn’t have a significant impact on relationship satisfaction. This shows that there are significant gender differences in how important appearance is for attraction.

The matching hypothesis is a theory that is based on a nomothetic approach to studying human behaviour. It tries to generate behavioural laws applicable to all people; however, as studies above suggest, there are significant individual differences in the importance of physical attractiveness to one’s choice of a partner. Therefore, explanations based on the idiographic approach (studying individual cases in detail, without trying to generate universal rules) may be more appropriate for studying romantic relationships.