Physical attractiveness is viewed by society as one of the most important factors of relationship formation, but is this view supported by research? Physical attractiveness is an immediate and accessible way for potential partners to rate each other. Individuals are not always competent in judging their own level of physical attractiveness, but generally people will agree on the physical attractiveness of a given individual with greater agreement occurring among men as to the attractiveness of females. This may be because physical attractiveness of females is more important to males in partner selection than it is to females selecting male partners.
Physical appearance can be seen as a range of indicators of underlying characteristics. Women with a favourable waist to hip ratio are seen as attractive because they are perceived to be more fertile (Singh, 2002), people with more symmetrical features are seen to be more genetically fit.
This is because our genes are designed to make us develop symmetrically, but diseases and infections during physical development can cause these small imperfections and asymmetries (Little and Jones, 2003).
Individuals seen as physically attractive tend to create a favourable impression of possessing desirable personality characteristics, such as being trustworthy, optimistic and sociable. This is known as the halo effect which is a cognitive bias (mental shortcut) which occurs when a person assumes that a person has positive traits in terms of personality and other features because they have a pleasing appearance. The halo effect is where a general impression of someone is incorrectly formed from one characteristic. This is one reason why physically attractive people are more desired as dates or romantic partners than less physically attractive people.
Dion, Berscheid and Walster (1972) asked participants to rate photographs of three strangers for a number of different categories including personality traits such as overall happiness and career success.
When these results were compared to the physical attraction rating of each participant (from a rating of 100 students), the photographs which were rated the most physically attractive were also rated higher on the other positive traits.
Evolutionary theory sees common factors of physical attractiveness as including signs of genetic fitness in males like facial symmetry and muscularity. Signs of healthy maturity are favoured too as they suggest resource richness. In females, physical indicators of fertility are preferred such as signs of health like lustrous hair and indicators of youth like slimness and round baby like eyes. However as well as gender differences in what constitutes physical attractiveness, differences occur across cultures, over time and between individuals. Age can be a factor too, with physical attractiveness of potential romantic partners being more important to younger individuals.