Averageness, Exaggeration, and Facial Attractiveness

Abstract

Langlois and her colleagues reported in this journal that composite faces are more attractive than the component faces used to create them, and conjectured that averageness is attractive (Langlois & Roggman, 1990, Langlois, Roggman, & Musselman, 1994) However, extremes may also be attractive (Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa, 1994) We investigated the effect of averageness (proximity to a norm or average face) on attractiveness using a computerized caricature generator to vary averageness Attractiveness increased with averageness (Experiment 1) and was negatively correlated with distinctiveness, a subjective measure of the converse of averageness (Expertments 1 and 2) Extremes (caricatures) were not attractive Line-drawing composites, which avoid some of the problems associated with gray-level composites, were significantly more attractive and less distinctive (more average) than individual faces (Experiment 2) These results support the claim that averageness is attractive