What is beautiful is good, even online: Correlations between photo attractiveness and text attractiveness in men’s online dating profiles

The role of facial cues in signalling cooperativeness is limited and nuanced

Humans display a remarkable tendency to cooperate with strangers; however, identifying prospective cooperation partners accurately before entering any new relationship is essential to mitigate the risk of being exploited. Visual appearance, as inferrable, for example, from facial images on job portals and dating sites, may serve as a potential signal of cooperativeness. This experimental study examines whether static images enable the correct detection of an individual's propensity to cooperate. Participants first played the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) game, a standard cooperation task. Subsequently, they were asked to predict the cooperativeness of participants from a prior PD study relying solely on their static facial photographs. While our main results indicate only marginal accuracy improvements over random guessing, a more detailed analysis reveals that participants were more successful at identifying cooperative tendencies similar to their own. Despite no detectable main effect in our primary treatment variations (time pressure versus time delay), participants exhibited increased accuracy in identifying male cooperators under time pressure. These findings point towards a limited yet nuanced role of static facial images in predicting cooperativeness, advancing our understanding of non-behavioral cues in cooperative interactions.

Physical attractiveness and women's intra-household bargaining power

This paper explores the role of physical attractiveness in affecting women's intra-household bargaining power. The empirical analysis based on the China Family Panel Studies finds that physical attractiveness significantly increases women's intra-household bargaining power. To solve the endogenous problem of physical attractiveness, we employ an instrument-variable-based regression to corroborate the conclusion. Using generalized structural equation model, we show that income, self-esteem, and interpersonal relationship are three possible transmission channels (or mediators) between physical attractiveness and women's intra-household bargaining power.

Perception of Hidden Confidence in Neutral Expressions: Interactions of Facial Attractiveness, Self-Esteem, and Names to Be Addressed by

Even when a person is portraying a neutral expression, their internal feelings can be reflected subtly on their face, and observers can perceive them. A previous study took facial photographs of female models while wearing attractive and unattractive clothing. Although the models displayed neutral expressions for both cases, their faces while wearing attractive clothing were perceived as more attractive because, it was argued, the attractive clothing raised their confidence, which was observable on the neutral faces. The present study aimed to replicate this. Envisaging being addressed by a specific name (given name, nickname, and formal title) are used to alter the models’ internal states instead of clothing. Twenty-one Japanese models took three photographs of their faces while imagining (1) being addressed by names they like, (2) being addressed by names they dislike, and (3) being addressed by their surnames with titles. A number of Japanese observers viewed three images of the same model at once and ordered them according to their attractiveness (Study 1) and confidence (Study 2). The images in condition (1) were perceived as more attractive/confident than other images. This suggests that being addressed by the name we like can raise our confidence momentarily, and it reflects subtly in neutral expressions.

Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?

This paper investigates origins and consequences of perceived profile text originality. The first goal was to examine whether the perceived originality of authentic online dating profile texts affects online daters' perceptions of attractiveness, and whether perceptions of (less) desired partner personality traits mediate this effect. Results showed the positive impact of perceived profile text originality on impression formation: text originality positively affects perceptions of intelligence and sense of humor, which improve impressions of attractiveness and boost dating intention. The second goal was to explore what profile text features increase perceptions of profile text originality. Results revealed profile texts which were stylistically original (e.g., include metaphors) and contained more and concrete self-disclosure statements were considered more original, explaining almost half of the variance in originality scores. Taken together, our results suggest that perceived originality in profile texts is manifested in both meaning and form, and is a balancing act between novelty and appropriateness.

The Effect of Facial Resemblance on Cooperative Behavior in the Sharing Economy

In online sharing economy platforms, users often need to cooperate with strangers with minimal information. When personal photos are available on these platforms, how do users form social perceptions and consequently cooperative intention? According to the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and the kin selection theory, the authors propose that facial resemblance between two partners affects their perceptions of the cognitive trustworthiness, affective trustworthiness, attractiveness, and sociability of the partner, and that these social perceptions affect their cooperative intention. In the experiment, subjects evaluate the face of five potential partners of various levels of facial resemblance. The results support that the effect of facial resemblance on cooperative intention is mediated by social perceptions. Moreover, the transactional values and social values of the task partially moderate the effect of facial resemblance on social perceptions for female subjects. Sharing economy platforms may leverage the facial resemblance to facilitate cooperation among strangers.

Confidence is sexy and it can be trained: Examining male social confidence in initial, opposite-sex interactions

OBJECTIVE

We investigated whether men's social confidence in an initial, opposite-sex chatting context can be improved through a video tutorial and the extent to which being perceived as socially confident results in being seen as more romantically desirable and worthy of future contact.

METHOD

Women chatted with men who had received or not received a tutorial on how to handle speed-dating chats (Study 1: N = 129; Study 2: N = 60) or with male targets selected for having high versus moderate confidence in handling initial, opposite-sex encounters (Study 3: N = 46).

RESULTS

Tutorial-trained men felt more confident going into the chats and they, as well as male targets selected for their confidence, were perceived by female chat partners to be higher in social confidence, status, and dominance. However, only perceptions of social confidence were further associated with being perceived as more romantically desirable (as a short-term mate) and worthy of future contact.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings indicate that social confidence is trainable and that other-perceived social confidence can impact the outcomes of social interactions.

Bald and Bad?

According to (a) the beauty ideal of a full head of hair and (b) the physical attractiveness stereotype (PAS; "what is beautiful is good"), bald men should appear less attractive than nonbald men, not only physically but also socially. To explain inconsistent results on this prediction in previous research, we suggest two antagonistic processes: the automatic activation of the PAS at the implicit level and its suppression at the explicit level, the latter process selectively triggered by individuating information about the target person. In line with this account, we only found negative social attractiveness ratings for bald men by same-aged women when individuating target information was lacking (Experiment 1). In contrast, irrespective of whether individuating information was available or not, we reliably found evidence for the PAS in different implicit paradigms (the implicit association test in Experiment 2 and a source monitoring task in Experiment 3). We conclude that individuating information about bald men suppresses PAS application, but not PAS activation.

How Beauty Determines Gaze! Facial Attractiveness and Gaze Duration in Images of Real World Scenes

We showed that the looking time spent on faces is a valid covariate of beauty by testing the relation between facial attractiveness and gaze behavior. We presented natural scenes which always pictured two people, encompassing a wide range of facial attractiveness. Employing measurements of eye movements in a free viewing paradigm, we found a linear relation between facial attractiveness and gaze behavior: The more attractive the face, the longer and the more often it was looked at. In line with evolutionary approaches, the positive relation was particularly pronounced when participants viewed other sex faces.

Always on My Mind? Recognition of Attractive Faces May Not Depend on Attention

Little research has examined what happens to attention and memory as a whole when humans see someone attractive. Hence, we investigated whether attractive stimuli gather more attention and are better remembered than unattractive stimuli. Participants took part in an attention task – in which matrices containing attractive and unattractive male naturalistic photographs were presented to 54 females, and measures of eye-gaze location and fixation duration using an eye-tracker were taken – followed by a recognition task. Eye-gaze was higher for the attractive stimuli compared to unattractive stimuli. Also, attractive photographs produced more hits and false recognitions than unattractive photographs which may indicate that regardless of attention allocation, attractive photographs produce more correct but also more false recognitions. We present an evolutionary explanation for this, as attending to more attractive faces but not always remembering them accurately and differentially compared with unseen attractive faces, may help females secure mates with higher reproductive value.

Facial Features: What Women Perceive as Attractive and What Men Consider Attractive

Attractiveness plays an important role in social exchange and in the ability to attract potential mates, especially for women. Several facial traits have been described as reliable indicators of attractiveness in women, but very few studies consider the influence of several measurements simultaneously. In addition, most studies consider just one of two assessments to directly measure attractiveness: either self-evaluation or men's ratings. We explored the relationship between these two estimators of attractiveness and a set of facial traits in a sample of 266 young Spanish women. These traits are: facial fluctuating asymmetry, facial averageness, facial sexual dimorphism, and facial maturity. We made use of the advantage of having recently developed methodologies that enabled us to measure these variables in real faces. We also controlled for three other widely used variables: age, body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio. The inclusion of many different variables allowed us to detect any possible interaction between the features described that could affect attractiveness perception. Our results show that facial fluctuating asymmetry is related both to self-perceived and male-rated attractiveness. Other facial traits are related only to one direct attractiveness measurement: facial averageness and facial maturity only affect men's ratings. Unmodified faces are closer to natural stimuli than are manipulated photographs, and therefore our results support the importance of employing unmodified faces to analyse the factors affecting attractiveness. We also discuss the relatively low equivalence between self-perceived and male-rated attractiveness and how various anthropometric traits are relevant to them in different ways. Finally, we highlight the need to perform integrated-variable studies to fully understand female attractiveness.

An evidence-based approach to an ancient pursuit: systematic review on converting online contact into a first date

OBJECTIVE

To determine, for people seeking a date online, what activities and behaviours have an effect on the chances of converting electronic communication into a face-to-face meeting.

METHODS

Literature in psychology, sociology, and computer, behavioural and neurocognitive sciences that informed effective online dating was captured through electronic searching of Psychinfo, Medline and Embase in November 2013. Study selection and meta-narrative synthesis were carried out in duplicate.

RESULTS

There were 3938 initial citations and 86 studies were synthesised. Initial interest was best captured through: a desirable screen name starting with a letter in the top half of the alphabet; an attractive still picture; and a fluent headline message. For those attracted to browse into the profile, a description of personal traits increased likeability when it: showed who the dater was and what they were looking for in a 70:30 ratio; stayed close to reality; and employed simple language with humour added. Invitations were most successful in obtaining a response from the potential date when they: were short personalised messages addressing a trait in their profile; rhymed with their screen name or headline message; and extended genuine compliments. Online communication was most effective in leading to an in-person meeting if there were: a genuine interest; a rapid turnaround; reciprocity in self-disclosure; mimicry of body movements on the webcam; avoidance of criticism; humour; uncertainty about whether there was likeability; and an early move from electronic chat to a date.

CONCLUSIONS

Attraction and persuasion research provides an evidence-based approach to online dating.