Visual Stimuli

1. Visual Stimuli • Two dimensional • Line drawings • Realistic? Representative? Valid?

2. Henss (2000) • Facial attractiveness research • Differences between line drawings and photographs • Artifacts and/or validity re: WHR using line drawings?

3. Method • Colour photographs, digitally manipulated by tightening or widening hips • Original, smaller WHR, wider WHR • Between-subjects design (each subject only saw one picture) • Standard type of rating questions (e.g., attractiveness, fecundity, youthfulness, etc.) and personality

4. Images

5. Range of WHRs • Quite inconsistent • Different poses of figures

6. Results • Only attractiveness was significantly affected by manipulation of WHR • Smaller WHR was most attractive, then original, and lastly wider • Tightening hips makes woman appear taller • Lower 175.5cm, original 174.2cm, wider 173.6cm • Smaller WHR, smaller BMI; related to height

7. Overall • In general, confirms Singh’s WHR findings • Still, valid arguments against line drawings • Why use single individual as varied stimuli? • Issue of generalization • Different individuals were given different ratings on personality dimensions in this study • Consistent with facial research, showing that personality judgments influence attractiveness ratings

8. Puhl & Boland (2001) • Computer manipulated full figure photographs • Selected from a number of women to get two models with WHR of 0.72 and 0.86, both in healthy BMI range • Width of figures reduced and increased by 20% • Assumption that this would correspond to underweight and overweight BMI conditions • Between subjects design

9. Images

10. Results • Underweight significantly more attractive • Model B more attractive than model A • Fecundity differences • Subjects distinguished weight levels • Females rated figures more attractive than males

11. Interpretation • Strongly within the sociocultural perspective • Model B has higher WHR (more “tubular”), therefore, must support media preference for thin (i.e., “tubular”) models • However…

12. Swami et al. (2008) • Not just WHR literature utilizing line drawings • Vast majority of body image studies has traditionally relied on 2D line drawing representations • Photographic Figure Rating Scale (PFRS) • 10 photographic images of real women varying in BMI • Is this a valid scale?

13. Images

14. Measures • Rank figures from thinnest to heaviest • Identify any figures that were emaciated or obese • Body Appreciation Scale • 13 items measuring body image • Demographic measures of subjects

15. Findings and Implications • PFRS shows good construct validity • BMIs from images can be successfully and consistently rank ordered • Further testing of this type for future (and even current) image banks would be beneficial • Can apply same approach to 3D images

16. Fan et al. (2004) • Body scanned 31 Caucasian females • 3D “wire frame” figures • Blue figures on grey background • Rotated 360° • Hong Kong Chinese male and female raters • Mostly students in fashion and textile department • Rate for attractiveness

17. Images

18. Results

19. Results • Linear regression: BMI and WHR accounted for 75.8% of variance • BMI (72.7%), WHR (1.4%) • Log regression: now BMI and WHR account for 82.1% • BMI (80.4%), WHR (1.7%)

20. Smith, Cornelissens & Tovee (2007) • Evaluating assessment of health in mate choice • Colour video clips of 43 actual women showing 360° rotational views of their figures • Mean age = 20.7 • BMIs from 18.4 to 26.7 (mean=22.4) • Percent body fat from 21.1-34.2% (mean=27.7%) • Cardiovascular fitness (VO2) • WHR (0.72-0.84, mean=0.74), WCR, torso-to-leg ratio, leg length • Caucasians, but differences in skin tone

21. Example Image

22. Results • No significance relationships between attractiveness and cardiovascular fitness or WHR • Significant relationships between attractiveness and % body fat and skin tone index

23. Role of Characteristics • With these stimuli, attractiveness judgments best explained by % body fat • WHR and WCR both co-vary with body weight • Darker skin tone given higher attractiveness ratings • Social hierarchy of tanning? • Seems largely specific to Caucasians in Western culture

24. Fitness • More realistic images than any earlier 3D representations • Cardiovascular fitness is good predictor of long-term health • Perhaps only assessed during physical activity • Brown et al. (2005) dancing study • Ancestrally, body fat may have been closely linked to cardiovascular health • In modern industrial society, body fat and cardiovascular fitness can be decoupled • Makes fitness judgments more difficult

25. 18 Years Later… • Initial implications of universal preference for WHR=0.7 not supported • However, with a few exceptions, findings support male preference for lower WHRs over higher WHRs

26. Shape and Weight • A consistent, ongoing issue of confounds • Difficult to successfully separate • Camps of shape supporters and weight supporters

27. WHR as First Pass Filter? • Probably not • Weight (BMI, volumetric estimations, etc.) probably account for greater variability in attractiveness judgments • Facial features • Personality • Complex interactive function

28. Effects of Weight Removed • Does WHR make significant predictions of attractiveness with effects of weight removed • Seems to be “yes” • Both empirical and theoretical support for importance of WHR in judgments • Both shape and weight predictors of health and fertility

29. Environmental Parameters • Local resource hypothesis • Recent work showing that adaptations may be more rapid than previously believed • Evolved adaptations are generally predispositions, especially at the level of complex behaviour • Intersection with learning

30. Limitations of Studies re: EEA • University students (age, socioeconomics, enculturation) • Culture (1st world, 3rd world, hunter-gatherer) • Comparisons back to actual EEA • E.g., consider the ambiguities of the role of clothing…

31. Progression in Science • Started as a rather simple, but testable, EP hypothesis • Good scientific theories are “fruitful” • Nearly 20 years on • A lot of research has been generated