Physical attractiveness Essays

Physical attractiveness Essays Physical attractiveness Essay Physical attractiveness Essay The sample was composed of 40 students from the University of Warwick, 20 males and 20 females, between 18 and 24 years of age. Equal numbers of male and female participants were used to counter the effects gender may place on perception of physical attractiveness. The subjects participated in the study on a voluntary basis and were an opportunity sample.  Materials  Two consent forms including a brief about the experiment and the participants role within it was provided for the couples being rated and the independent judges, (see appendix A and B.) Separate colour photographs were taken from the neck up of each member of ten long term heterosexual couples using a digital camera. Long term was defined as courting for 6months or over. These couples were told their photograph would be rated for physical attractiveness by independent judges and that the results would be recorded for a psychological investigation, anonymously and confidentially.  Each photograph was printed on a separate sheet of paper and divided into two groups according to sex (see appendix C.) Paper and pens were used for the subjects to record their ranking order of physical attractiveness for the male and female groups. Microsoft excel was used to format these results (see appendix D.)  SPSS (version 10) software was used to calculate the data set.  Design  The enquiry was a correlation study, exploring the relationship between the two variables of physical attractiveness of an individual and the physical attractiveness of their partner. Spearmans rho statistical test was used to calculate the data set because the study was a correlation design and the data was ordinal. However, my results cannot necessarily be accounted for using different cultures, as Anderson et al (1992) found that attractive characteristics varies from culture to culture. Limitations and Modifications Although my results matched my experimental hypothesis, the experiment had many limitations. Firstly, I was not able to control who advertised themselves in the newspaper and therefore the advertisements may not be representative of the general population. Only a certain type of person would put an advertisement into a newspaper. They may be shy or have a personal difference that stops them from going out. It is also possible that they have personality traits that are not typical of the average person. It could be argued that people who advertise in lonely-hearts advertisements could be argued as abnormal. Most people are able to and meet their partners out on social occasions or at their local sports club but those who are writing into the newspapers must be unable to find somebody in theses situations and therefore could possibly be abnormal. Secondly, people may emphasise certain traits, underestimate others and tell lies or not the full truth. This limits the validity of any conclusions that are drawn from the possibly unreliable results. Also, there is the fact that my pre-determined lists are subjective as they are opinion and therefore someone repeating the experiment may deduce completely different information from the same examples when there were no specific references to youth/looks and wealth/finance. This reduces the ecological validity of my experiment even further. As with most experiments, Cultural variations have to also be taken into account. This could be due to the extent to which countries are developed and the differing cultural priorities. For example in some cultures it is a priority for women to get married and have children, whereas for the men it is to provide food for their family. It is now becoming increasingly more common for the womens role to be more providing and for the mens role to be involved with the children. My results draw attention to the fact that women who have youth/good looks and men that are successful/wealthy (and good looking also) are thought to be the most attractive. These results are apparent in the media and aspects of every day life. For example, photos of women on mens magazines are almost always of women who are youthful and stereotypically good looking. Also, mens magazines often contain content that will offer advice on becoming more successful, and therefore more attractive. Also, many adverts aimed at men signify status symbols and therefore support my findings. One explanation for my results may be because of an evolutionary effect; over time men have become more attracted to good looking women as they will be likely to successfully give birth to children and women have become more attracted to men offering resources as they will be more likely to provide for them and their offspring meaning a higher chance of survival. By doing this, healthy genes can be passed on through the generations and the race can continue to survive. This explanation is supported by Darwins theory of evolution. However, men and women may be influenced by the media, peer pressure or other things that make them try and act or appear more attractive. There is a range of further research that could be carried out to gain a further insight into the nature of these findings. For example, the experiment could be repeated using homosexual ads, and see what resources homosexuals offer and compare those findings to these ones. I could also compare results with findings from samples of an older generation past breeding age so that the findings would be irrelevant to evolution. Additionally, a cross culture investigation would be an interesting investigation to be done. One could study how people in different cultures attract their partners and even compare between more economically developed and less economically developed countries.