Researchers identify distinct visual cues for judging female attractiveness and personality traits

A new study published in BMC Psychology provides evidence that the way people judge a woman’s physical attractiveness differs fundamentally from how they judge her personality traits. The findings suggest that physical attractiveness is primarily evaluated based on static body features, such as body mass index, while traits like warmth and understanding are inferred largely through body motion and gestures. This research highlights the distinct roles that fixed physical attributes and dynamic movements play in social perception.

Previous psychological research has established that physical appearance substantially influences first impressions. People often attribute positive personality characteristics to individuals who are physically attractive, a phenomenon known as the halo effect. Despite this, there is limited understanding of how specific visual cues contribute to these different types of judgments. While static features like body shape are known to be important, the role of body motion is less clear.

A team from Shanghai International Studies University and McGill University conducted this research to disentangle these factors. They aimed to determine the relative contributions of unchanging body features versus dynamic movements when observers evaluate a woman’s attractiveness and her expressive character traits. They hypothesized that judgments of physical beauty would rely more on stable physical traits. On the other hand, they proposed that judgments of personality would depend more on transient movements.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers recruited fifteen female participants to serve as models, or posers. These women were photographed and filmed to create the visual stimuli for the study. The researchers took detailed physical measurements of each poser. These measurements included height, weight, waist-to-hip ratio, and limb circumference. This allowed the team to calculate body mass index and other anthropometric data points.

The researchers created two types of visual stimuli. For the static images, the posers stood in neutral positions and also adopted specific poses. Some poses were instructed. This means the models mimicked attractive stances shown to them by the researchers. Other poses were spontaneous. In these cases, the models were asked to pose in ways they personally considered attractive or unattractive without specific guidance.

For the dynamic stimuli, the researchers recorded the models delivering a short speech introducing their hometown. The models performed this speech under two conditions. In the first condition, they spoke in a neutral and emotionless manner. In the second condition, they were asked to speak with passion. The goal was to convince an audience to visit their hometown. The researchers then edited these videos. They isolated the first five seconds and the last five seconds of the clips to examine how impressions might change over time.

The study recruited fifty-four adults to act as perceivers. This group consisted of an equal split of twenty-seven men and twenty-seven women. None of the raters knew the models. They viewed the images and silent video clips to provide ratings. The participants rated the physical attractiveness of the women in the images and videos on a seven-point scale.

The participants also evaluated the models on feminine expressive traits. These traits included characteristics such as being understanding, sympathetic, compassionate, warm, and tender. The researchers coded specific body movements in the videos. They tracked variables such as the number of hand gestures used and whether the hands were kept close to the body or moved freely.

The results indicated a clear distinction in how different judgments are formed. When rating physical attractiveness, the statistical analysis showed that static body features were the strongest predictors. This held true for both the static photographs and the video clips. The Lasso regression analysis revealed that body features accounted for a large portion of the variance in attractiveness ratings.

Among the various body measurements, body mass index emerged as the most significant predictor of attractiveness ratings. Models with lower body mass index scores generally received higher attractiveness ratings. Other features like skin color and shoulder-to-hip ratio also played a role. However, body mass index was the most consistent and robust factor.

In contrast, body motion had a much smaller impact on judgments of physical attractiveness. The statistical models showed that while movement played a role, it was secondary to fixed physical attributes. For instance, in the video condition, body motions explained only a small fraction of the variance in attractiveness compared to body features.

However, the researchers did find that posture style mattered in photographs. Spontaneous attractive poses were rated higher than instructed attractive poses. This suggests that the women had an intuitive understanding of how to present themselves to appear appealing. They were more effective when allowed to pose naturally than when mimicking a standard attractive pose.

A different pattern emerged for the evaluation of feminine expressive traits. In the video condition, body motion was a much stronger predictor of traits like warmth and compassion than static body features. The frequency of hand gestures and the use of open body language were positively associated with these traits. Body features alone were poor predictors of these personality characteristics.

The study found that neither body features nor body motions effectively predicted feminine traits in static images. This suggests that perceiving these personality attributes requires the observation of movement over time. A static image does not convey enough information for an observer to reliably infer warmth or sympathy.

The researchers also compared the neutral and passionate video conditions. The passionate presentations received higher ratings for both attractiveness and feminine traits. This effect was particularly strong in the final five seconds of the passionate videos. This finding suggests that positive body language accumulates to influence perception. As the observers watched the passionate clips for longer, they perceived greater levels of feminine expressive traits.

The results support the idea that humans use different visual channels for different types of social judgments. Physical attractiveness appears to be assessed rapidly based on stable biological signals. These signals may be associated with health and reproductive potential. In contrast, traits like warmth and understanding are social signals. These are inferred from behavioral cues that unfold during an interaction.

The study has certain limitations that affect the generalizability of the results. The sample size of fifteen posers is relatively small. This restricts the range of body types and movement styles represented in the stimuli. The distribution of body mass index among the posers was not perfectly balanced. There were fewer individuals in the overweight category compared to the healthy weight category.

Future research would benefit from a larger and more diverse group of models. This would allow for a more comprehensive analysis of how different body types interact with movement. The current study focused exclusively on female targets. Cultural norms regarding body language and ideal body types vary significantly. The participants in this study were from a specific cultural background. Future studies should investigate these dynamics across different cultures to see if the patterns hold true.

Another direction for future inquiry involves the interaction of other factors. The current study focused on silent videos to isolate body motion. However, voice and facial expressions are also potent social cues. Future research could examine how body motion interacts with vocal tone and facial expressions to form a holistic impression. It would also be useful to investigate how personality traits of the observer influence these ratings.

This research contributes to the understanding of nonverbal communication. It provides evidence that while we may judge beauty largely by what we see in a snapshot, we judge character by watching how a person moves. The distinction emphasizes that social perception is a complex process integrating multiple streams of visual information.

The study, “Perceiving female physical attractiveness and expressive traits from body features and body motion,” was authored by Lin Gao, Marc D. Pell, Zhikang Peng, and Xiaoming Jiang.