While our understanding of what makes a face attractive has been greatly
furthered in recent decades, the stimuli used in much of the foregoing research
(static images with neutral expressions) bear little resemblance to the faces with
which we nonnally interact. In our social interactions, we frequently evaluate faces
that move and are expressive, and thus, it is important to evaluate whether motion
and expression influence ratings of attractiveness; this was the central aim of the
experiments in this dissertation. Using static and dynamic stimuli with neutral or
positive expression, the effects of motion and expression were also tested in
combination with other factors known to be relevant to attractiveness judgements:
personality attributions, sex-typicality and cultural influence.
In general, the results from this set of experiments show that judgements of
moving, expressive stimuli do differ, sometimes radically, from judgements made
of more traditional types of stimuli. Motion and positive expression were both
found to increase ratings of attractiveness reliably in most experiments, as well as
across cultures, and in some instances, showed strong sex-specific effects.
Intriguing sex differences were also found in personality trait ratings of the stimuli,
particularly for male faces; while criteria for female faces remained relatively
constant across all conditions, trait ratings associated with attractiveness for male
faces were dependent on particular combinations of motion and expression. Finally,
in line with previous research, cross-cultural experiments showed general agreement
between Japanese and Caucasian raters, but also suggested slight, culture-specific
differences in preferences for expression and motion.
IV
This set of experiments has integrated the factors of motion, expression, sextypicality,
personality and cultural influence together in order to bring a greater
degree of ecological validity into attractiveness studies. These findings offer major
implications for researchers studying attractiveness, particularly that of males, and
suggest that motion and expression are important dimensions that should be
considered in future research while simultaneously placing a caution on the
interpretation of findings made with static stimuli. Suggestions are also made for
further research in light of the present finding