Transcript Assortment - University of Alberta

Visual Stimuli
• Two dimensional
• Line drawings
• Realistic? Representative? Valid?
Henss (2000)
• Facial attractiveness research
• Differences between line drawings and
photographs
• Artifacts and/or validity re: WHR using line
drawings?
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
Images
Range of WHRs
• Quite inconsistent
• Different poses of figures
Stimulus 1
Smaller
2
3
4
5
6
0.74 0.73 0.68 0.72 0.71 0.68
Original 0.77 0.76 0.70 0.79 0.76 0.72
Wider
0.82 0.81 0.71 0.85 0.80 0.74
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
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
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
Images
Results
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•
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Underweight significantly more attractive
Model B more attractive than model A
Fecundity differences
Subjects distinguished weight levels
Females rated figures more attractive than males
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…
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?
Images
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
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
Fan et al. (2004)
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•
•
•
•
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
Images
Results
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%)
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
Example Image
Results
• No significance relationships between
attractiveness and cardiovascular fitness or WHR
• Significant relationships between attractiveness
and % body fat and skin tone index
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
Fitness
• More realistic images than any earlier 3D
representations
• Cardiovascular fitness is good predictor of longterm 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
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
Shape and Weight
• A consistent, ongoing issue of confounds
• Difficult to successfully separate
• Camps of shape supporters and weight
supporters
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
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
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
Limitations of Studies re: EEA
• University students (age, socioeconomics,
enculturation)
• Culture (1st world, 3rd world, huntergatherer)
• Comparisons back to actual EEA
• E.g., consider the ambiguities of the role of
clothing…
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