Physical Attractiveness as an Input in Social Exchanges

Summary

Many studies have shown that attractive women obtain greater rewards from men than unattractive women. The purpose of Experiment I was to find out whether these results can be generalized to attractive and unattractive men interacting with women and to same sex social exchanges. Seventy-two introductory psychology students participated in the experiment. They were given an opportunity to reward attractive and unattractive individuals of the same and opposite sex. It was found that attractive men and women obtained greater rewards in heterosexual social exchanges than unattractive individuals but not in same sex exchanges. To explain these results it was suggested that attractive people obtain greater rewards because they provide more erotic pleasure. To test this explanation Experiment II was carried out. Twenty-eight introductory personality students were shown slides of attractive and unattractive men and women and asked to rate how erotically arousing each slide was. It was found that the attractive slides were rated as more erotic than the unattractive slides by persons of the opposite sex, thus supporting the erotic pleasure explanation.