The Effect of Physical Attractiveness Comparison on Choice of Partners

Abstract

The roles of several presumed factors in the choice of partners during a first group encounter were examined, when the only available information was a ranking of group members' physical attractiveness. After they had received bogus feedback about their own attractiveness rank in a newly formed group, 99 Japanese students were asked to choose a partner for a task. The results indicated that feedback about one's own attractiveness was the primary factor that determined choice of others and that susceptibility to this type of feedback was characterized by a notable gender difference. These findings suggest that when the only information available about others concerns their physical appearance, the choice of partner or competitor, even for appearance-irrelevant tasks, is partially dependent on others' rankings of one's own physical attractiveness.