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Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder?
Opposing forces influence assortative mating so that one seeks a similar mate while at the same time avoiding inbreeding with close relatives. Thus, mate choice may be a balancing of phenotypic similarity and dissimilarity between partners. In the present study, we assessed the role of resemblance t...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3707967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23874608 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068395 |
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author | Laeng, Bruno Vermeer, Oddrun Sulutvedt, Unni |
author_facet | Laeng, Bruno Vermeer, Oddrun Sulutvedt, Unni |
author_sort | Laeng, Bruno |
collection | PubMed |
description | Opposing forces influence assortative mating so that one seeks a similar mate while at the same time avoiding inbreeding with close relatives. Thus, mate choice may be a balancing of phenotypic similarity and dissimilarity between partners. In the present study, we assessed the role of resemblance to Self’s facial traits in judgments of physical attractiveness. Participants chose the most attractive face image of their romantic partner among several variants, where the faces were morphed so as to include only 22% of another face. Participants distinctly preferred a “Self-based morph” (i.e., their partner’s face with a small amount of Self’s face blended into it) to other morphed images. The Self-based morph was also preferred to the morph of their partner’s face blended with the partner’s same-sex “prototype”, although the latter face was (“objectively”) judged more attractive by other individuals. When ranking morphs differing in level of amalgamation (i.e., 11% vs. 22% vs. 33%) of another face, the 22% was chosen consistently as the preferred morph and, in particular, when Self was blended in the partner’s face. A forced-choice signal-detection paradigm showed that the effect of self-resemblance operated at an unconscious level, since the same participants were unable to detect the presence of their own faces in the above morphs. We concluded that individuals, if given the opportunity, seek to promote “positive assortment” for Self’s phenotype, especially when the level of similarity approaches an optimal point that is similar to Self without causing a conscious acknowledgment of the similarity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3707967 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-37079672013-07-19 Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? Laeng, Bruno Vermeer, Oddrun Sulutvedt, Unni PLoS One Research Article Opposing forces influence assortative mating so that one seeks a similar mate while at the same time avoiding inbreeding with close relatives. Thus, mate choice may be a balancing of phenotypic similarity and dissimilarity between partners. In the present study, we assessed the role of resemblance to Self’s facial traits in judgments of physical attractiveness. Participants chose the most attractive face image of their romantic partner among several variants, where the faces were morphed so as to include only 22% of another face. Participants distinctly preferred a “Self-based morph” (i.e., their partner’s face with a small amount of Self’s face blended into it) to other morphed images. The Self-based morph was also preferred to the morph of their partner’s face blended with the partner’s same-sex “prototype”, although the latter face was (“objectively”) judged more attractive by other individuals. When ranking morphs differing in level of amalgamation (i.e., 11% vs. 22% vs. 33%) of another face, the 22% was chosen consistently as the preferred morph and, in particular, when Self was blended in the partner’s face. A forced-choice signal-detection paradigm showed that the effect of self-resemblance operated at an unconscious level, since the same participants were unable to detect the presence of their own faces in the above morphs. We concluded that individuals, if given the opportunity, seek to promote “positive assortment” for Self’s phenotype, especially when the level of similarity approaches an optimal point that is similar to Self without causing a conscious acknowledgment of the similarity. Public Library of Science 2013-07-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3707967/ /pubmed/23874608 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068395 Text en © 2013 Laeng et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Laeng, Bruno Vermeer, Oddrun Sulutvedt, Unni Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? |
title | Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? |
title_full | Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? |
title_fullStr | Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? |
title_full_unstemmed | Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? |
title_short | Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? |
title_sort | is beauty in the face of the beholder? |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3707967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23874608 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068395 |
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