A new study published in BMC Psychology provides evidence that the way people judge a woman’s physical attractiveness differs fundamentally from how they judge her personality traits. The findings suggest that physical attractiveness is primarily evaluated based on static body features, such as body mass index, while traits like warmth and understanding are inferred largely through body motion and gestures. This research highlights the distinct roles that fixed physical attributes and dynamic movements play in social perception.

Previous psychological research has established that physical appearance substantially influences first impressions. People often attribute positive personality characteristics to individuals who are physically attractive, a phenomenon known as the halo effect. Despite this, there is limited understanding of how specific visual cues contribute to these different types of judgments. While static features like body shape are known to be important, the role of body motion is less clear.

A team from Shanghai International Studies University and McGill University conducted this research to disentangle these factors. They aimed to determine the relative contributions of unchanging body features versus dynamic movements when observers evaluate a woman’s attractiveness and her expressive character traits. They hypothesized that judgments of physical beauty would rely more on stable physical traits. On the other hand, they proposed that judgments of personality would depend more on transient movements.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers recruited fifteen female participants to serve as models, or posers. These women were photographed and filmed to create the visual stimuli for the study. The researchers took detailed physical measurements of each poser. These measurements included height, weight, waist-to-hip ratio, and limb circumference. This allowed the team to calculate body mass index and other anthropometric data points.

The researchers created two types of visual stimuli. For the static images, the posers stood in neutral positions and also adopted specific poses. Some poses were instructed. This means the models mimicked attractive stances shown to them by the researchers. Other poses were spontaneous. In these cases, the models were asked to pose in ways they personally considered attractive or unattractive without specific guidance.

For the dynamic stimuli, the researchers recorded the models delivering a short speech introducing their hometown. The models performed this speech under two conditions. In the first condition, they spoke in a neutral and emotionless manner. In the second condition, they were asked to speak with passion. The goal was to convince an audience to visit their hometown. The researchers then edited these videos. They isolated the first five seconds and the last five seconds of the clips to examine how impressions might change over time.

The study recruited fifty-four adults to act as perceivers. This group consisted of an equal split of twenty-seven men and twenty-seven women. None of the raters knew the models. They viewed the images and silent video clips to provide ratings. The participants rated the physical attractiveness of the women in the images and videos on a seven-point scale.

The participants also evaluated the models on feminine expressive traits. These traits included characteristics such as being understanding, sympathetic, compassionate, warm, and tender. The researchers coded specific body movements in the videos. They tracked variables such as the number of hand gestures used and whether the hands were kept close to the body or moved freely.

The results indicated a clear distinction in how different judgments are formed. When rating physical attractiveness, the statistical analysis showed that static body features were the strongest predictors. This held true for both the static photographs and the video clips. The Lasso regression analysis revealed that body features accounted for a large portion of the variance in attractiveness ratings.

Among the various body measurements, body mass index emerged as the most significant predictor of attractiveness ratings. Models with lower body mass index scores generally received higher attractiveness ratings. Other features like skin color and shoulder-to-hip ratio also played a role. However, body mass index was the most consistent and robust factor.

In contrast, body motion had a much smaller impact on judgments of physical attractiveness. The statistical models showed that while movement played a role, it was secondary to fixed physical attributes. For instance, in the video condition, body motions explained only a small fraction of the variance in attractiveness compared to body features.

However, the researchers did find that posture style mattered in photographs. Spontaneous attractive poses were rated higher than instructed attractive poses. This suggests that the women had an intuitive understanding of how to present themselves to appear appealing. They were more effective when allowed to pose naturally than when mimicking a standard attractive pose.

A different pattern emerged for the evaluation of feminine expressive traits. In the video condition, body motion was a much stronger predictor of traits like warmth and compassion than static body features. The frequency of hand gestures and the use of open body language were positively associated with these traits. Body features alone were poor predictors of these personality characteristics.

The study found that neither body features nor body motions effectively predicted feminine traits in static images. This suggests that perceiving these personality attributes requires the observation of movement over time. A static image does not convey enough information for an observer to reliably infer warmth or sympathy.

The researchers also compared the neutral and passionate video conditions. The passionate presentations received higher ratings for both attractiveness and feminine traits. This effect was particularly strong in the final five seconds of the passionate videos. This finding suggests that positive body language accumulates to influence perception. As the observers watched the passionate clips for longer, they perceived greater levels of feminine expressive traits.

The results support the idea that humans use different visual channels for different types of social judgments. Physical attractiveness appears to be assessed rapidly based on stable biological signals. These signals may be associated with health and reproductive potential. In contrast, traits like warmth and understanding are social signals. These are inferred from behavioral cues that unfold during an interaction.

The study has certain limitations that affect the generalizability of the results. The sample size of fifteen posers is relatively small. This restricts the range of body types and movement styles represented in the stimuli. The distribution of body mass index among the posers was not perfectly balanced. There were fewer individuals in the overweight category compared to the healthy weight category.

Future research would benefit from a larger and more diverse group of models. This would allow for a more comprehensive analysis of how different body types interact with movement. The current study focused exclusively on female targets. Cultural norms regarding body language and ideal body types vary significantly. The participants in this study were from a specific cultural background. Future studies should investigate these dynamics across different cultures to see if the patterns hold true.

Another direction for future inquiry involves the interaction of other factors. The current study focused on silent videos to isolate body motion. However, voice and facial expressions are also potent social cues. Future research could examine how body motion interacts with vocal tone and facial expressions to form a holistic impression. It would also be useful to investigate how personality traits of the observer influence these ratings.

This research contributes to the understanding of nonverbal communication. It provides evidence that while we may judge beauty largely by what we see in a snapshot, we judge character by watching how a person moves. The distinction emphasizes that social perception is a complex process integrating multiple streams of visual information.

The study, “Perceiving female physical attractiveness and expressive traits from body features and body motion,” was authored by Lin Gao, Marc D. Pell, Zhikang Peng, and Xiaoming Jiang.

Recent research published in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science provides evidence that wrinkles around the eyes are the primary physical feature driving perceptions of age and attractiveness across diverse ethnic groups. While factors such as skin color and gloss contribute to how healthy a woman appears, the depth and density of lines in the periorbital region consistently predict age assessments in women from Asia, Europe, and Africa.

The rationale behind this study stems from the fact that the skin around the eyes is structurally unique. It is significantly thinner than facial skin in other areas and contains fewer oil glands. This biological reality makes the eye area particularly susceptible to the effects of aging and environmental damage.

In addition to its delicate structure, the skin around the eyes is subjected to constant mechanical stress. Humans blink approximately 15,000 times per day, and these repeated muscle contractions eventually lead to permanent lines. Previous surveys have indicated that women worldwide consider under-eye bags, dark circles, and “crow’s feet” to be among their top aesthetic concerns.

However, most prior research on this topic has focused on specific populations or general facial aging. It has remained unclear whether specific changes in the eye region influence social perceptions in the same way across different cultures. The authors of the current study aimed to determine if the visual impact of periorbital skin features is consistent globally or if it varies significantly by ethnicity.

To investigate this, the researchers utilized a multi-center approach involving participants and assessors from five distinct locations. Data collection took place in Guangzhou, China; Tokyo, Japan; Lyon, France; New Delhi, India; and Cape Town, South Africa. The team initially recruited 526 women across these five locations to serve as the pool for the study.

From this larger group, the researchers selected a standardized subset of 180 women to serve as the subjects of the analysis. This final sample included exactly 36 women from each of the five ethnic groups. The participants ranged in age from 20 to 65 years, allowing for a comprehensive view of the aging process.

The researchers recorded high-resolution digital portraits of these women using a specialized system known as ColorFace. This equipment allowed for the standardization of lighting and angles, which is essential for accurate computer analysis. The team then defined two specific regions of interest on each face for detailed measurement.

The first region analyzed was the area directly under the eyes, which included the lower eyelid and the infraorbital hollow. The second region was the area at the outer corners of the eyes where lateral canthal lines, commonly known as crow’s feet, typically develop. The researchers used digital image analysis software to objectively quantify skin characteristics in these zones.

For the region under the eyes, the software measured skin color, gloss, skin tone evenness, and wrinkles. Skin color was broken down into specific components, including lightness, redness, and yellowness. Gloss was measured in terms of its intensity and contrast, while tone evenness was calculated based on the similarity of adjacent pixels.

For the crow’s feet region, the analysis focused exclusively on the measurement of wrinkles. The software identified wrinkles by detecting lines in the image that met specific criteria. The researchers quantified these features by calculating the total length of the wrinkles, their density within the region, and their volume.

To determine how these objective features translated into social perceptions, the study employed a large panel of human assessors. The researchers recruited 120 assessors in each of the five study locations, resulting in a total of 600 raters. These assessors were “naïve,” meaning they were not experts in dermatology or cosmetics.

The assessors were matched to the participants by ethnicity. For example, Chinese assessors rated the images of Chinese women, and French assessors rated the images of French women. Each assessor viewed the digital portraits on color-calibrated monitors.

They were asked to rate each face for perceived age, health, and attractiveness. These ratings were given on a continuous scale ranging from 0 to 100, where 0 represented a low attribute score and 100 represented a high attribute score. The researchers then used statistical methods to identify relationships between the objective skin measurements and the subjective ratings.

The results revealed distinct biological differences in how skin ages across the different groups. For instance, Indian and South African women tended to have lower skin lightness scores under the eyes compared to Chinese, Japanese, and French women. South African women also exhibited the highest density of wrinkles in the under-eye region among all groups.

Regarding the crow’s feet region, the analysis showed that South African, Chinese, and French women had similar levels of wrinkling. These levels were notably higher than those observed in Indian and Japanese women. This finding aligns with some previous research suggesting that wrinkle onset and progression can vary significantly based on ethnic background.

Despite these physical differences, the study found strong consistencies in how these features influenced perception. When looking at the full sample, wrinkles in both the under-eye and crow’s feet regions showed a strong positive correlation with perceived age. This means that as wrinkle density and volume increased, assessors consistently rated the faces as looking older.

On the other hand, wrinkles were negatively correlated with ratings of health and attractiveness. Faces with more pronounced lines around the eyes were perceived as less healthy and less attractive. This pattern held true regardless of the ethnic group of the woman or the assessor.

The study also highlighted the role of skin gloss, or radiance. Higher levels of specular gloss, which corresponds to the shine or glow of the skin, were associated with perceptions of better health and higher attractiveness. This suggests that skin radiance is a universal cue for vitality.

In contrast, skin tone evenness showed a more complex relationship. While generally associated with youth and health, it appeared to be a stronger cue for health judgments than for age. Uneven pigmentation and lower skin lightness were linked to lower health ratings, particularly in populations with darker skin tones.

Regression analyses allowed the researchers to determine which features were the strongest predictors of the ratings. For perceived age, wrinkles in the crow’s feet region emerged as a significant predictor for all five ethnic groups. This confirms that lines at the corners of the eyes are a primary marker used by people to estimate a woman’s age.

For Japanese and French women, wrinkles specifically under the eyes provided additional information for age judgments. This suggests that in these groups, the under-eye area may contribute more distinct visual information regarding aging than in other groups.

When predicting perceived health, the results were more varied. While wrinkles remained a negative predictor, skin color variables played a more prominent role. For Indian women, lighter skin in the under-eye region was a significant positive predictor of rated health.

Similarly, for South African women, skin yellowness was a positive predictor of both health and attractiveness ratings. This indicates that while wrinkles drive age perception, color cues are vital for judgments of well-being in these populations. The researchers posit that pigmentary issues, such as dark circles, may weigh more heavily on health perception in darker skin types.

An exception to these specific predictive patterns was observed in the French group regarding health ratings. While the overall statistical models were effective, no single skin feature stood out as a solitary predictor for health judgments in French women. This implies that French assessors might use a more holistic approach, combining multiple features rather than relying on a single cue like wrinkles or color.

The study has certain limitations that warrant mention. The sample size for the specific sub-group analyses was relatively small, with only 36 women per ethnicity. This reduces the statistical power to detect very subtle differences within each group.

Additionally, the study relied on static digital images. In real-world interactions, facial dynamics and expressions play a major role in the visibility of crow’s feet and other lines. Future research could investigate how movement influences the perception of these features.

The study, “Effects of under-eye skin and crow’s feet on perceived facial appearance in women of five ethnic groups,” was authored by Bernhard Fink, Remo Campiche, Todd K. Shackelford, and Rainer Voegeli.

New research suggests that a potential partner’s willingness to protect you from physical danger is a primary driver of attraction, often outweighing their actual physical strength. The findings indicate that these preferences likely stem from evolutionary adaptations to dangerous ancestral environments, persisting even in modern, relatively safe societies. This study was published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

Throughout human evolutionary history, physical violence from other humans posed a significant and recurrent threat to survival. In these ancestral settings, individuals did not have access to modern institutions like police forces or judicial systems. Instead, they relied heavily on social alliances, including romantic partners and friends, for defense against aggression. Consequently, evolutionary psychology posits that humans may have evolved specific preferences for partners who demonstrate both the capacity and the motivation to provide physical protection.

Previous scientific inquiries into partner choice have frequently focused on physical strength or formidability. These studies often operated under the assumption that strength serves as a direct cue for protective capability. But physical strength and the willingness to use it are distinct traits. A physically powerful individual might not be inclined to intervene in a dangerous situation, whereas a less formidable individual might be ready to defend an ally regardless of the personal risk.

Past investigations rarely separated these two factors, making it difficult to determine whether people value the ability to fight or the commitment to do so. The authors of the current study aimed to disentangle the capacity for violence from the motivation to employ it in defense of a partner. They sought to understand if the mere willingness to face a threat is sufficient to increase a person’s desirability as a friend or mate.

“Nowadays, many of us live in societies where violence is exceedingly rare, and protection from violence is considered the responsibility of police and courts. As such, you wouldn’t really predict that people should care if their romantic partner or friends are or are not willing to step up to protect them during an altercation,” said study author Michael Barlev, a research assistant professor at Arizona State University.

“However, for almost the entire history of our species, for hundreds of thousands of years, we lived in a social world scarred by violence, multiple orders of magnitude higher than it is today, and where protection was the responsibility of romantic partners, family, friends, and coalitional allies. Our psychology, including what we look for in romantic partners and friends, evolved to survive in such a world.”

To investigate this, the research team conducted a series of seven experiments involving a total of 4,508 adults from the United States. Participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. The study utilized a vignette-based methodology where participants read detailed scenarios asking them to imagine they were with a partner, either a date or a friend.

In the primary scenario used across the experiments, the participant and their partner are described leaving a restaurant. They are then approached by an intoxicated aggressor who attempts to strike the participant. The researchers systematically manipulated the partner’s reaction to this immediate threat.

In the “willing” condition, the partner notices the danger and physically intervenes to shield the participant. In the “unwilling” condition, the partner sees the threat but steps away, leaving the participant exposed. A control condition was also included where the partner simply does not see the threat in time to react. In addition to these behavioral variations, the researchers modified the descriptions of the partner’s physical strength, labeling them as weaker than average, average, or stronger than average.

The data revealed that discovering a person is willing to protect significantly increased their attractiveness rating as a romantic partner or friend. This effect appeared consistent regardless of the partner’s described physical strength. The findings suggest that the intent to defend an ally is a highly valued trait in itself. In contrast, partners who stepped away from the threat saw a sharp decline in their desirability ratings compared to the control condition.

“We present evidence that our partner choice preferences—what we look for in romantic partners and friends—are adapted to ancestral environments,” Barlev told PsyPost. “I think that is a very important—and generally unappreciated—fact about partner choice preferences, and psychology more generally.”

The researchers also uncovered distinct patterns based on gender, particularly regarding the penalty for unwillingness. When women evaluated male dates, a refusal to protect acted as a severe penalty to attractiveness. The ratings for unwilling men dropped precipitously, suggesting that for women seeking male partners, a lack of protective instinct is effectively a dealbreaker.

Men also valued willingness in female partners, but they were more lenient toward unwillingness. When men evaluated female dates who stepped away from the threat, the decline in attractiveness was less severe than what women reported for unwilling men. This asymmetry aligns with evolutionary theories regarding sexual dimorphism and the historical division of risk in physical conflicts.

“We found that willingness was hugely important, for raters of both sexes, and when rating both male and female friends and dates,” Barlev said. “In particular, when women rated male dates, willingness to protect was very attractive, whereas failure to do so—stepping away—was a deal-breaker (the attractive of unwilling to protect men plummeted compared to when no information about willingness or unwillingness to protect was given).”

The researchers also explored the role of physical strength. While women did express a preference for stronger men, a mediation analysis clarified the underlying psychological mechanism. The analysis suggested that women tended to infer that stronger men would be more willing to protect them.

Once this inference of willingness was statistically controlled, physical strength itself had a much smaller independent effect on attraction. This indicates that strength is attractive largely because it signals a higher probability of protective behavior.

Subsequent experiments tested the limits of this preference by manipulating the outcome of the confrontation. The researchers introduced scenarios where the partner attempts to intervene but is overpowered and pushed to the ground. Surprisingly, the data showed that a partner who tries to help but fails is still viewed as highly attractive. The attempt itself appeared to be the primary driver of the positive rating, rather than the successful neutralization of the threat.

A final experiment examined the most extreme scenario where the partner fails to stop the attack and the participant is physically harmed. In this condition, the aggressor strikes the participant after the partner’s failed intervention.

Even in cases where the participant suffered physical harm because the partner failed, the partner remained significantly more attractive than one who was unwilling to act. This suggests that the signal of commitment inherent in the act of defense carries more weight in partner evaluation than the immediate physical outcome.

The study also compared preferences for friends versus romantic partners. While willingness to protect was valued in both categories, the standards for friends were generally more relaxed. The penalty for being unwilling to protect was nearly three times more severe for romantic partners than for friends. This difference implies that while protection is a valued attribute in all close alliances, it is considered a more critical requirement for long-term mates.

“Strength—or more generally, ability to protect—mattered only little, much less than we thought it would,” Barlev explained. “In our earlier experiments, women showed a weak preference for strength in male dates, but most of this had to do with the underlying inference that stronger men would be more willing—rather than more able—to protect them. In fact, in our later experiments, women found dates attractive even if they tried to protect but failed, and such dates were not less attractive than dated who tried to protect and succeeded.”

“That’s surprising, because whether you protect someone is a function of both your willingness and ability to do so. But here’s one way to think about this: If the aggressor is a rational decision-maker, his decision of whether to fight or retreat depends not only on his strength relative to yours but also on how much each side is willing to risk. So, he should not attack you even if you are weaker if you show that you are willing to risk a lot. Meaning, potentially even more important than how strong you are is your readiness to step up and fight when it’s needed.”

As with all research, there are some limitations to keep in mind. The study relied on hypothetical vignettes rather than real-world behavioral observations. While imagined scenarios allow for precise control over variables, they may not perfectly capture how individuals react during actual violent encounters. Participants might overestimate or underestimate their emotional reactions to such visceral events when reading about them on a screen.

Additionally, the sample consisted entirely of participants from the United States. This geographic focus means the results reflect preferences in a modern Western society where rates of interpersonal violence are historically low compared to ancestral environments. It remains to be seen whether these preferences would differ in cultures with higher rates of daily violence. Preferences for physical strength might be more pronounced in environments where physical safety is less assured by external institutions.

“One big next step is to ask how preferences for physical strength and willingness to protect vary across societies,” Barlev told PsyPost. “Both preferences are likely tuned to some extent to the social and physical environment in which people live, such as how dangerous it is. Strength in particular can be an asset or a liability—strong individuals, especially men, would be better able to protect themselves and others from violence, but such men might also be more violent toward their romantic partners and friends.”

“Because most of our American participants live in relatively safe environments, their weaker preference for strength may partially reflect this down-regulation. If that’s right, we’d predict that people in more dangerous environments will value both strength and willingness to protect somewhat more.”

The study, “Willingness to protect from violence, independent of strength, guides partner choice,” was authored by Michael Barlev, Sakura Arai, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides.