Beauty and Its Role in Darwinian Theory

Lindsay Meacham and Ali Mramor
Natural Systems
Chris Myers
Tuesday, May 2, 2000
BEAUTY AND ITS ROLE IN DARWINIAN THEORY
1. Introduction

One of the most important factors in attraction between males and females is beauty. Beauty is a characteristic that humans apply to only a select few. What is beauty and how is it connected with reproductive success? We have set out to try to answer this question to find out if female facial beauty is connected with the amount of children a woman will produce. "The face is usually the first source of information available about a person, and often the most potent source of information available about a person, and often the most potent source of information available to the perceiver" (Jackson, 3). We hypothesize that out of our three groups of women that the youngest, most fertile, hyperfemanized female will be chosen as the most beautiful. The hyper female, according to Victor Johnston, a professor of biopsychology at New Mexico State University, is one that has larger eyes, clear skin, a narrower nose, full lips and a slender jaw line (Lemely, 43). While men are productive through the majority of their life, women are most fertile in their early twenties. Women in this age group, we feel, will be perceived as more attractive because of their reproductive capacity. Beauty is a very hard thing to measure because everybody has different views on what is attractive to them and for their needs. "Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable. What it is or what it means can never be said" (Santayana, 201).
Beauty is an intriguing topic because it encompasses so many different types of people; it changes with the times and because of different peopleís perceptions. We wanted to find out if we could some how connect beauty with reproduction to see if beauty is a favorable trait, according to Darwinian theory. "The evolution of characteristics because of their reproductive benefits, rather than survival benefits, is known as sexual selection" (Darwin, in Buss 2). We knew that we would only be testing people from a certain age group, but we also know that beauty exists within people of all ages. We wanted to find out which femaleís both men and women would pick and what they felt was the most beautiful of them all. By looking at the results we connected the women to how many children they had to see if reproductive success was connected to the womanís physical appearance.
We hope to find out which type of female the Miami University student prefers and to see if this is connected to the amount of children they have.
It is interesting to find out what people think is beautiful because there are so many factors that weigh in a persons decision. The media constantly presses upon us images of what they feel is beautiful. Different facial characteristics and body types that people find attractive change over time.

2. Relevance of you research question

There have been many people who have tried to define what is beautiful. Poets to psychologists, to scientists have tried to categorize and explain what makes different people more beautiful than others. Johnston, who defined the hyper female, has done several studies to help people better understand what beauty is. He has digitally created faces that average a number of faces into one. By digitally morphing together sixteen randomly chosen faces and then hyperizing the features, he created what he feels is a beautiful woman. Studies have shown that people tend to gravitate towards the average and that humans are indeed koinophiles, which is an "inclination toward the averageÖ from the Greek words koinos, meaning "usual," and philos, meaning "love" (Lemely, 46). The average face is not necessarily the "normal" face of a population but it is in fact the combination of faces into one; hence, the average face. Langlois, a psychology graduate and professor at the University of Texas Austin has also done several studies on the averaging of faces and what beauty is. "Some evidence suggests that the distribution of facial attractiveness may be skewed. That is, most people are more attractive than the median level of attractiveness in the population (Langlois and Roggman 1990). In one of her studies she had adults rate human faces on a spectrum from attractive to unattractive and then projected pairs of high and low rated attractive people to six-month-old infants. She discovered that the babies looked longer and liked the more attractive faces better than the unattractive. This study is important because it proves that humans do have a perception of beauty that is not influenced by models, the media or other outside pressures. Sir Francis Galton, an English dilettante scientist and cousin of Darwin, did another study on facial appearance. In 1870, he creat4ed a crude composite of faces by meshing mug shots and photographs of various social subgroups. In his study, he was aiming to prove that each social group had an archetypal face. The last study we found dealt once again with averaging faces. David Perrett of the University of St. Andrew in Scotland created two average faces from a group of women that woman participants had found attractive. He repeated this with men and then had more people rate these compared to randomly chosen averages.

3. Materials and Methods

For our experiment, we passed out fifty surveys out of the 290 Miami University students eating at Alexander Dining Hall. The surveys were accompanied by a series of photographs of women that were categorized by age: young, middle aged, and old. Each category of photographs was placed on three separate sheets of paper and numbered 1-9. Within each of the categories there was one female who displayed hyper female characteristics. Each photograph was given a number that corresponded with the questions on the survey.

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

Example survey:

1. Age_____
2. Female Male
3. Do you know any of these people? ___________________________
Which number? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
4. Do any of these people remind you of anyone you know? ______________________
Which number? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
5. Which female is the most beautiful in each category?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 none
6. Which female is the most beautiful out of all the categories?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 none
7. Which female to you think has the most children out of all categories?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 none
8. Who do you think is beautiful? (Not in this survey) ______________________________
9. Do they have children? Yes No
How many? __________
10. Do you know this person? Yes No
Are they a: friend relative celebrity acquaintance none

The reasons for each question are as follows:

1. The importance of age is linked with which category the participant is already attracted to.
2. The participantsí gender will show if men and women have similar beauty preferences.
3 & 4. If participants know anyone or are reminded of someone they know by the pictures in the survey, they may be attracted or repelled to them because of outside factors.
5. To see if people are most attracted to the women with hyper female qualities and to see if the chosen women have the most children
6. By canceling out the age categorization, this will either prove or disprove whether or not young, fertile, and hyper female characteristics play a role in beauty preference. It will also tell us if the most beautiful woman does indeed have the most children.
7. This question tells us if having more children correlates with what people perceive as beautiful.
8. To discover what type of people the participants find beautiful outside of our survey.
9. If these people perceived as beautiful have children, we will be able to see if there is a correlation with their beauty and their reproductive success.
10. This question helps us to find out if peopleís perception of beauty relates to personal connections, or if the media fabricates their perceptions. (i.e. some oneís mother compared to a celebrity)

For questions five through seven we entered the data into stat view (see graphs and charts). For the summary table gender, young, which compared male and female results to question five, our data was statistically significant. The gender, middle age and the gender, old do the same but in the different age categories. Our middle age statistics proved to be insignificant while our old age were significant. The age, gender table compares the male and female results for question number six. It shows which age group people found the most beautiful woman in. This one also was insignificant. The last table compares male and female opinions on which picture has the most children. It shows that men and women had similar preferences but the p-value is high.
We have decided not to include full body images, males and different races in our test. By eliminating these, we narrowed down our test to Caucasian, female faces. In our research the hyperfemale was composed of a combination of only Caucasian females. This is what we have modeled our research after. We narrowed our tests down to only females because people tend to connect beauty with the female and their specific traits.
We are assuming that the participants will consider one of our pictures beautiful and are leaving the definition of beauty open. But we are also offering the option of not choosing any of the given faces. This allows people who are attracted to any of the options to not choose. We are asking people to base their judgments of beauty on only physical appearance, which, may be contradictory, to what they feel is true beauty.
Our results are based on peopleís opinions. Whether they choose to tell the truth or not is out of our control.

Materials:
9 Color Photographs: The questions in the survey correlate with each individual picture. The pictures are of womenís faces only, and are divided into three age groups.
Survey: Filled out by Miami University students eating at Alexander Dining Hall. Then collected counted and analyzed.
Pens

Our class may or may not be involved impending on their attendance at Alexander dining hall. The whole class has been acquainted with our project through our poster presentation and our posted proposal on the Internet. They have had the opportunity to give feedback and suggestions. We are processing all of our data without any class assistance.

Data:
Male participants answers:

1. Age: 18years: 7 19years: 13 20years: 2 21years: 3 22years: 1 23year: 1
2. Male Total: 27
3. Do you know any of these people? None
Which number? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
4. Do any of these people remind you of anyone you know? Yes: 15
Which number? 1: 5 2: 4 3: 1 4: 2 5: 5 6: 0 7: 4 8: 1 9: 1
5. Which female is the most beautiful in each category?
1: 7 2: 12 3: 9 4: 7 5: 18 6: 2 7: 9 8: 11 9: 6 none: 0
6. Which female is the most beautiful out of all the categories?
1: 6 2: 9 3: 8 4: 0 5: 3 6: 0 7: 1 8: 0 9: 1 none: 0
7. Which female to you think has the most children out of all categories?
1: 0 2: 0 3: 2 4: 3 5: 1 6: 4 7: 6 8: 4 9: 7 none: 0
8. Who do you think is beautiful? (Not in this survey)
Darci Newman, Jennifer Lopez: 2, Julia Roberts, Latecia Casta: 2, Brittany Spears, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rebecca Romain, Lots of People, Mary Wilson, Jewel, Megan Nadolski, Katie Holmes, Jenny Dohler, Hannah Great, Susan Hatteru, Hally Berry, Random College Girls, Jennifer Aniston, Jenna Elfman, Ex Girlfriend, Eric Johnson, Gwenith Paltrow, Mother Theresa, Steven Oliver,
9. Do they have children? None
How many? None
10. Do you know this person? Yes: 9 No: 12
Are they a: friend: 6 relative: 0 celebrity: 11 acquaintance: 2 none: 2

Female Participants Answers:

1. Age: 18years: 8 19years: 12 20years: 1 21years: 0 22years: 0 23year: 1
2. Female: 22
3. Do you know any of these people? Yes: 1 Possibly: 1
Which number? 1: 0 2: 0 3: 0 4:0 5: 1: 0 6: 0 7: 0 8: 1 9: 0
4. Do any of these people remind you of anyone you know? Yes: 12
Which number? 1: 1 2: 5 3: 1 4: 5 5: 4 6: 3 7: 0 8: 1 9: 3
5. Which female is the most beautiful in each category?
1: 4 2: 5 3: 14 4: 3 5: 18 6: 1 7: 14 8: 6 9: 1 none: 1
6. Which female is the most beautiful out of all the categories?
1: 2 2: 2 3: 10 4: 0 5: 5 6: 0 7: 4 8: 0 9: 0 none: 1
7. Which female to you think has the most children out of all categories?
1: 0 2: 0 3: 2 4: 3 5: 1 6: 5 7: 2 8: 4 9: 4 none: 1
8. Who do you think is beautiful? (Not in this survey)
Audri Hepbern: 2, Allison Vasques, Liz Hurley, My Mother: 6, Daneille Dietrick, Annie Lenox, My Grandmother, Lots of People, Julia Roberts: 3, My Friends, Jenny, Devin Russle, Sandra Bullock, Women who are healthy and maintain themselves but do not dress too flashy, or wear too much makeup that you canít really see their true features, Stacey Easton, Angalina Jolie
9. Do they have children? Yes: 7 No: 13
How many? 2: 3 4: 3
10. Do you know this person? Yes: 14 No: 7
Are they a: friend: 6 relative: 7 celebrity: 8 acquaintance: 0 none: 0

Project Timeline:

2-1-00- 2-5-00 Gather Library Materials
2-7-00 Research Ideas
2-7-00- 2-8-00 Take Notes
2-8-00 Poster Presentation
2-8-00 Class Feedback
2-22-00 Refine Project
2-24-00 Project Proposal
3-8-00 Class Feedback
3-26-00 Refined Project
4-15-00 Survey
4-18-00 Collected Data
4-28-00 Reviewed Results
4-30-0 Typed Final Project
5-1-00 Create Charts From data
5-1-0 Typed Results and Proof Read Final

4. Results:

(See graphs and charts in hard copy)

5. Discussion & Conclusions:

We separated our results into Male and Female categories and observed the results of each and compared them. Throughout the male surveys, the hyperfemale was picked in all age groups. The females picked the hyperfemales in the middle age group and the old age group but picked #3 (non-hyperfemale) from the youngest category of females. Some possible reasons that females did not necessarily pick the hyperfemale from the young category are, that they may have felt threatened by the hyperfemale because most of the participants were the same age as this category (18-23 years). Males felt over all that the young hyper female was most beautiful where the women picked #3 (a non hyperfemale) as the most beautiful out of all the categories. The photos that didnít receive any votes at all for most beautiful were consistent between males and females with only a one vote difference with several of the photos. As far as their opinion of who had the most children, the males felt that #9 had the most kids and they were right. She has 9. The femalesí chose #6 (who has the second most children with 4). Neither of these women was voted the most beautiful, in fact they received the least amount of votes. The theory that links beauty with fertility, making beauty a favorable trait, would then be proven false according to our survey. The younger women may not have been chosen to have the most children because people still see them as young and not capable of having, as may children as the older women. The older women have had more time, therefore the have had more years of fertility under their belt. The last question we asked about referred to which female had the most children (not in the survey). This question was left open for participants to chose anyone they thought was beautiful: a friend, relative, celebrity, etc. We found that the males mainly chose celebrities as beautiful (11 votes) and friends (6votes) received the second amount. No relatives were chosen. The females also chose celebrities (8 votes), but relatives came close with seven votes). All but one of the seven votes were the participants mothers and the other was a grandmother. This may show that women factor personality and relationships into beauty when judging it, where men perceive beauty to be strictly a physical characteristic. Overall it appears that people are more attracted to women with hyperized characteristics. Even though they may feel that these people are more beautiful they do not connect them with having the most children. It has been interesting to see the differences in male and female preferences on beauty and the correlation between how many children each of these women have.

Literature Cited:
Jackson, Linda A. Physical Appearance and Gender; Sociobiological and Sociocultural Perspectives. University of New York Press, New York: 1992.

Buss, David M. The Evolution of Desire. Harper Collins Publishers, Inc, New York: 1994.

Cook, Mark and Robert McHenry. Sexual Attraction. Pergamon Press, New York1978.

Lemley, Brad. Discover. February 2000.

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