Age, puberty and attractiveness judgments in adolescents

Saxton, T.K., Kohoutová, D., Roberts, S.C., Jones, B.C. , Debruine, L.M. and Havlíček, J. (2010) Age, puberty and attractiveness judgments in adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 49(8), pp. 857-862. (doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.07.016)

Abstract

Previous work has suggested that judgments of the attractiveness of some facial and vocal features change during adolescence. Here, over 70 Czech adolescents aged 12 – 14 made forced-choice attractiveness judgments on adolescent faces manipulated in symmetry, averageness and femininity, and on adolescent opposite-sex voices manipulated in fundamental frequency (perceived as pitch), and completed questionnaires on pubertal development. Consistent with typical adult judgments, adolescents selected the symmetric, average and feminine male and female faces as more attractive significantly more often than the asymmetric, masculine and non-average faces respectively. Moreover, preferences for symmetric faces were positively associated with adolescents' age and stage of pubertal development. Unexpectedly, voice pitch did not significantly influence adolescents' attractiveness judgments. Collectively, these findings present new evidence using refined methodology that adolescent development is related to variation in attractiveness judgments.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: DeBruine, Professor Lisa and Jones, Professor Benedict
• Authors: Saxton, T.K., Kohoutová, D., Roberts, S.C., Jones, B.C., Debruine, L.M., and Havlíček, J.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
• Journal Name: Personality and Individual Differences
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• ISSN: 0191-8869