Attractiveness of facial profiles as rated by individuals with different levels of education.

OBJECTIVE

The reasons people consult the orthodontist are functional, prophylactic and esthetic in nature, which is why it is important to know (in justifying an intervention for esthetic reasons) what patients themselves find attractive, and whether German university graduates and non-graduates would evaluate the attractiveness of profile views of Class-I, -II and -III patients differently. We also were interested in identifying per group the degree of deviation (from a "normal" skeletal profile) from which the appraisers would judge that profile to be unattractive.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of five skeletal Class-I patients with straight-average faces (ideal biometric face as defined by A. M. Schwarz 1958) were transformed to reflect three Class-II profile variants and three Class-III profile variants with Onyx Ceph software. Out of the 35 profiles thus obtained we formed two groups of 20 each. Group 1 comprised the five straight-average (biometric) faces and six retrognathic and nine prognathic profile variants. Group 2 comprised the same five straight-average faces and the remaining retrognathic and prognathic profile variants. Both face groups were evaluated by 117 university graduates (65 men and 52 women) and 103 non-graduates (49 men and 54 women) between 23 and 41 years old. The participants were randomly assigned to the two groups. These volunteers were asked to rate the profiles along a scale of 0 (least attractive) to 10 (most attractive). The paper copies with the profiles were assessed in comparison to a single profile that had been classified with an average of 7.6 by ten orthodontists.

RESULTS

Both groups of observers perceived the five straight-average faces similarly in the first and second scoring rounds. The straight-average face was perceived as the most attractive by both the university graduates (mean: 5.37; 95% CI: 5.15-5.59) and non-graduates (mean: 5.71; 95% CI: 5.48-5.95), followed immediately by mildly and moderately retrognathic, as well as mildly prognathic profile lines. Both groups perceived extremely prognathic and retrognathic profile lines as the least attractive (mean value for graduates: 4.27; 95% CI: 4.05-4.49; for nongraduates: 4.83; 95% CI: 4.59-5.06), with the university graduates' ratings being significantly lower than those of the nongraduates. Grouping the subjects by gender yielded only minor differences in perception.

CONCLUSION

The straight-average face was perceived as being the most attractive by representative populations in Germany. On the whole, the university graduates were more critical in their ratings than non-graduates.