Schirmer Annett, Franz Marcel, Krismann Lea, Nöring Vanessa, Große Marlen, Mahmut Mehmet, Croy Ilona
Institute of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Jena, Jena, Germany.
Br J Psychol. 2025 Aug;116(3):684-701. doi: 10.1111/bjop.12787. Epub 2025 Apr 1.
What makes someone attractive has been examined for faces, in terms of common preferences, and for opposite-sex interactions. We expanded on this by considering also other non-verbal modalities, personal preferences and same-sex interactions. We presented the face, body motion, voice and body odour from 61 non-verbal agents (34 women) as stimuli in an attractiveness rating to 71 perceivers (37 women). Our results showed that the modalities were differently attractive and that some correlated more than others. Specifically, body odours were least and audio-video stimuli most attractive. Voice/looks as well as body odour/movement showed fairly robust positive associations. Both common and personal preferences accounted for variance in the data. Most effects compared between opposite- and same-sex ratings, with only a few exceptions, including that only same-sex ratings showed a clear dominance of personal over common preferences. We conclude that the different non-verbal modalities are equally relevant for attraction but differ in absolute attractiveness and redundancy, likely due to their different suitability for communicating stable (e.g. genetic) versus variable (e.g. hormonal) person characteristics. Beauty excites agreement and disagreement; it matters not only in encounters with the other sex but in social interactions more broadly.
关于吸引力的问题，人们已从面部的共同偏好以及异性互动的角度进行了研究。我们在此基础上进行拓展，还考虑了其他非语言形式、个人偏好以及同性互动。我们让61名非语言行为者（34名女性）的面部、身体动作、声音和体味作为刺激物，由71名感知者（37名女性）进行吸引力评分。我们的研究结果表明，这些形式的吸引力各不相同，且有些形式之间的相关性比其他形式更高。具体而言，体味的吸引力最小，视听刺激的吸引力最大。声音/外貌以及体味/动作之间呈现出相当显著的正相关。共同偏好和个人偏好都对数据的差异有所影响。大多数效应是在异性和同性评分之间进行比较的，只有少数例外，其中包括只有同性评分显示出个人偏好明显优于共同偏好。我们得出结论，不同的非语言形式对于吸引力同样重要，但在绝对吸引力和冗余度方面存在差异，这可能是由于它们在传达稳定（如基因）与可变（如荷尔蒙）的个人特征方面具有不同的适用性。美既引发共识，也引发分歧；它不仅在与异性的交往中重要，在更广泛的社会互动中也很重要。
