Determinants of Physical Attractiveness

Abstract

This book documents the physical attractiveness phenomena. Because of the very powerful and serious implications, this treatise necessarily includes antecedents of physical attractiveness. Certainly a basic anterior issue pertains to underlying determinants of the physical attractiveness variable. To contend with the difficult abstract nature of the physical attractiveness construct, research manipulations rely on a gestalt approach to measurement and definition. Commonly referred to as the truth-of-consensus method, it employs a global approach. For example,

if a significant number of “judges” designate a person as physically attractive, then that person is defined as physically attractive. Whether it was the dimple on the chin which the judges were responding to, whether more redheads than brunettes were classified as attractive, is not typically a matter of concern. (Berscheid & Walster, 1974, p. 181)