Age, puberty and attractiveness judgments in adolescents

Citation

Saxton TK, Kohoutova D, Roberts SC, Jones BC, DeBruine LM & Havlicek J (2010) Age, puberty and attractiveness judgments in adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 49 (8), pp. 857-862. https://doi.org/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, non-average and masculine 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.

Keywords
Pubertal development; Face; Voice; Mate choice; Physical attractiveness; Masculinity; Symmetry; Averageness

Journal
Personality and Individual Differences: Volume 49, Issue 8

People

Professor Craig Roberts

Professor of Social Psychology, Psychology