Dr. Osborn, BEAUTY IS AS BEAUTY DOES - MAKEUP AND POSTURE EFFECTS ON PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS JUDGMENTS, Journal of applied social psychology, 26(1), 1996, pp. 31-51
Recent studies have examined human beauty as a biological, structural
trait. This view of beauty is incomplete because it does not consider
the amount of variability in beauty judgments attributable to self-pre
sentation strategies. This study was designed to estimate the importan
ce of self-presentation practices on beauty judgments. For women withi
n plus or minus one standard deviation of average facial attractivenes
s, makeup effect size estimates were comparable to previously publishe
d estimates of the importance of structural factors in attractiveness
judgments. Similarly, for average weight stimuli, posture was comparab
le to body build in influencing attractiveness judgments. Implications
for personal appearance businesses, health psychology, and counseling
practice are discussed.