Ef. Rosen et al., AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES PREFER A LARGER FEMALE BODY SILHOUETTE THAN DOWHITES, Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31(6), 1993, pp. 599-601
African-American and white college males volunteered to participate in
a study of preferences for a side-view silhouette of a female figure.
The figures were on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 to 8, with 1 b
eing a very thin figure and 8 being an obese figure. The subjects indi
cated their thinnest and largest acceptable and preferred female body
shape for women in several roles: date, sexual partner, wife, mother,
sister, teacher, employer, grandmother, girlfriend, and female friend.
African-American males were predicted to select larger body shapes th
an were whites because of cultural differences in standards of attract
iveness. In general, the results confirmed these hypotheses: African-A
merican males always chose a larger ideal female silhouette and were n
ot as tolerant as whites of very thin figures. These results were sugg
ested to be a potential variable accounting for racial differences in
females' body dissatisfaction.