At first glance: Social meanings of dental appearance

Objectives: An important factor in social interaction is physical appearanc e. Major elements in the evaluation of physical appearance are the mouth an d teeth. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of tooth appe arance on the development of a first impression of the other person, with r egard to the sex of both the respondent and the target. Methods: Eight faci al photographs of individuals with intact upper teeth were manipulated. one set was left untouched and the other was professionally altered so that th e front anterior teeth appeared decayed. The photographs were randomly alig ned in sets of eight, each set consisting of four individuals with an origi nal, intact dentition and four other individuals with a "decayed" dentition . The sets of photographs were then presented to 115 respondents (65 males and 50 females). Evaluations were made according to three categories of tra its-esthetic, social, and professional. Results: For all three evaluation c ategories, the difference in scores between decayed and intact dentition gi ven to targets were significantly higher when participants of one sex evalu ated targets of the opposite sex, as compared to evaluating targets of thei r own sex. Conclusions: The effect of tooth appearance on the physical attr activeness stereotype is more evident when males evaluate females and vice versa, rather than when evaluating their own sex.