At least from someone’s point of view.

When was the first time you rated someone’s attractiveness? Or should I rather ask, when was the last time? If you’re human you will likely have done this at least once, and for a good reason; it is part of what psychologists call the “mate choice”(Darwin, 1871; Jennions & Petrie, 1997; Miller & Todd, 1998; Miller, 2000; Kokko, Brooks, Jennions, & Morley, 2003; Geary, Vigil, & Byrd-Craven, 2004). In late adolescence, you begin taking part in this mating ‘game’, become more aware of your own body (McCandless, 1970; Schonfeld, 1969), and so attractiveness, to figure out your value on the ‘market’. Afterwards, you look at others, and try to snatch the best party you can get (and keep) (Kendrick et al., 1993)!

First, what do humans consider attractive?

The traits that humans look for in a partner can be separated into 3 categories:

1. Species preferences, common to all. Natural selection brought people to find interest in them, as they indicate ‘fitness’ (Wallace, 2009). For example, waist-to-hip ratio in females, indicating fertility, is cross-culturally considered attractive (Singh 2006; Singh & Luis 1994; Streeter & McBurney 2003; Swami et al. 2007), and so is a thicker jawline in men, indicating masculinity, and thus a strong and healthy mate (Fink et al., 2007; Windhager et al., 2011).
2. Cultural preferences, unique to each society [Illustration 1], and changing over time*.
3. Personal preferences, coming from one’s genes and their interaction with the environment.

It should be noted, though, that humans judge in social comparison. One own’s image is dependent on a reference group (Gray, 2018). When rating others, the most well-known and easiest to access reference group to ourselves is ourselves. That would indicate that the base rate for rating attractiveness is one’s self, and others are either considered ‘above’ or ‘below’ on the scale.

But how do you find out your own value? Trial and error

Childhood and adolescence are commonly viewed as a learning period, and it isn’t only academics!

1. Generally, flirting in the teenage years is a way for humans to develop their ‘Mating Intelligence’ (Furman, 2002), not so much finding long-lasting love. Through trial-and-error, you track your successes and rejections (Todd and Miller, 1999; Penke & Denissen, 2006) and figure out where you stand on the ‘mate value socio-meter’ (Kirkpatrick and Ellis, 2007). You adjust upward because you strive for the finest; and you adjust downward because getting rejected, as you surely know, hurts (Barkow, 1989; Dawkins, 1982; Kenrick et al., 1993; Sloman & Sloman, 1988; Trivers, 1972; Todd & Miller, 1999; Tooby & Cosmides, 1990). So, why does it hurt, you may ask? Self-esteem has evolved to preserve you from social exclusion (Leary and Baumeister, 2000). This means, the pain may be worth it so that you end up ‘playing in your own league’, settle with a partner (and reproduce).
2. “Stop comparing yourself to others!” is now the mantra. However, comparison within your sex-group on traits relevant to dating also helps you assess your position in the game (Gutierres, Kenrick, & Partch, 1999; Brown, Novick, Lord, & Richards, 1992). So consume it, but in moderation!

Let’s put it in numbers

In today’s western societies, the somewhat questionable game of rating people’s physical appearance from 0 to 10 is quite popular.

People are also subject to the “better-than-average” effect (Svenson, 1981) in their perception of attractiveness. This bias was first discovered when almost everyone in the experiment thought of themselves being better drivers than the mean. Besides, the self-serving human does not want to hurt his self-esteem. Add to that, the desire to get a grade that is culturally considered ‘good’. And there you have everyone rating themselves a 7 out of 10!

So you think you’re a 7, and you rate your peers above or below you. Assume you and your friend have similar preferences when it comes to dating. You would rank a group of people (based on attractiveness) in the exact same order, perceive them in the exact same manner, but WITHOUT giving them the same actual grades.

How so? Looking at biases

Take Alex and Bob, sorting the same group of individuals. Both think of themselves as sevens, but Bob is more conventionally attractive than Alex.

A number of biases come into play. Both are subject to the “availability heuristic” (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973). They only consider the group at stake, or maybe their social circle, when judging; not the wide pool of human beings! Consequently, in a very good-looking group of friends, it may be more complicated to get a higher rating than in an average one. That is the “big- fish-in-small-pond effect” (Marsh et al., 2008) discovered when studying student’s varying self-concept, performing similarly, in a selective school versus a nonselective one.

Alex considers 50% of that group less attractive than himself, and will grade them from 0 to 7, he then has 50% of people left, to mark from 7 to 10. BUT Bob considers 70% of that group less attractive than him, which he will mark from 0 to 7. The proportion considered more attractive is then 30%, and those are the people he will grade from 7 to 10. Grades are then proportionally distributed within the subgroups.

The final question is: why ranking? What is the ultimate argument for it?

In evolutionary terms, across individuals:

• grading someone from 0 to 7 is saying “mating with you is detrimental to me/degrades the genetic pool available to  my progeny”,
• grading someone a 7 is saying “our genetic pools seem equal, mating with you is neither a gain nor a loss”,
• and grading someone from 7 to 10 means “I’ll gladly mate with you, it would probably upgrade my offspring’s genetics”.

Take a look at the diagram [Illustration 3]. This means that Clyde (C), perceived as objectively attractive by both Alex (A) and Bob (B), would receive a grade 8 from Alex, and a 7 from Bob. The messages are respectively: “you are attractive, and more than I am” and “I do consider you attractive, but you are my equal”.

So, the good news is, while you may be your high-school-cheerleader’s 3 out of 10 (the lowest grade I ever came across, people aren’t THAT rude), you are the ugly kid’s 10 outta 10.

P.S. But as we always say, beauty isn’t everything…Remember that not so attractive friend of yours, that somehow got all the boys and girls swarming over them? What do they have, that you don’t have? But maybe… could have?

Notes:

• The views expressed in this post are of the author and not the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science nor LSE.
• This post was written as part of the course PB101: Foundations of Psychological Science, posted and edited with the permission of the author.
• Illustration 1: Countries preferences of the female body and beauty; Source: Superdrug
• Feature image: sourced via Pixabay.

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