A study published in Psychological Research suggests that Caucasian women show in-group favoritism when making judgments about the size and attractiveness of other women’s bodies.
Previous studies have shown that Caucasian women focus on certain areas of the body when making appearance judgments about other female bodies. Interestingly, these gaze patterns are associated with women’s own body satisfaction scores, suggesting that this preferential viewing is motivated by social comparison and the desire to improve one’s attractiveness.
Since body composition varies across racial groups, study author Victoria Rodway and her team wanted to explore whether Caucasian women’s gaze patterns would change when making judgments about female bodies of other races. This would suggest that the social comparison process varies according to the race of the woman being judged.
A study was conducted involving 36 Caucasian women between the ages of 19 and 23. The women were shown computer-generated female avatars depicting bodies of varying dress sizes and breast cup sizes, and representing three different races: Caucasian, Asian, or African American.
Subjects’ eye movements were tracked while they answered questions on the body attractiveness and body size of each avatar. Following the eye-tracking task, subjects completed measures of body satisfaction and tendency to use social comparison when judging their own appearance. They also provided their body measurements which were used to calculate body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip-ratio (WHR).
Results revealed an in-group bias for attractiveness. Caucasian avatars were rated more slender and attractive than Asian and African avatars. Interestingly, dress sizes 8 and 10 were rated most attractive for Caucasian and Asian avatars, but dress size 6 was rated most attractive for African American avatars.
However, the model’s race appeared to have no impact on the gaze patterns of participants. As the researchers explain, the “preference for Caucasian avatars was not reflected on the cognitive processing stage of body information selection and extraction.” For all avatars, the upper-body received the most viewing time, followed by the head and waist-hip regions.
Subjects’ body composition and body satisfaction did not influence their judgments of the avatars’ body attractiveness or body size. However, it did influence the subjects’ gaze patterns. Subjects with a higher BMI and WHR spent more time looking at the upper body in mid-profile view. As the authors say, mate selection theory suggests that women with a higher BMI and WHR are less physically attractive, and, therefore, may perceive a “greater need to evaluate other women’s ‘market’ value.” Since the chest is more visible from the mid-profile view, “longer gaze allocation at this region could be for comparative purpose[s].”
The authors suggest that women’s judgments of other females’ body attractiveness might have an evolutionary basis, which is then strengthened by societal influences. As the authors express, “young Caucasian women showed an overall preference for slimmer body size in all tested races, perhaps as a result of thinner female bodies being portrayed as the ideal body shape (particularly) within media platforms (Jiang & Vartanian, 2016).”
The study, “Effect of model race and viewing perspective on body attractiveness and body size assessment in young Caucasian women: an eye-tracking study”, was authored by Victoria Rodway, Bethany Tatham, and Kun Guo.
(Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay)