A study of Serbian university students revealed that males find avatars with prominent masculine or feminine features the most attractive. Women, on the other hand, preferred traits that made bodies of their avatars elongated and slender, regardless of whether the avatar was male or female. The study was published in Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Just as in many other species, bodies of human males and females differ in shape. Their weights and heights are different (on average) and they also differ in how specific muscles, fat, and bones are distributed. Women have wider pelvic bones than males and they tend to accumulate fat mostly in hips, buttocks, and breasts. In contrast, men tend to have longer shoulder bones and greater muscle mass, particularly in the upper part of the body. The typical feminine body shape is often described as “hourglass,” while the masculine body shape gives the “inverted triangle” appearance.
These differences in body shape often reflect the differences between sexes in their perceptions of how an attractive body looks like. However, scientists differ in their views on the exact nature of these differences. While classical views state that both males and females will find the typical or average male and female bodies the most attractive, more recent studies indicated that the most attractive female and male bodies are more feminine or masculine (respectively) than the average body.
Study authors Slobodan Marković and Tara Bulut from the University of Belgrade in Serbia used computer-generated avatars to examine the body shapes males and females find attractive and unattractive. Their first expectation was that both sexes will prefer physical appearances that signal health, reproductive and competitive abilities.
More specifically, they anticipated that participants would prefer supernormally sized body parts but would find excessively large or small features unattractive. They also predicted that men would favor larger breasts and buttocks on female figures, but wider shoulders and chests on male figures. Conversely, they expected women to have a lesser preference for oversized features in both female and male figures.
The study involved 101 undergraduate students (55 female participants) from the University of Belgrade, averaging 19-20 years of age. The researchers instructed participants to create the most attractive and unattractive male and female figures (avatars) using DAZ 3D Studio software.
Participants performed this task by adjusting the size of avatar’s six body parts – shoulders, breasts (for female figures) or chest (for male figures), waist, hips, buttocks, and legs. In performing these tasks, participants started from an avatar figure that researchers defined in advance to represent the figure with average appearance. The participants generated their figures by modifying these initial avatars.
Results showed that, on average, participants created avatars with larger body parts than those of the “average” figure. The exception were hips of female avatars, where both men and women, on average, created avatars they considered attractive with smaller hips than the baseline figure. When creating male avatars, women on average settled for chest size equal to baseline, while men preferred waist and hips equal to baseline.
More detailed analysis indicated that men and women prioritize different traits when creating attractive avatars. Men focused on pronounced masculine and feminine features like breasts, buttocks, and hips in female figures and chest size in male figures. Women, however, emphasized traits that rendered both male and female bodies more elongated and slender.
When generating unattractive avatars, participants most often did this by increasing or reducing the sizes of body parts to the minimum or to the maximum. Analyses showed that both women and men find female avatars with extremely wide and extremely narrow shoulders or hips equally unattractive. However, both sexes disliked very short legs and very wide waist, but did not show a similar dislike for very long legs and very narrow waste. Both sexes disliked male avatars with extremely narrow shoulders, wide waist and hips, large buttocks and short legs. Interestingly, women found both very wide and very narrow chests of male avatars equally unattractive, but men found only very narrow chests unattractive.
For unattractive avatars, participants typically achieved this by minimizing or maximizing the size of body parts. Both sexes found female avatars with extremely wide or narrow shoulders and hips unappealing. Additionally, very short legs and broad waists were disliked by both genders, but there was no similar aversion to very long legs and narrow waists. Both sexes disliked male avatars with extremely narrow shoulders, wide waist and hips, large buttocks and short legs. Interestingly, women found both very wide and very narrow chests of male avatars equally unattractive, but men found only very narrow chests unattractive.
“In the present study we revealed two general tendencies in the experience of physical attractiveness. (1) The first is a biopsychological tendency based on sexual selection principles and manifesting in (a) the male preference for more feminine and masculine traits and (b) a female ambivalence toward prominent masculinity and femininity. (2) The second tendency points to the socio-culturally mediated influences such as bringing the women’s gender role closer to the men’s, including the increase of dominance, competitiveness as well as a sporty and fit look,” the study authors concluded.
The study makes a valuable contribution to the scientific understanding of attractiveness perception. However, it also has limitations that need to be considered. Notably, the changes that could be made to the avatars in the software were very limited and the avatars themselves had little detail. Additionally, the study sample was small and consisted solely of university students. Results on more complex avatar models and more diverse groups of participants might not yield equal results.
The paper, “Tendencies Toward Supernormality/Subnormality in Generating Attractive and Unattractive Female and Male Avatars: Gender Differences”, was authored by Slobodan Marković and Tara Bulut.
