The current study was conducted to investigate whether gender and physical attractiveness of face primes had any effect on subsequent categorization of weapons and non-weapons by participants. In Study 1 participants were required to rate a set of face photos of men and women on their level of at-tractiveness and also how threatening they perceived them to be. These photos were used for Study 2 as primes paired with weapons and non-weapons. One hundred and ten University of Canterbury students were required to categorise weapons from non-weapons after primed faces appeared on a computer screen. Adapted from the ‘shooter paradigm’ and priming studies, this aimed to discover participant’s stereotypes when threat is involved. Specifically, it aimed to assess people’s susceptibility to perceive a non-threatening item as a threat. Three possible theories are presented to explain the findings – the halo effect, the evolutionary intra-sexual competition theory, and the arousal theory. The results of study 1 indicated that there is a negative correlation between physical attractiveness and threat, such that as a target’s physical attractiveness increases their perceived level of threat decreases, suggesting the existence of an overall halo effect (attractive people are non-threatening). The results of study 2 revealed an impact of female primes (in particular attractive female primes) on males’ misclassification of non-weapons. There was no effect found of the primes on females’ classifications. An arousal theory is used to explain this differential response. The results are discussed in terms of implications for the real-world and limitations of the study are outlined and suggestions are made regarding future research.

In this thesis, I aim to answer the following questions: (1) is there a relationship between the gender of the nominator and the beauty of the ministers that he or she selected, and (2) do nominators select more attractive ministers of the opposite sex. I compare and contrast the physical beauty of ministers of three cabinets nominated by a male prime minister and three cabinets nominated by a female prime minister. My descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analysis, in which I control for the age of the nominator, the physical attractiveness of the nominator, the professional experience of the nominator, the age of the minister and the margin of victory of the nominator`s party, reveal interesting results. I find that both male and female prime ministers nominate better-looking women, and that this tendency is even stronger and slightly more pronounced for female nominators than it is for male nominators.

Two experimental phases examined the characteristics impacting the physical attractiveness stereotype and a potential stereotype shift. From reading a description of a hypothetical target, Phase 1 of this study revealed that participants considered an overweight attractive woman significantly more likely to help a friend in need and significantly more likely to become a friend than an underweight attractive woman. These findings provide understanding of how particular stereotypes may provide social benefits. In Phase 2, knowledge of the woman's plans for liposuction, which was disclosed in a second description of the target, dramatically lowered the participants' evaluations of her physical attractiveness, willingness to help a friend in need, and likelihood as a potential friend. The women's ratings of the target's willingness to help a friend dropped significantly more than the men's ratings. These results indicate that evaluations of physically attractive women may decline if they choose to unnaturally alter their appearance.

Attractive people are more likely to be considered as having better abilities, personalities, and interpersonal relationships. Does the physical attractiveness of a teacher affect the first impression of students of the teacher, and further affect learning concentration and achievement? Second, humor is a type of philosophy and wisdom. People with a good sense of humor are more approachable and have more advantages in interpersonal relationships. Is a humorous teacher capable of creating a happy learning environment to enhance the learning concentration and achievement of students? Junior teachers spend less time teaching and they are typically viewed less favorably compared to senior teachers regarding knowledge structure, teaching strategy, and their understanding of students¡¦ learning difficulties. Are senior teachers with many years of experience capable of improving the learning concentration and achievements of students because they have more teaching experience and progress? In this study, we attempt to understand the influence of teacher characteristics on the learning concentration and achievements of students. Therefore, we used a user within the quasi-experimental method. Teachers with various levels of physical attractiveness, senses of humor, and years of teaching experience were selected to teach students. The learning concentration and achievement of the students were analyzed and compared. The results were as shown below: First, the results of learning concentration showed that the physical attractiveness of a teacher is negatively correlated with learning concentration. The sense of humor of a teacher is positively correlated with learning concentration. Years of teaching experience is positively correlated with learning concentration. Teachers¡¦ physical attractiveness, sense of humor, and years of teaching experience have an interactive effect on learning concentration. Second, results on learning achievement showed that the physical attractiveness of a teacher is not significantly correlated with learning performance. The years of teaching experience of a teacher is not significantly correlated with learning performance. The sense of humor of a teacher is positively correlated with learning achievement. The interactions among factors such as teachers¡¦ physical attractiveness, sense of humor, and years of teaching experience did not show significant correlation with learning achievement According to the results of this study, we suggest that the myth about physical attractiveness should be dispelled, and that educational training regarding teachers¡¦ senses of humor should be strengthened. We recommend that future research include in-depth investigations on the differences between Asians and Caucasians regarding physical attractiveness and teacher charisma.

The purpose of the current study was to explore whether personality dispositions can influence perceived physical appearance. Past research demonstrates that gendered and non-gendered characteristics lead to differential preferences for potential romantic interests among males and females (e.g., Cash & Smith, 1982). These previous studies have not, however, measured direct influence on pulchritude. In the present study, gendered and non-gendered personality descriptions were paired with pictures of average-looking individuals of both sexes to determine the influence of gender roles on perceived physical attractiveness. I hypothesized that males would find androgynous females more physically attractive than gender-typed and non-gender typed females. Similarly, females would find androgynous males more physically attractive than gender-typed and non-gender typed males. Findings indicated that feminine and androgynous personalities significantly increased perceived physical attractiveness of target females for the male participants, whereas undifferentiated and masculine roles significantly decreased perceived physical attractiveness of target males for female participants. Target photographs accompanied by feminine personality descriptions were rated the highest in overall desirability by both sexes.

This study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior by drawing on research investigating the 'halo effect,' which posits that physically attractive people are more likely to be hired, get a raise, perceived positively, and/or live happily within certain professions. Extant work has shown this trend is not generalizable across all fields. For example, scientists who are viewed as relatively unattractive and unsociable are perceived as producing higher quality research compared to their more attractive and sociable counterparts. The fitness industry, and the bodybuilding community in particular, presents an interesting issue where muscularity is an indicator of expertise and credibility, however, for female bodybuilders a muscular physique may diminish her perceived attractiveness and diminish such evaluations. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study examines how muscularity influences assessments of attractiveness, credibility, and homophily and indirectly influences participants' attitudes and perceived control over theory own weight lifting behavior. Though the hypothesized model was not a good fit, an exploratory respecification of the proposed model shows physical attractiveness plays a central role in assessments of homophily, credibility, and attitude. / Master of Arts

Grove and Fisk ¡]1983¡^ had used the noun and idea of drama performance in the theater to compare the offering of service, such attendants as known as performer, customers as known as audience, and separate the front and back stage of service encounter clearly. At the same time, they offer the structure to easily understand the process of the wholly service contact and to help estimate the influence of each important link of service contact. So, this research focused on ¡§perceived value¡¨ of customer experiences through which, the ¡§visualized service backstage¡¨ in the service contact promotes the interaction of consumers and suppliers. Moreover, this study used the involvement of the back stage information and attention of attendants¡¦ appearance to moderate consumer experiences. The results showed that ¡§visualized service backstage¡¨ has positive influence on ¡§perceived value¡¨ with different levels, and customers have more consciousness on ¡§experience value¡¨. Actually the service with ¡§visualized service backstage¡¨ can really improve customers¡¦ perceived value. It not only can strengthen consumers¡¦ experience value, but also promote other different values of consumers. In fact, if service providers can use this advantage to create more perfect service performance by which the front stage and the back stage fully support. And it could bring to people more different service value than others. In addition, through the analysis of this study and real practices, it can help the service providers understand which value is the key factor to be attention for offering visualized service backstage.

The relationship between infants’ neural processing of and visual preferences for attractive and unattractive faces was investigated through the integration of event-related potential and preferential looking methods. Six-month-olds viewed color images of female faces previously rated by adults for attractiveness. The faces were presented in contrasting pairs of attractiveness (attractive/unattractive) for 1.5-second durations. The results showed that compared to attractive faces, unattractive faces elicited larger N290 amplitudes at left hemisphere electrode sites (PO9) and smaller P400 amplitudes at electrode sites across both hemispheres (PO9 and PO10). There were no significant differences between infants’ overall looking times based on attractiveness, however, a significant relationship was found between amplitude and trial looking time; larger N290 amplitudes were associated with longer trial looking times. The results suggest that compared to attractive faces, unattractive faces require greater cognitive resources and longer initial attention for visual processing. / text

The purpose of this research was to investigate possible examiner bias in scoring the Verbal subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised) due to the level of facial attractiveness of the child. Sex of the child and sex of the research subject were also included as independent variables. No main effect for attractiveness or sex x attractiveness interactions were found. Thus, little evidence emerged to suggest attractiveness stereotyping effects in an intelligence testing context. However, female children received significantly higher Comprehension and total Verbal scores than did male children. In addition, while male subjects did not provide differential Verbal scores for male and female children, female subjects tended to be biased toward female children, regardless of attractiveness level. A secondary goal of this study was to determine if the research subjects differentially attributed positive characteristics to attractive versus unattractive children. Indeed, it was empirically established that, in this testing environment, adults attributed more positive personality and social characteristics to attractive than unattractive children. Implications for clinicians/diagnosticians are discussed. It is suggested that future research attempt to delineate a continuum of diagnostic measures wherein one pole represents objective measures with little risk of bias and the other pole is the extreme of subjective instruments with high resk of examiner bias.

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