Averageness, Exaggeration, and Facial Attractiveness

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Abstract
Langlois and her colleagues reported in this journal that composite faces are more attractive than the component faces used to create them, and conjectured that averageness is attractive (Langlois & Roggman, 1990, Langlois, Roggman, & Musselman, 1994) However, extremes may also be attractive (Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa, 1994) We investigated the effect of averageness (proximity to a norm or average face) on attractiveness using a computerized caricature generator to vary averageness Attractiveness increased with averageness (Experiment 1) and was negatively correlated with distinctiveness, a subjective measure of the converse of averageness (Expertments 1 and 2) Extremes (caricatures) were not attractive Line-drawing composites, which avoid some of the problems associated with gray-level composites, were significantly more attractive and less distinctive (more average) than individual faces (Experiment 2) These results support the claim that averageness is attractive