 Female physical attractiveness is the promise of her popularity
Added: 01/11/2006 |
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The determinants of female physical attractiveness include those aspects that display health and fitness for reproduction and sustainance. Human perception of environment and of each other is to a large extent conditioned by conventions and commonly accepted notions. Female physical attractiveness factors, such as waist-hip ratio, body mass and structure are also dictated by the society and to an extent based in subconscious notions of beauty.
Female physical attractiveness determinants
include correlates of fertility such as the waist-hip ratio, mid upper arm circumference, body mass and structure proportion, and facial symmetry. Scientists have discovered that the waist-hip ratio (WHR) is a significant factor in judging female attractiveness. Women with a 0.7 WHR (waist circumference that is 70% of the hip circumference) are invariably rated as more attractive by men, regardless of their culture. Such diverse beauty icons as Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy, Sophia Loren, Kate Moss, and the Venus de Milo all have ratios around 0.7. The ratio signals fertility-as they age, women's waists thicken as their fertility declines.
Proportion of body mass and structure - the Body Mass Index (BMI) is another important universal determinant to the perception of female physical attractiveness. The BMI refers to the proportion of the body mass to the body structure. However, the optimal body proportion is interpreted differently in various cultures. The Western ideal considers a slim and slender body mass as optimal while many historic cultures consider an embonpoint or plump body-mass as appealing. In either case the underlying rule applied in determining beauty is the BMI and hence displays how cultural differences of beauty operate on universal principles of human evolution.
The slim ideal does not consider an emaciated body as attractive, just as the full-rounded ideal does not celebrate the over-weight or the obese. The cultural leanings are therefore just social emphasis on specific phenotypes within a parameter of optimal body mass and structure. The attraction for a proportionate body also influences an appeal for erect posture. Besides biology and culture, there are other factors determining female physical attractiveness. The more familiar a face seems, the more highly it is judged, an example of the mere exposure effect.
It is seen that when many faces are combined into a composite image (through computer morphing), people find the resultant image as familiar and attractive, and even more beautiful than the faces that went into it. One interpretation is that this shows an inherent human preference for prototypicality of female
physical attractiveness. That is, the resultant face emerges with the salient features shared by most faces and hence becomes the prototype. The prototypical face and features is therefore perceived as symmetrical and familiar. This reveals an "underlying preference for the familiar and safe over the unfamiliar and potentially dangerous".
The phenotype of one's own mother during the early years of childhood becomes the basis for the perception of optimal body mass index (BMI). This shows the importance of prototypicality in the judgment of beauty, and also explains the emergence of similarity of the perception of attractiveness within a community or society, which shares a gene pool.
But still, curiously enough, even if no shade of romance is involved, female physical attractiveness is a great asset. However, mention must be made of the fact that female physical attractiveness can be a matter of personal taste.
Another major female physical attractiveness factor is the female face structure.
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