9/1/2023 0 Comments Baby face face2faceHe made an ‘average’ female and an ‘average’ male face by blending several together, and asked volunteers to diminish or enhance their femininity (babyishness) or masculinity until they looked the most attractive. Back in 1998, Perrett decided to investigate. They may also be a signal of good hormonal regulation, since holding on to some babyish features, such as small chins, is linked to oestrogen.īut what about in men? Surely the “cute” look is at odds with the chiselled jawline and dominant, masculine features of male models? As it turns out, it’s a little more complicated than that. Though everyone starts out life with wide-eyes and chubby cheeks, our facial structure changes with age as we acquire the characteristics of maturity young, fertile women are naturally more baby-faced than older ones.Įons ago, babyfaces may have been an honest signal of youth – but since those with these features have a reproductive advantage, they’ve become exaggerated over time. “Evolutionary psychologists say that what men are looking for in a woman is someone who will have his babies and make healthy babies – and there are markers of this,” says Adrian Furnham, a psychologist at University College London. This is backed up by the fact that babyfaces are especially attractive in women – and women tend to be more baby-faced than men. For a start, there’s a ton of evidence that babyfaces are attractive to humans, so perhaps ancestors with the supermodel look had more suitors and more children (sexual selection). There are two possible explanations for how this happened. Alongside our more babyfaced appearance, we also evolved other child-like abilities, such as maintaining curiosity later in life. “If we look at the fossil record of humans then we see an evolution from ‘robust’ to ‘gracile’ – we evolved a more child-like appearance,” says David Perrett, a psychologist from the University of St Andrews. Though this may also explain their propensity for crime. It’s thought they may be benefitting from the “self-defeating prophecy effect” in their efforts to overcome society’s expectations they end up overcompensating. In reality, baby-faced men tend to be more assertive, accomplished and better educated than their peers. Even the downsides of babyishness – being viewed as submissive, weak and less competent – can, oddly, be helpful. And people won’t even know they’re being affected when they’re looking at her and saying ‘I don’t think she’s a leader, but I don’t know why’,” says Keating.īut there’s a twist. “Hillary Clinton has to get over the fact that as a female, she has a more babyish face. In the UK, there are plenty of examples of politicians who may have fallen victim, from former Conservative leader William Hague – who lost the 2001 election to Tony Blair – to the current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who was told he was “ not a leader” only a matter of months ago.įor women, it could be even more of a challenge. Babyfaced people are viewed as more submissive, weaker and less competent – not exactly traits considered desirable in a leader. The thing is, resembling a baby might prevent politicians from being elected in the first place. Each was attached to an envelope which was stamped and addressed to an apparent potential employer – though really they were addressed to a mailbox for which Keating had the key. Keating and colleagues wrote a cover letter for a fictional job and a resume for a fictional applicant and printed 584 of them. Would you mail it for them? It’s a simple way to measure peoples’ willingness to help a stranger. Imagine you find a lost letter – it’s addressed, stamped and ready to go. She adapted a classic psychology experiment first pioneered in the 1960s, the “lost letter technique”. Those on the contraceptive pill – and those who are the most fertile – may be more susceptible than others.īack in 2003, she put the power of the babyface to the test. The neural activation patterns of women looking at baby-faced men were indistinguishable from when they looked at actual babies. In one study, participants had their brains scanned while they looked at pictures of babies and baby-faced men.
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