Attractiveness of the female body: Preference for the average or the supernormal?
Attractiveness of the female body: Preference for the average or the supernormal?

Summary/Abstract: The main purpose of the present study was to contrast the two hypotheses of female body attractiveness. The first is the “preference-for-the average” hypothesis: the most attractive female body is the one that represents the average body proportions for a given population. The second is the “preference-for-the supernormal” hypothesis: according to the so-called“peak shift effect”, the most attractive female body is more feminine than the average. We investigated the preference for three female body characteristics: waist to hip ratio (WHR), buttocks and breasts. There were 456 participants of both genders. Using a program for computer animation (DAZ 3D) three sets of stimuli were generated (WHR, buttocks and breasts). Each set included six stimuli ranked from the lowest to the highest femininity level. Participants were asked to choose the stimulus within each set which they found most attractive (task 1) and average (task 2). One group of participants judged the body parts that were presented in the global context (whole body), while the other group judged the stimuli in the local context (isolated body parts only). Analyses have shown that the most attractive WHR, buttocks and breasts are more feminine (meaning smaller for WHR and larger for breasts and buttocks) than average ones, for both genders and in both presentation contexts. The effect of gender was obtained only for the most attractive breasts: males prefer larger breasts than females. Finally, most attractive and average WHR and breasts were less feminine in the local than in the global context. These results support the preference for the supernormal hypothesis: all analyses have shown that both male and female participants preferred female body parts which are more feminine than those judged average.

• Details
• Contents