Perceptions of attractiveness in female adolescents, university students, and mothers with experience viewing immature faces

This study used a computerized perceptual task to delineate the most attractive location of faces' internal features for female adolescents (Mage=17.4 years), female university students, and, for comparison, mothers with experience viewing immature faces. Compared to university students, adolescents and mothers created female schematic faces with larger ratios of forehead length to chin lengthyielding a larger forehead and smaller chin. University students as a group selected an optimal location of features that was close to average, i.e., faces with medium-sized forehead and chin. Furthermore, only for the university sample was there a positive correlation between feature location and standing height, suggesting that preferred faces for adult women (non-parents) depend on typical viewing angle of mature faces from above or below eye level. These results support developmental changes and individual differences in aesthetic preferences arising, at least in part, from the facial proportions encountered in people's everyday lives.