Maestripieri et al. present a thoughtful critique of the relevant adult literature to support their theory as to why attractive individuals, particularly attractive women, elicit favorable biases even when exposure is brief or not in person. The authors' developmental section of the paper, however, assumes infants and children show biases for attractive individuals regardless of target sex, but research indicates early emerging attentional and affective biases toward attractive females are stronger and more consistent than those toward attractive males. We propose that these biases develop as a function of children's typical social world and likely contribute to the strength of adults' prosocial and financial biases toward attractive women.
During the first year, approximately 70% of infants' experiences are with women (Rennels & Davis Reference Rennels and Davis2008; Sugden et al. Reference Sugden, Mohamed-Ali and Moulson2014). Subsequently, infants develop perceptual expertise in processing female faces (Quinn et al. Reference Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater and Pascalis2002; Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005) and can mentally represent female face averages (de Haan et al. Reference de Haan, Johnson, Maurer and Perrett2001; Rubenstein et al. 1999), but not male face averages (Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005). Both infants and adults perceive faces similar to an average facial representation as attractive (Langlois & Roggman Reference Langlois and Roggman1990; Rubenstein et al. 1999), but infants' female-like facial representation produces discrepancies in how attractiveness guides their attentional biases for and categorization of the two sexes. For example, by 2 to 3 months, infants look more at high relative to low attractive female faces (Langlois et al. Reference Langlois, Roggman, Casey, Ritter, Rieser-Danner and Jenkins1987), whereas data regarding infants' interest in high attractive male faces are inconsistent (Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005). By 6 months, infants categorize female, but not male, faces based on attractiveness (Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois, Hoss, Rubenstein and Griffin2004; Rennels et al. Reference Rennels, Kayl, Langlois, Davis and Orlewicz2016). Hence, females' attractiveness is salient very early in development.
Predominant experience with women typically continues during the first 3 years (Kayl Reference Kayl2012) and, thus, during a period of significant brain growth (Knickmeyer et al. Reference Knickmeyer, Gouttard, Kang, Evans, Wilber, Smith, Hamer, Lin, Gerig and Gilmore2008), which should maintain and strengthen children's attractive female-like facial representation. Indeed, the early categories infants displayed were evident among older children; 4- and 5-year-olds more quickly and accurately categorized the sex of female faces that were high attractive, but attractiveness did not facilitate their categorization of male faces (Hoss et al. Reference Hoss, Ramsey, Griffin and Langlois2005). Early categorization of females, but not males, based on attractiveness is important because perceptual grouping of individuals is a necessary first step before biases can develop (Bigler & Liben Reference Bigler, Liben and Kail2006). Moreover, because fluent processing elicits positive affect (Winkielman & Cacioppo Reference Winkielman and Cacioppo2001), infants' and children's ease in processing faces similar to an averaged, female-like representation (Quinn et al. Reference Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater and Pascalis2002; Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005; Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois Reference Ramsey-Rennels and Langlois2006) provides a means by which positive affect could become automatically associated with high attractive females, but not necessarily high attractive males.
When 3- to 11-year-olds assigned positive and negative attributes to unfamiliar peers based on their gender, race, or attractiveness, they showed bias in each domain, but their biases based on girls' attractiveness showed the largest effect size – they assigned significantly more positive attributes to attractive girls and more negative attributes to unattractive girls (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2014). These same children were also particularly likely to believe that attractive girl targets would think positively of them (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2015). Children's belief that attractive girls will reciprocate positive attributes should contribute to strengthening their affective preferences for attractive females. Such biases also affected how 3- to 7-year-olds processed information; they made significantly more errors identifying female characters whose attractiveness and actions were inconsistent with the “beauty is good” stereotype (e.g., a low attractive female displaying a positive behavior) versus consistent with the stereotype, but did not do the same with male characters (Ramsey & Langlois Reference Ramsey and Langlois2002). Female targets' attractiveness, therefore, affects individuals' affective and cognitive processing well before puberty.
Males' attractiveness seems to become more salient during middle childhood. Compared with 3- to 6-year-olds, 7- to 11-year-olds assigned more positive attributes to high attractive boys and more negative attributes to low attractive boys (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2014). Between 5 and 8 years of age, children's facial representations become more differentiated, which means that instead of having a single representation for faces, they develop representations for different face categories (Short et al. Reference Short, Hatry and Mondloch2011). Because of increased exposure to male peers at school, children may begin developing separate representations for female and male faces, which should impact their ease in processing attractive male faces and affective biases (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2014).
During adolescence, facial representations presumably become even more differentiated, and pubertal changes result in heterosexuals' increased interest toward the other sex (Ivanova et al. Reference Ivanova, Veenstra and Mills2012) and enhanced attention toward physical appearance: both female and male 14- to 16-year-olds consider attractive individuals as ideal mates for casual sexual relationships (Regan & Joshi Reference Regan and Joshi2003). Puberty might also contribute to intrasex competition and negative evaluations of attractive same-sex targets compared with positive evaluations of attractive other-sex targets (Agthe et al. Reference Agthe, Spörrle, Frey, Walper and Maner2013), but support for this conclusion is weak. The adolescents in this study did not show significant differences in their evaluations of high versus low attractive same-sex targets, providing little support for mating competition. Also, although adolescent boys more positively evaluated high versus low attractive young adult females, this difference was not significant when adolescent girls evaluated young adult males (Agthe et al. Reference Agthe, Spörrle, Frey, Walper and Maner2013). Early emerging attentional and affective biases for attractive females combined with heterosexual adolescents' increased interest in the other sex align well for males, but not necessarily females, which could account for these disparate results.
Attractiveness biases emerge early for female targets, but gradually for male targets. When mating interests emerge, biases toward attractive females appear more robust than those toward attractive males, particularly when males are the perceivers. Although mating interests likely contribute to displays of bias, experience-dependent biases that form during the early years when there is significant brain growth are important to consider too. The combination of the two likely contributes to why financial and prosocial biases favor attractive females more so than attractive males.
Maestripieri et al. present a thoughtful critique of the relevant adult literature to support their theory as to why attractive individuals, particularly attractive women, elicit favorable biases even when exposure is brief or not in person. The authors' developmental section of the paper, however, assumes infants and children show biases for attractive individuals regardless of target sex, but research indicates early emerging attentional and affective biases toward attractive females are stronger and more consistent than those toward attractive males. We propose that these biases develop as a function of children's typical social world and likely contribute to the strength of adults' prosocial and financial biases toward attractive women.
During the first year, approximately 70% of infants' experiences are with women (Rennels & Davis Reference Rennels and Davis2008; Sugden et al. Reference Sugden, Mohamed-Ali and Moulson2014). Subsequently, infants develop perceptual expertise in processing female faces (Quinn et al. Reference Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater and Pascalis2002; Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005) and can mentally represent female face averages (de Haan et al. Reference de Haan, Johnson, Maurer and Perrett2001; Rubenstein et al. 1999), but not male face averages (Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005). Both infants and adults perceive faces similar to an average facial representation as attractive (Langlois & Roggman Reference Langlois and Roggman1990; Rubenstein et al. 1999), but infants' female-like facial representation produces discrepancies in how attractiveness guides their attentional biases for and categorization of the two sexes. For example, by 2 to 3 months, infants look more at high relative to low attractive female faces (Langlois et al. Reference Langlois, Roggman, Casey, Ritter, Rieser-Danner and Jenkins1987), whereas data regarding infants' interest in high attractive male faces are inconsistent (Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005). By 6 months, infants categorize female, but not male, faces based on attractiveness (Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois, Hoss, Rubenstein and Griffin2004; Rennels et al. Reference Rennels, Kayl, Langlois, Davis and Orlewicz2016). Hence, females' attractiveness is salient very early in development.
Predominant experience with women typically continues during the first 3 years (Kayl Reference Kayl2012) and, thus, during a period of significant brain growth (Knickmeyer et al. Reference Knickmeyer, Gouttard, Kang, Evans, Wilber, Smith, Hamer, Lin, Gerig and Gilmore2008), which should maintain and strengthen children's attractive female-like facial representation. Indeed, the early categories infants displayed were evident among older children; 4- and 5-year-olds more quickly and accurately categorized the sex of female faces that were high attractive, but attractiveness did not facilitate their categorization of male faces (Hoss et al. Reference Hoss, Ramsey, Griffin and Langlois2005). Early categorization of females, but not males, based on attractiveness is important because perceptual grouping of individuals is a necessary first step before biases can develop (Bigler & Liben Reference Bigler, Liben and Kail2006). Moreover, because fluent processing elicits positive affect (Winkielman & Cacioppo Reference Winkielman and Cacioppo2001), infants' and children's ease in processing faces similar to an averaged, female-like representation (Quinn et al. Reference Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater and Pascalis2002; Ramsey et al. Reference Ramsey, Langlois and Marti2005; Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois Reference Ramsey-Rennels and Langlois2006) provides a means by which positive affect could become automatically associated with high attractive females, but not necessarily high attractive males.
When 3- to 11-year-olds assigned positive and negative attributes to unfamiliar peers based on their gender, race, or attractiveness, they showed bias in each domain, but their biases based on girls' attractiveness showed the largest effect size – they assigned significantly more positive attributes to attractive girls and more negative attributes to unattractive girls (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2014). These same children were also particularly likely to believe that attractive girl targets would think positively of them (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2015). Children's belief that attractive girls will reciprocate positive attributes should contribute to strengthening their affective preferences for attractive females. Such biases also affected how 3- to 7-year-olds processed information; they made significantly more errors identifying female characters whose attractiveness and actions were inconsistent with the “beauty is good” stereotype (e.g., a low attractive female displaying a positive behavior) versus consistent with the stereotype, but did not do the same with male characters (Ramsey & Langlois Reference Ramsey and Langlois2002). Female targets' attractiveness, therefore, affects individuals' affective and cognitive processing well before puberty.
Males' attractiveness seems to become more salient during middle childhood. Compared with 3- to 6-year-olds, 7- to 11-year-olds assigned more positive attributes to high attractive boys and more negative attributes to low attractive boys (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2014). Between 5 and 8 years of age, children's facial representations become more differentiated, which means that instead of having a single representation for faces, they develop representations for different face categories (Short et al. Reference Short, Hatry and Mondloch2011). Because of increased exposure to male peers at school, children may begin developing separate representations for female and male faces, which should impact their ease in processing attractive male faces and affective biases (Rennels & Langlois Reference Rennels and Langlois2014).
During adolescence, facial representations presumably become even more differentiated, and pubertal changes result in heterosexuals' increased interest toward the other sex (Ivanova et al. Reference Ivanova, Veenstra and Mills2012) and enhanced attention toward physical appearance: both female and male 14- to 16-year-olds consider attractive individuals as ideal mates for casual sexual relationships (Regan & Joshi Reference Regan and Joshi2003). Puberty might also contribute to intrasex competition and negative evaluations of attractive same-sex targets compared with positive evaluations of attractive other-sex targets (Agthe et al. Reference Agthe, Spörrle, Frey, Walper and Maner2013), but support for this conclusion is weak. The adolescents in this study did not show significant differences in their evaluations of high versus low attractive same-sex targets, providing little support for mating competition. Also, although adolescent boys more positively evaluated high versus low attractive young adult females, this difference was not significant when adolescent girls evaluated young adult males (Agthe et al. Reference Agthe, Spörrle, Frey, Walper and Maner2013). Early emerging attentional and affective biases for attractive females combined with heterosexual adolescents' increased interest in the other sex align well for males, but not necessarily females, which could account for these disparate results.
Attractiveness biases emerge early for female targets, but gradually for male targets. When mating interests emerge, biases toward attractive females appear more robust than those toward attractive males, particularly when males are the perceivers. Although mating interests likely contribute to displays of bias, experience-dependent biases that form during the early years when there is significant brain growth are important to consider too. The combination of the two likely contributes to why financial and prosocial biases favor attractive females more so than attractive males.