From 2014... The Influence of the Digital Divide on Face Preferences in El Salvador: People without Internet Access Prefer More Feminine Men, More Masculine Women, and Women with Higher Adiposity

From 2014... Batres C, Perrett DI (2014) The Influence of the Digital Divide on Face Preferences in El Salvador: People without Internet Access Prefer More Feminine Men, More Masculine Women, and Women with Higher Adiposity. PLoS ONE 9(7): e100966. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100966

Abstract: Previous studies on face preferences have found that online and laboratory experiments yield similar results with samples from developed countries, where the majority of the population has internet access. No study has yet explored whether the same holds true in developing countries, where the majority of the population does not have internet access. This gap in the literature has become increasingly important given that several online studies are now using cross-country comparisons. We therefore sought to determine if an online sample is representative of the population in the developing country of El Salvador. In studies of Hispanic men and women aged 18–25, we tested facial masculinity and adiposity preferences by collecting data in person as well as online. Our results showed that there were no differences in preferences between people who reported having internet access, whether they were tested online or in person. This provides evidence that testing style does not bias preferences among the same population. On the other hand, our results showed multiple differences in preferences between people who reported having internet access and people who reported not having internet access. More specifically, we found that people without internet access preferred more feminine men, more masculine women, and women with higher adiposity than people with internet access. We also found that people without internet access had fewer resources (e.g. running water) than people with internet access, suggesting that harshness in the environment may be influencing face preferences. These findings suggest that online studies may provide a distorted perspective of the populations in developing countries.

Discussion

Our results showed that there were no differences in preferences between people from El Salvador who reported having internet access, whether they were tested online or in person. This provides evidence that testing style does not bias preferences among the same population. On the other hand, our results showed multiple differences in preferences between people from El Salvador who reported having internet access and people from El Salvador who reported not having internet access. This suggests that, unlike samples from studies conducted online with participants from developed countries (e.g. [15]), samples from studies conducted online with participants from developing countries may not be fully representative of the populations (e.g. [12], [11], [21]). Future research needs to take this into account when using online samples from countries where a substantial portion of the population does not have internet access. This applies not only to face preference research but to all studies that use online testing in developing countries (e.g. [29]).

Our data provide evidence that, even within a small country, sub-sectors of the population have different preferences. We found that adiposity preferences in female faces were higher among people without internet access than people with internet access. This finding is consistent with previous literature that has found that heavier figures are considered more attractive in poorer and rural areas [3], [4].

Contrary to our expectations, we found that masculinity in male faces was considered more attractive by people with internet access than by people without internet access. Past research has suggested that risks to health from disease [11] or violence [12] may be responsible for differing levels of masculinity preferences in male faces. Neither interpretation holds for face preferences within El Salvador since we found that participants without internet access prefer more feminine male faces even though health risks [22] and homicide rates [23] are both higher in areas of El Salvador where internet is less accessible. Further research is needed in order to determine what is driving these differing face preferences within sub-sections of the population.

One possibility is that media exposure is driving both sexual dimorphism and adiposity preferences. Several studies have found that the media promotes certain beauty ideals, such as masculinity in men, and femininity and low body weight in women [30], [31]. People who have internet access experience greater exposure to the media through online advertisements and websites and are therefore likely to be more exposed to faces with accentuated masculinity and femininity as well as female faces with lower adiposity.

We also found that participants with internet access were more likely to have a television in their home, which exposes them even further to the media through commercials, television shows, and movies. For example, starring movie roles are more likely to be played by women with low body mass indices [31]. Exposure to such beauty ideals has been found to impact behaviour and preferences. For instance, one study found that adolescent Fijian girls became more interested in weight loss after television was introduced in their town [32]. Thus, media exposure may explain our findings of preferences for higher masculinity in male faces and higher femininity and lower adiposity in female faces among people with internet access in El Salvador. Under the media exposure interpretation, however, it remains unclear why past research has found that online participants from developing countries prefer more masculine male faces than online participants from developed countries [11], since people from developing countries tend to have lower levels of media exposure than people from developed countries [33].

A second explanation for our findings is that the level of harshness in the environment may be influencing face preferences. Our data provide evidence that people without internet access face a harsher environment than people with internet access. For example, we found that people without internet access are less likely to have access to running water in their home than people with internet access. One study found that women prefer less masculine men and men prefer more masculine women for long-term relationships when they are asked to imagine themselves in harsh circumstances [20]. Therefore, increased levels of environmental harshness could explain our findings of preferences for masculine women and feminine men among people without internet access.

The environmental harshness explanation could also explain our adiposity findings. Past research suggests that BMI preferences may reflect differing optimal weights in different environments [4]. For instance, heavier women are better equipped to survive in periods of famine [5] and therefore may be found more attractive in environments with food shortages. Although BMI and weight were higher among people with internet access, preferences for adiposity were higher among people without internet access. This suggests that, although higher levels of weight are considered more attractive in the non-internet population, it may be harder to achieve high levels of weight in such a harsh environment.

Although the environmental harshness explanation is consistent with our findings, further research is needed in order to identify what forms of hardship are most influential on preferences. For instance, Lee and Zietsch [34] found that when women are primed with pathogen prevalence they prefer good-gene traits, such as ‘muscularity’, but when they are primed with resource scarcity they prefer good-dad traits, such as ‘nurturing’. In an environment like El Salvador, where both pathogen prevalence and resource scarcity are real threats, it remains to be determined which form of hardship is more influential on preferences. It may be possible that, among people with internet access in developing countries, pathogen prevalence is more influential since they face less resource scarcity. This would explain why past studies have found that masculinity preferences are negatively correlated with country-level health indices in online samples [11]. On the other hand, people without internet access face both pathogen prevalence as well as resource scarcity. Using Lee and Zietsch’s [34] findings, our studies provide some preliminary evidence that resource scarcity may be more influential than pathogen prevalence in environments with both threats since our non-internet sample preferred more feminine men. In order to confirm this preliminary analysis, more sensitive questions that measure resource scarcity would need to be used in future studies.

In addition to the differences in access to television and running water, we also found that people without internet access have been to other countries fewer times, have children earlier, are less educated, and are less likely to have been born in a hospital than people with internet access. These differences suggest that people with internet access have very different lifestyles from people without internet access, which provides further evidence of a digital divide [17], [18]. Our findings show that the digital divide does influence face preferences and this relationship needs to be taken into consideration in future experiments in order to accurately measure the preferences of people from developing countries.

One limitation from our experiment is that, unlike our in-person samples, our online sample was neither compensated nor supervised and participants might therefore be less motivated to take the experiment seriously. Past studies, however, have found that participants who are uncompensated and unsupervised yield results that are comparable in quality to participants who are compensated and supervised [35]. Our study was also limited in that our experiment consisted of only 5 trials per condition, it only used faces of white men and women, and our participants came from only one country. It would be beneficial to examine if any differences in face preferences arise from using faces of another ethnicity versus faces of own ethnicity. Additionally, although all Salvadorians fall under the ethnicity of Hispanic, there are differences within this ethnicity that may reflect cultural and genetic heritage and might influence preferences. It would therefore be beneficial for other studies to examine the influence of the digital divide within other developing countries. While it is clear from past studies that preferences for facial characteristics differ across populations (e.g. [11]), there are a number of factors that can contribute to these differences (e.g. health [15], violence [12], societal-level measures of development [21], income inequality [12], ecological conditions [36], media [32]). In order to gain a better understanding of these influences, more studies that compare sub-sectors of the same geographical population (e.g. [37], [36]) need to be undertaken.