The physical attractiveness of interaction partners is rated higher after a getting-acquainted interaction

Ratings of the physical attractiveness of an interaction partner after a getting-acquainted interaction. Susan Sprecher, Elaine Hatfield. Personal Relationships. May 20 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12422

Statement of Relevance: Physical attractiveness plays a critical role in interpersonal interaction. It can be particularly important in initial interactions because it is the most salient characteristic in the get-acquainted process. How people judge the physical attractiveness of a conversation partner after a getting-acquainted interaction may be affected by a number of factors, including perceiver characteristics (e.g., relationship status) and the context of the interaction (e.g., mode of communication). This research provided analyses of data collected from several prior social interaction studies in which data were obtained from young adults on how they rated their getting-acquainted partner's physical attractiveness. These ratings were compared to other benchmarks (e.g., experimenter ratings) and were examined for their associations with perceiver and contextual variables.

Abstract: This study examined college students' judgments of the physical attractiveness of an interaction partner after a getting-acquainted interaction, including in comparison with other benchmarks (e.g., an experimenter rating, a self-rating). With data combined from several past laboratory studies, we found that participants (particularly women who were interacting with another woman) overall rated their interaction partner after a brief interaction to be more attractive than three benchmarks: (1) how the partners were judged by more neutral experimenters who had less interaction with them; (2) how the partners rated themselves; and (3) the participants' own self-ratings of physical attractiveness. Evidence was found for a prediction derived from interaction appearance theory – ratings of the quality (enjoyment) of the interaction were positively associated with ratings of the partner's physical attractiveness. We also explored whether participants' ratings of the physical attractiveness of their interaction partner were affected by factors about the participant (own physical attractiveness, relationship status) and about the context of their communication (modality, type of get-acquainted task). Despite prior work suggesting that physical attractiveness ratings of others are malleable depending on a host of other factors, personal and contextual variables considered in this study were generally not associated with how the participants rated the physical attractiveness of their interaction partner.