Perceptions of featural and attractiveness facial similarity with special emphasis on the perceptions of married couples\u27 similarities: Are these part of the mate selection equation?

The present study was designed to assess whether two seemingly opposing theories of human mate selection (social theory of matching for attractiveness and evolutionary theory of mating for physical similarity) are actually symbiotic. Subjects sorted 40 stimulus photographs (20 male and 20 female, married to each other) using one of two sets of criteria: similarity or attractiveness. Subjects then attempted to match the photographs of the males and females into pairs they perceived to belong together according to one of three rules: spouses, siblings, or first cousins. A second set of subjects judged the similarity of the spouses of the 20 couples (either the actual couples or randomly constructed couples) on a series of 12 facial attributes and overall attractiveness. Examination of the number of correct matches of the actual couples and the number of times all other possible couples were paired together revealed that subjects were only slightly better at matching real couples than at matching random couples. Multidimensional scaling procedures revealed no interpretable dimensions by which the subjects were sorting pictures for either the similarity or attractiveness sorts. Examination of the trends in the matching and sorting data suggest that subjects are using rules to match and sort pictures; however, these rules are apparently idiosyncratic both between subjects and within a single subject across pictures. Subjects judged the similarity of spouses for each actual couple and each random couple for 12 facial features and overall attractiveness. Analyses revealed that actual couples were rated as significantly more similar overall and for eye color, nose size, and eyebrow shape than random couples. An examination of importance rankings in the assessment of spouse attractiveness for 39 personality and physical characteristics confirmed previously established gender differences in the importance of physical features. Analyses also revealed differences in importance ratings across length of marriage. The results of this study lend only weak evidence to the similarity and attractiveness hypotheses; therefore, it indicates that they may not be necessarily orthogonal