Author(s)

Pei-Luen Patrick Rau, Yun Gong^*, Chunping Zhuang

Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

This study gauges the relative importance of face and body attractiveness in terms of physical attractiveness in China. In the study of attitude, 653 participants were asked to prioritize face and body attractiveness in two mating contexts (short-term vs. long-term) via a survey. In the study of behavior, 232 participants were initially asked to remove either “face box” or “body box”, and were afterwards shown images of 10 individuals of opposite sex and rated face, body and combined attractiveness of each individual. The results indicate that Chinese, independent of gender, assign a higher priority to face attractiveness than to body attractiveness. Body attractiveness is of greater importance to females for rating male attractiveness than to males for rating female attractiveness. Mating context does not imply a significant effect on face-body priority. Chinese conservative attitudes towards sexual cues in body images and short-term relationship are discussed to explain the findings.

Face Attractiveness, Body Attractiveness, Face-Body Priority, Mating Context, Chinese Culture

Rau, P. , Gong, Y. and Zhuang, C. (2016) Pretty Face Matters: Relative Importance of the Face and Body Attractiveness in China. Psychology, 7, 1034-1042. doi: 10.4236/psych.2016.77104.