Facial Attractiveness: Evolutionary, Cognitive, and Social Perspectives

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Using evolutionary, cognitive, and social psychology, this book explores the controversial issue of facial attractiveness. Using evolutionary, cognitive, and social psychology, this volume examines the issues raised by the question, "What makes some faces more attractive than others" The authors challenge the views that beauty is simply in the "eye of the beholder," that it is idiosyncratic, and that it is nothing more than an artifact of culture and argue instead that there are a variety of biological, social, motivational, and developmental issues involved in facial attractiveness. By exploring attractiveness and preference from these various perspectives, this collection offers profound and unique insight on how and why we are attracted to certain facial types, and how that attraction can influence our social interaction. Some of the ideas presented in Facial Attractiveness are surprising, others controversial, and others even paradoxical. Combined, however, they offer a new perspective on age-old questions of attraction, beauty, and preference. Each author challenges standard assumptions about beauty, and encourages the reader to explore new trends in evolutionary, social, and cognitive psychology in search of a more coherent answer to the questions of what makes a face attractive and why.

Reviews

[W]ill have a wide audience that ranges from general readers and lower-division undergraduates to faculty and professionals.-Choice
"Will have a wide audience that ranges from general readers and lower-division undergraduates to faculty and professionals."-Choice
"[W]ill have a wide audience that ranges from general readers and lower-division undergraduates to faculty and professionals."-Choice

Author Bio

GILLIAN RHODES is Professor of Psychology at the University of Western Australia and the author of Superportraits: Caricatures and Recognition. She is a recipient of the New Zealand Psychological Society's Hunter Award for Excellence in Research and is on the editorial boards of Psychonomic Bulletin, The British Journal of Psychology, and the New Zealand Journal of Psychology. LESLIE A. ZEBROWITZ is Manuel Yellen Professor of Social Relations and Professor of Psychology at Brandeis University. She is the author of Social Perception and Reading Faces. She has been a Visiting Scholar at Seoul National University, the Murray Research Center at Harvard University, and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. She also has served as Program Director for Social Psychology at the U.S. National Science Foundation.