ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the importance of physical attractiveness in dating and beyond and discusses some of the explanations social scientists have advanced to account for it. Differences in physical attractiveness also play a role in how punitive adults are toward children who make mistakes. Karen Dion had male and female research participants observe an experimenter interact with a child who was made to appear either physically attractive or unattractive. Subsequently, research participants administered penalties to the child for incorrect responses on a picture-matching task. The analyses of participants' records showed that physical attractiveness and gender strongly influenced many aspects of their social lives. For both men and women, physical attractiveness was positively related to the affective quality of their social experience. In other words, attractive participants perceived same-sex interactions as well as opposite-sex interactions as more intimate and pleasant than did unattractive participants.
