The experience of attractiveness, health and youthfulness of the female body: Effects of femininity of body shape and gait

Abstract

Previous studies show that men experience the typical feminine (“hourglass”) body shape as the most attractive. In the present study, we tested two hypotheses regarding this preference. (1) The hourglass shape is attractive because it gives the impression of a healthy and young female person at her reproductive peak. (2) In order to increase their attractiveness, women can additionally enhance their femininity using dynamic means such as the feminine walk. In our experiment, 45 male participants rated 4 female avatars on the Attractive-Unattractive, Healthy-Sick and Young-Old scales. Stimuli (avatars) were generated using the DAZ 3D software. The body structure of avatars was scaled from low to high femininity: the lower the waistto- hip ratio and the larger the breasts and buttocks, the higher the body femininity. The avatars were presented in two dynamic conditions – a neutral and feminine walk (catwalk). The main effects of body femininity, as well as gait femininity were significant for all dependent variables. Ratings formed inverted Ushaped plots with the peaks at medium levels of femininity and the lowest values at the lowest and highest levels of femininity. The plots for attractiveness and health were symmetrical, while the youthfulness curve was asymmetrical – more feminine avatars were rated as older than less feminine ones. Similar differences were also obtained in regression analysis, which showed that attractiveness can be better predicted by health than by youth. Finally, a feminine gait raised the ratings by making the avatars more attractive, healthy and youthful. These results showed that (1) the experience of attractiveness was more closely related to the impression of a healthy than a youthful appearance, (2) the most attractive, healthiest and youngest looking bodies were at medium levels of femininity, and (3) all ratings increased with more pronounced feminine dynamics (catwalk).