Attraction in every sense: How looks, voice, movement and scent draw us to future lovers and friends.

Abstract

What makes someone attractive has been examined for faces, in terms of common preferences, and for opposite-sex interactions. We expanded on this by considering also other non-verbal modalities, personal preferences and same-sex interactions. We presented the face, body motion, voice and body odour from 61 non-verbal agents (34 women) as stimuli in an attractiveness rating to 71 perceivers (37 women). Our results showed that the modalities were differently attractive and that some correlated more than others. Specifically, body odours were least and audio-video stimuli most attractive. Voice/looks as well as body odour/movement showed fairly robust positive associations. Both common and personal preferences accounted for variance in the data. Most effects compared between opposite- and same-sex ratings, with only a few exceptions, including that only same-sex ratings showed a clear dominance of personal over common preferences. We conclude that the different non-verbal modalities are equally relevant for attraction but differ in absolute attractiveness and redundancy, likely due to their different suitability for communicating stable (e.g. genetic) versus variable (e.g. hormonal) person characteristics. Beauty excites agreement and disagreement; it matters not only in encounters with the other sex but in social interactions more broadly.