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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1982, Vol. 43, No. 5, 979-996

Copyright 1982 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0022-3514/82/4305-0979100.75

Physical Attractiveness in Social Interaction: II.Why Does Appearance Affect Social Experience?

Harry T. Reis, Ladd Wheeler, Nancy Spiegel, and Michael H. KernisUniversity of Rochester

John NezlekCollege of William and Mary

Michael PerriIndiana University School of Medicine

This study was undertaken to determine precisely how physical attractivenessaffects people's social participation in everyday life. The following results wereobtained: (a) For males, physical attractiveness related positively to the quantityof social interaction with females and negatively to that with males; for females,attractiveness did not relate to the quantity of socializing, (b) Attractiveness re-lated positively to the affective quality of social experience for both sexes, (c)Attractive males were more assertive and were lower in fear of rejection by theopposite sex. Attractive females were less assertive and were lower in trust of theopposite sex. (d) For both sexes, assertiveness related positively to the quantityand quality of social participation. Fear of rejection led males to interact lesswith females and more with males and to have poorer quality interactions overall,(e) Social competence was shown to mediate part of the influence of beauty onmales' interaction patterns. For females, the effects of social competence on socialinteraction were shown to be opposite to those of attractiveness, suggesting thatthey have independent influences. The results were interpreted in terms of theimportance of understanding how and why physical appearance may influencepeople's day-to-day social experiences.

Ever since the pioneering review of Ber-scheid and Walster (1974), social psycholo-gists have been sensitive to the importanceof physical attractiveness in person percep-tion. Evidence abounds that attractive peopleare judged more positively on a wide varietyof dimensions (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster,1972), and are preferred, at least hypotheti-cally, as heterosexual interaction partners(Brislin & Lewis, 1968; Tesser & Brodie,1971; Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rott-mann, 1966). Unfortunately, although therole of beauty in impressions may be welldocumented, its influence in ongoing, long-term social interaction is not. The vast ma-jority of studies of the "what is beautiful isgood" stereotype deal with first impressionsof others who are not known to the subject

This research was supported in part by a grant fromthe National Science Foundation. Thanks are due toMitchell Lee and James Ludwig for their help in re-cruiting subjects.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Harry T. Reis,Department of Psychology, University of Rochester,Rochester, New York 14627.

and about whom limited information isavailable. In contrast, the bulk of our socialcontacts occur with people whom we havemet previously and about whom at leastminimal information exists. Consequently,the effects of physical attractiveness in ev-eryday life require further elaboration. Thistask constituted the first goal of the presentresearch. Our second goal was concernedwith the causal question: Why does physicalattractiveness influence social participation?Berscheid and Walster (1974) noted that onlytentative explanations could be offered. Ifbeauty has compelling social effects, it is vitalto delineate how this occurs,

There is ample justification for distin-guishing actual behavior from impersonalsocial judgments. For one reason, our folk-lore embraces many axioms about what itmeans to be beautiful, and these beliefs mayinfluence ratings in a manner different fromthe way beauty affects real life (Nisbett &Wilson, 1977). For another, the effects ofappearance may change substantially as moreinformation is available about the target per-

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980 REIS, WHEELER, SPIEGEL, KERNIS, NEZLEK, AND PERRI

son and as a relationship develops. Yet fewstudies exist examining the impact of a per-son's attractiveness on his or her social par-ticipation, and these tend to focus on globalmeasures that do not lend themselves to de-tailed analysis. Krebs and Adinolfi (1975)found that sociometrically accepted individ-uals of both sexes were more attractive thanisolates, and less attractive than rejecteds. Ina related vein, Herold (1979) found that col-lege students' social satisfaction correlatedpositively with attractiveness. On the otherhand, Berscheid, Walster, and Campbell(Note 1) reported that females who were at-tractive in college were less satisfied with life20 years later.

Much more precise information was pro-vided by Reis, Nezlek, and Wheeler (1980).Because the present study builds on their re-sults, we will discuss this research in somedetail. They utilized the social interactiondiary (Wheeler & Nezlek, 1977), a standard-ized technique that permits identificationand assessment of various parameters rele-vant to socializing. This procedure requiredsubjects to complete a brief fixed-format rec-ord for every social contact that lasted 10minutes or longer. From these records, sum-mary indexes describing numerous quanti-tative and qualitative variables were derived,both across all interactions and specific tosame-, opposite-, and mixed-sex groupings.Their primary results were as follows: (a)Relative to unattractive males, attractivemales interacted more often and for longerperiods with a greater number of differentfemales. Conversely, they interacted less withfewer male friends. For females, attractive-ness did not relate to the quantitative aspectsof social participation, (b) For both sexes,attractiveness correlated positively with re-ported intimacy and satisfaction. This cor-relation increased over time, (c) Attractivemales felt that a greater percentage of theirinteractions with females were mutually ini-tiated rather than self- or other-initiated, im-plying but not demonstrating greater socialconfidence. These data provided the firstcomprehensive look at the impact of ap-pearance on everyday social life.

The present study was designed to enhanceour knowledge about these findings in three

ways. The first deals with a potentially seriousartifact in those data, which might be labeledthe marketplace economy effect. That studywas conducted with first-year college studentsubjects. The male/female ratio at the uni-versity was 60/40, and first-year females typ-ically socialize with males from all 4 yearsof college. As a result, females would expe-rience fewer selection pressures, because thelarger group of available males ensures a part-ner^) for any interested female. On the otherhand, first-year males are generally limitedby convention to first-year females, puttingthe less attractive and therefore less sociallydesirable males at a disadvantage. This mar-ketplace reasoning may be responsible for thesex difference found: Attractiveness corre-lated strongly with the quantitative aspectsof interaction for males but not for females.This explanation would be interesting in itsown right, but it differs substantially from asocial competence perspective.

To investigate and eliminate this expla-nation, the present study was conducted withcollege seniors. The same argument, mutatismutandis, would predict a reversal of theprevious results. Senior males have a largepool of available females, whereas senior fe-males must compete with younger females,putting unattractive females at a relative dis-advantage.

The second aim of the present study wasto find out why attractiveness relates to socialparticipation. There are few studies availablethat directly assess the reasons why prettypeople seem to have a social advantage. Onepossibility, the simpler one, is' that we seekout attractive others because they are moreaesthetically pleasing to look at and becausewe have been taught that "what is beautifulis good" and therefore desirable. Numerousstudies support this proposition (e.g., Brislin& Lewis, 1968; Dion et al., 1972; Tesser &Brodie, 1971). On the other hand, a moreinsidious and significant self-fulfilling proph-ecy may be occurring. As Snyder, Tanke, andBerscheid (1977) demonstrated, merely be-lieving another person to be attractive maybe sufficient to alter their behavior. If ap-pearance plays an important role in how peo-ple are responded to (Hildebrandt & Fitz-gerald, 1978) and evaluated (Dion, 1972)

PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 981

from infancy, a lifetime of differential treat-ment might well be responsible for variationsin the behavior of attractive and unattractivepersons, in terms of personality, self-confi-dence, or social style. (Models positing thissort of mechanism have recently been pro-posed by Adams, 1977, and Langlois & Ste-phan, 1981.) Once such individual differ-ences have been established, they would belikely to perpetuate themselves, even if laterpartners had no stereotype or preference re-garding attractiveness. After all, interactionwith a more skillful other is more enjoyable.It is therefore important to see whether themore permanent and hence consequentialindividual differences that we might expecton the .basis of stereotypy have occurred.

A final purpose of the present research wasreplication of our earlier results. In particu-lar, two findings require replication. The firstconcerns the absence of any correlation be-tween beauty and quantity of interaction forfemales. Certainly this conclusion contra-dicts popular wisdom and a wealth of studiesthat assess people's beliefs. However, it par-allels a similar sex difference found by Byrne,Ervin, and Lamberth (1970). More impor-tantly, it is consistent with Deaux's (1977)notion that males are more status-assertivein their social orientation, meaning that theyseek to gain status by their social activities.Because a partner's attractiveness can be apotent social asset (Sigall & Landy, 1973),most males would prefer beautiful femalesas friends. However, the matching hypothesispredicts that a male's probability of successis directly related to his own appearance.Hence, the more attractive a male, the greaterhis access to socially desirable females, andthe more likely he is to seek them out.Among females, according to Deaux, statusdifferentials are either irrelevant or meant tobe minimized. Consequently, the choice ofinteraction partners would not depend onbeauty. Given the potential importance ofthis interpretation, we deem it useful to rep-licate the finding.

The second result warranting replicationwas alluded to previously. We found thatattractive individuals reported more quali-tatively rewarding interactions over time,particularly with the opposite sex. By their

senior year, we would anticipate age trendsto stabilize. Does beauty produce more grat-ifying interactions and does this hold trueregardless of sex of partner?

To address these issues, a sample of maleand female college seniors kept the RochesterInteraction Record for a 2-week peripd. Con-sistent with our earlier study, the first set ofpredictions was that attractiveness would re-late to interaction quantity for males onlyand would relate to interaction quality forboth sexes. The second set of hypotheses wasconcerned with the potential mediators ofthese effects, which we will refer to as socialcompetence factors. These include social skillsand social attitudes. Reis et al. (1980) spec-ulated that attractive males would be moresocially skilled than their unattractive coun-terparts, based on a history of more exten-sive, enjoyable, and natural interactions withfemales. A background of positive socialfeedback would seem to instill greater abilityin social relations. This contention was sup-ported by Goldman and Lewis (1977), whofound that attractive males were judged tobe more skillful in an anonymous telephoneconversation. Unattractive males in our priorstudy had fewer, less satisfying, and less com-fortable contacts with females. Such negativeexperience would likely lead a male to avoidfemales and to prefer the less anxiety-pro-voking company of males. Huston (1973)described a similar attitude, arguing that un-attractive males were higher in fear of rejec-tion by the opposite sex, a trait that we be-lieve will relate to withdrawal from initiationand interaction with females. The only sup-port we have found for this prediction comesfrom Krebs and Adinolfi (1975), who foundthat unattractiveness in males related to self-protective constraint and asociability.

For females, the arguments are more com-plex. Attractive women may well be moresought out than unattractive women (Hus-ton, 1973). In this case, less assertivenesswould be required of them to form an ade-quate social life. Less attractive women mayneed to assert themselves more in initiatingand maintaining social contacts. Secondly,our culture teaches females to be wary ofmalqs "who are only interested in theirlooks." Because attractive females are more


likely to have experienced such episodes (orat least have been more likely to interpretambiguous events in terms of this salient apriori justification), we would expect themto be less trustful of men than unattractivefemales.

Our hypotheses regarding potential me-diators of the attractiveness effects can there-fore be summarized as follows: Among males,attractiveness will be associated with greatersocial assertiveness and less fear of rejectionby females. Among females, attractivenesswill be linked with lesser social assertivenessand lesser trust of males.

A brief note about the nature of the socialinteraction records is in order. This tech-nique was developed by Wheeler and Nezlek(1977) to permit investigation of the specificparameters of social participation as theynaturally occur in everyday life. The proce-dure requires subjects to complete a shortfixed-format entry for every interaction of 10minutes or longer that occurs during a speci-fied interval. Two new scales were added forthis study, and others were refined. From thesubjects' entries, indexes of duration, exten-siveness, intimacy, disclosure, satisfaction,initiation, influence, and sex compositionwere compiled, both over all interactions andsorted into various categories (same-, oppo-site-, and mixed-sex, for example, or best vs.less-close friends). These variables have beeneffective in portraying the individual's socialexperience and therefore will be used as thecritical data.

Method

Subjects and General OverviewSubjects were 43 males and 53 females enrolled in a

moderately sized, academically oriented, private North-eastern university. All were'seniors and all lived on cam-pus. They completed the interaction records for a periodranging from 7 to 18 days in November; this time periodwas chosen to minimize conflict with holidays and ex-aminations. The mean number of days was 14.53, witha standard deviation of 1.98. All records were adjustedby computing indexes on a per day or per interactionbasis. Pictures were taken at the conclusion of the record-keeping period and were rated at another university.Attitudes and social skills were also assessed subsequentto the record-keeping period.

ProcedureSubjects were recruited from a student directory for

a "research project on social interaction." The only re-

quirement was that they had to be seniors living on cam-pus. During a brief meeting, the importance of under-standing interaction patterns was explained and the stu-dents' role as collaborators in this naturalistic researchwas stressed. They were also told they would be paid$20 for their participation. However, they were askedto volunteer only if the opportunity to engage in theresearch itself was sufficiently interesting. No other ac-ademic or intrinsic incentives were provided.

The interaction record, a sample of which is shownin Figure 1, was to be completed for every interactionthat lasted 10 minutes or longer. An interaction wasdefined as any encounter with another person(s) inwhich the participants attended to one another and ad-justed their behavior in response to one another. Ex-amples were provided (e.g., sitting next to someone ina lecture was not appropriate, whereas talking during thelecture for 10 minutes was), and the various categorieswere discussed until everyone felt comfortable with theforms. A more detailed description may be found inWheeler and Nezlek (1977). We suggested to subjectsthat they fill out the records at a uniform time, such asbefore going to sleep. A scratch sheet was provided tofacilitate memory. To encourage daily recording, sub-jects were asked to return their completed forms andpick up blank ones every few days. Throughout thestudy, a collaborative, nondeceptive atmosphere wasmaintained, which we believe aided the gathering ofvalid data. Confidentiality of the records was emphasizedand closely guarded throughout.

At the conclusion of the record-keeping period, a briefinterview with one of the researchers was held. Duringthat session, the interviewer probed for difficulties, am-biguities, and potential sources of inaccurate data. Inparticular, subjects were urged to inform us of anythingthat might have impeded their accuracy. Based on theirresponses, the data of five participants were discarded.Immediately following the interview, subjects were pho-tographed to obtain physical attractiveness ratings. Theythen completed a number of personality scales, withinwhich a short form of the Texas Social Behavior Inven-tory (Helmreich & Stapp, 1974), a measure of social self-esteem, was included.

Two further sessions were scheduled with subjects,both within a few days to 2 weeks of the interview. Dur-ing one, conducted by different researchers, the socialskills measures were administered, During the secondsession, the fear of rejection and trust scales were com-pleted. These were collected during a separate sessionto avoid possible confounding with the other measures.Subjects were then paid their $20 and informed morefully about the hypotheses of the study.

Physical Attractiveness RatingsAt the conclusion of the final interview, subjects were

informed that we wished to investigate the effects ofphysical attractiveness. Slides were to be evaluated atanother university and would never be shown on theirhome campus or used for any other purposes. Further,they were allowed to reclaim their slides at any point.One subject declined to be photographed.

Uniform midthigh to over-the-head pictures weretaken against a bare white wall. All subjects were askedto smile, and the most favorable of a minimum of twoslides (as judged by the investigators) was used. Subjects


Date im Length:

Initials

Sex

__If more than 3 others:

# of females

hrs.

// of males

mins.

Intimacy: superficial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 neaninpful

I disclosed: very little 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a great deal

Other disclosed: very little 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a Rreat deal

Quality: unpleasant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 very pleasant

Satisfaction: less than expected 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 more than expected

Initiation: I initiated 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 other Initiated

Influence: I Influenced more 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 other Influenced more

Nature: Work Task Pastime Conversation Date

Figure I . Sample copy of the Rochester Interaction Record.

had not been forewarned that they would be photo-graphed; we sought to depict their everyday appearance.Furthermore, no subjects were aware that we were in-terested in attractiveness during the record-keeping pe-riod. The 96 final slides were then grouped by sex andrandomly arranged within sex. They were judged by anintroductory social psychology class of 57 females and30 males at another university 200 miles away. Thisuniversity is essentially similar in its orientation and inthe type of students it attracts. Although a group ratingsession was used, the need for independent ratings washighlighted, and the students remained silent through-out. They were instructed to use their personal standardsof physical attractiveness. Each slide was judged on thesame 1-15 scale, with 15 indicating greater attractive-ness. To provide a general orientation, the entire set ofslides was shown once. They then were judged on a sec-ond viewing, at the rate of 20 seconds per slide. All ofthe female slides were shown first, followed by the males.

Social Competence Measures

Self-esteem. Social self-esteem was assessed by ashort-form version of the Texas Social Behavior Inven-tory, a 13-item self-report measure (Helmreich & Stapp,1974). The alpha internal consistency of this scale in oursample was .82.

Rejection and trust. Since we could find no preex-isting standardized measures of fear of rejection or trust,scales of these attitudes had to be devised. Sixteen itemswere written for each scale, primarily based on their facevalidity. (For example, fear of rejection: "Many timesI am reluctant to initiate interactions with females be-cause I am afraid they won't like me"; trust: "One mustbe careful in a social relationship with a member of thesame sex, so as not to get used.") Each item appearedtwice, once referring to males and once to females. Thus,within each scale, 8 items referred to the same sex and8 referred to the opposite sex. The total 32 items wererandomly interspersed and presented under the heading"Beliefs about Males and Females."

Time pressures precluded pretesting these scales witha normative sample. However, factor analyses with vari-max rotations performed separately for females andmales revealed either one or two significant factors foreach scale. Across these analyses, two pairs of items didnot load on a significant factor and were therefore dis-carded. This resulted in four 7-item scales, each of which

showed a good range of scores and no ceiling effects.Alpha reliability coefficients were generally good (formales: fear of rejection by opposite sex = .73, fear ofrejection by same sex = .48, trust of opposite sex = .77,trust of same sex = .53; for females: fear of rejection byopposite sex = .75, fear of rejection by same sex = .74,trust of opposite sex = .67, trust of same sex = .64).

Social skills. All subjects were contacted by tele-phone and scheduled ^or individual testing by an un-dergraduate research assistant who was not connectedwith the other aspects of the research and was unawareof the variables or the hypotheses. During that session,they completed, the Dating and Assertion Questionnaire(DAQ), an 18-item scale developed by Levenson andGottman (1978) as a measure of social competence indating and assertion situations. The questionnaire as-sesses the subject's likely response and discomfort in aseries of specific social situations. For example, a sampledating item asks how comfortable subjects would be talk-ing to opposite-sex strangers who introduced themselvesat a party. A sample assertion item asks how comfortablesubjects would be insisting on an appointment with aDean who has a resisting secretary.

In this session, subjects also completed a series ofother social competence measures: the Social Avoidanceand Distress Scale (Watson & Friend, 1969), Fear ofNegative Evaluation Scale (Watson & Friend, 1969),Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (Rathus, 1973); and Be-havioral Role-Playing Assertion Test (McFall & Lille-sand, 1971). Generally, these produced weak results thatdid not amplify those found for the DAQ. For spacereasons, they will be omitted from this presentation.However, copies of these results are available from thefirst author on request.

Construction and Nomenclature ofInteraction Variables

From the raw interaction records, composite indexeswere created in the following manner: length—meanreported length of all interactions; per day—mean re-ported number of interactions per day; time per day—mean reported length summed across all interactions perday; list—number of different individuals interactedwith during the entire record-keeping period, correctedfor the number of days; and percentage—percentage ofall interactions falling into each category. Intimacy, self-disclosure, other-disclosure, pleasantness, satisfaction,


initiation, and influence were all computed as the meanvalue reported across all interactions. Each of the fivecategories of the nature variable indicated the proportionof all interactions that fell into that classification.

These variables were then subdivided in accordancewith the sex composition of the encounter: same sex—interactions including up to three other persons of thesame sex; opposite sex—interactions including up tothree members of opposite sex; mixed sex—interactionsincluding three others, at least one of each sex; andgroup—interactions including more than three otherpeople. Overall measures incorporated all interactions.The same- and opposite-sex categories were then furtherdivided to distinguish the processes inherent in close andless close relationships. Interaction partners were firstrank-ordered by their frequency of occurrence. Whereduplicate sets of initials appeared, subjects were askedto provide distinguishing middle initials. Each of theinteraction measures was then computed for subjects'three best friends (i.e., satisfaction, intimacy, and so onfor those interactions in which each of the three mostfrequently reported partners participated) and otherfriends (i.e., those interactions including friends rankedfourth through last). The appropriateness of frequencyto define closeness has been discussed earlier (Wheeler& Nezlek, 1977). In their sample, 93% of respondentsnamed one of the three most frequent interactants astheir best friend. In this sample, the corresponding figurewas 90% for same-sex friends. Fifty-one percent of sub-jects nominated one of their three most frequent op-posite-sex partners as a boyfriend or girlfriend, with an-other 36% referring to this person as a best platonic op-posite-sex friend.

A small number of the categories listed above con-tained no observations for some subjects. These entrieswere treated as missing data in the analysis.

The reliability of the journal entries could not be as-sessed formally, owing to the anonymity of the initialsused to report partners. However, 17 roommate pairsparticipated in the study and could be identified in eachother's records. The number of times each roommate'sinitials appeared in the other's records was computedfor days they both kept the diaries. The intraclass cor-relation coefficient between their reports, which does notcorrect for mean or variance differences within a pair,was .81, indicating a substantially high degree of mutualrecording.

Results

Accuracy of the Interaction Records

During the postrecord-keeping interview,a number of standard questions were asked.To ensure that any sex differences were notdue to differential accuracy with the records,one-way analyses of variance contrasting theresponses of males and females were calcu-lated. All produced F(l, 94) values nonsig-nificant at p < .25. Mean values for bothsexes combined are presented below to dem-onstrate that subjects experienced minimal

difficulties with the record-keeping process:(a) degree of difficulty recording interactions(1 = no difficulty, 7 = very much difficulty),M = 3.00; (b) perceived accuracy (1 = veryaccurate, 7 = very inaccurate), M = 2.47; (c)student's guess of the percentage of interac-tions he or she failed to record, M - 6.53;(d) number of interactions recorded thatwere less than 10 minutes, M = .99; (e) extentto which the record keeping interfered withhis or her interactions (1 = no interference,7 = a great deal of interference), M = 1.64;(f) perceived accuracy of other students inthe study (1 = very accurate, 7 = very inac-curate), M = 3.10.

These self-reports are not objective mea-sures of accuracy. However, to the extent thatone might reasonably expect them to revealdifficulties, they indicate that subjects expe-rienced few problems with the records andbelieved them to be accurate.

Ratings of Physical Attractiveness

Because ratings of physical attractivenessoften show gender-specific differences, anal-yses of the ratings were conducted. Male andfemale judges agreed strongly on their rela-tive attractiveness judgments: Mean ratingscorrelated .96 for female stimulus personsand .96 for male stimulus persons. Differ-ences appeared in the mean ratings, however.Female stimuli were seen as more attractivethan male stimuli, F(1,92) = 21.53,p < .001.This difference was also larger for femalejudges than male judges, because the Sex ofStimulus Person X Sex of Judge interactionwas highly significant, F(l, 92) - 57.50, p <.001. Cell means are shown in Table 1. Itshould be noted that both of these effectswere also found in our earlier study and thatthe cell means are similar in both studies.

The bottom section of Table 1 presents theaverage standard deviation of each stimulusperson's ratings; that is, the extent to whichjudges disagreed about each person's attrac-tiveness. There was a significant sex of ratereffect, F(l, 92) = 267.60, p < .001, indicatingthat female judges varied more among them-selves in their perceptions of a given stimulusperson than did male raters. No other effectswere significant.

Given that the relative ratings correlated


Table 1Mean Rating and Mean Variability of PhysicalAttractiveness

Stimuluspersons

Maleraters

Femaleraters

Attractiveness

MalesMSD

FemalesMSD

5.241.27

6.361.77

4.831.44

6.681,66

Mean SD across raters

Males 1.84 2.40Females 1.92 2.41

Note. There were 51 female and 43 male stimulus per-sons and 57 female and 30 male judges. Larger numbersindicate greater rated attractiveness.

strongly, these effects probably reflect sys-tematic differences in how one sex evaluatesthe attractiveness of the other, rather thanany unique characteristics of individual stim-ulus persons. To avoid confounding, eachsubject's level of physical attractiveness wascalculated by averaging the mean rating heor she received from female raters with thatobtained from male raters. This overall av-erage was used in all subsequent analyses.1'2

Physical Attractiveness and SocialInteraction

Presentation of our results will be clearerif the analytic strategy is described first. Thehypotheses entail two issues: the relationshipof physical attractiveness to social interac-tion, and identification of the social traitsresponsible for this association. Accordingly,all analyses take the form of simple Pearsoncorrelations between attractiveness and in-teraction. Readers interested in sex of subjectand partner differences in the interactionvariables themselves are referred to Wheeler,Reis, and Nezlek (Note 2). Attractiveness wascorrelated with each of the quantitative andqualitative indexes discussed above, acrossall interactions, and separately for same-sex,opposite-sex, mixed-sex, and group compo-sition. Same- and opposite-sex pairings werefurther subdivided into those interactions in-volving the subject's best, second-best, and

third-best friends. Correlations for these sub-divisions generally reiterated those foundacross all partners. In the interest of simplic-ity, they will be presented only when a dif-ferential pattern for the various friends de-viated from the general result and thereforeshed light on the phenomena.

Our reliance on such a large number ofcorrelation coefficients also warrants brief,notice. Given the large number of variablesinvolved, some significant results may be an-ticipated by chance alone (alp < .05, 1/20).Our only recourse is to examine the overallpattern of results. We will give greatest weightto those effects that demonstrate constructvalidity; that is, those that appear repeatedlyon variables measuring similar or relatedcharacteristics. Isolated effects will be notedminimally.

Quantitative Aspects of Social Interaction

Table 2 presents the correlations betweenphysical attractiveness and five quantitativeaspects of social interaction. For males, sig-nificant correlations were obtained indicat-ing that attractive males interacted with moredifferent females, had more interactions withfemales, spent more time with females andless with males, had shorter interactions withmales and in mixed-sex company, and hada greater percentage of their total interactionswith females only. Thus, the predicted pat-tern of results was confirmed. Relative to

1 The fact that the sample means fell below the scalemidpoint suggests that this may have been a relativelyneutral to unattractive sample. Although this qualifi-cation cannot be ruled out, we believe that this patternmay also be due to the method of photography and rat-ing used. The absence of professional lighting andmakeup may have made subjects appear less attractivethan persons pictured in high-quality media. Our samplewas randomly selected from the population of all stu-dents at this university. Hence, they represent the spec-trum prevalent there. However, cautious readers maywish to interpret results referring to "attractive subjects"as pertaining to "neutral to moderately attractive sub-jects."

2 Separate analyses using the mean attractiveness rat-ing by each sex produced identical results to those to bereported here. This is not surprising given their correla-tion of .96. It would appear that the sex-of-rater effectsnoted earlier are not relevant to social interaction or toa within-sex ranking. Copies of these analyses are avail-able from the first author on request.

986 REIS, WHEELER, SPIEGEL, KERMIS, NEZLEK, AND PERRI

Table 2Physical Attractiveness Correlations WithInteraction Quantity

Measure Males Females

Same listOpposite list

Same percentOpposite percentMixed percentGroup percent

Interactions per day (overall)SameOppositeMixedGroup

Time per day (overall)SameOppositeMixedGroup

Length (overall)SameOppositeMixedGroup

.19

.49

-.32.48

-.05-.35

.15-.16

.45

.05-.21

-.08-.42

.25-.03-.20

-.26-.32

.04-.28-.09

-.26-.06

.05

.04-.17-.18

-.25-.15-.11-.32-.31

-.26-.10-.07-.32-.24

.00-.01

.12

.02

.03

Note. For females, « = 51; for males, « = 43. At p <.05, male r > .30, female r > .27. Fuller explanation ofthe measures used can be found in the section labeled"Construction and Nomenclature of Interaction Vari-ables."

their less attractive counterparts, attractivemales socialized more with females.

By and large, the pattern of correlationsfor females was also as predicted. Physicalattractiveness was not significantly related tointeraction quantity, reaffirming the sameresult found by Reis et al. (1980). Attractivefemales did report fewer mixed-sex interac-tions, less time in mixed-sex and group in-teractions, less time in mixed-sex and groupcompany, and fewer same-sex interactionpartners. These figures are sparse. However,they suggest a relative disadvantage for at-tractive females, because they involve deficitswithout corresponding increments in othercategories.

These findings may be clarified by a scat-terplot. Figure 2 depicts the distribution ofvalues for physical attractiveness and oppo-site-sex interactions per day. The relativelygood fit of the points around the regression

line can be seen in the right-hand figure(males). The left-hand figure (females) iswidely dispersed and shows no apparent clus-tering.

Separate analysis of the indexes for closeand less close friends clarified the results formales. The correlations between attractive-ness and number of interactions per day withthe first-, and second- and third-best femalefriend were .11, .27, and .27 (the latter twors approach significance at p < . 10). With allother friends, this correlation was .51 (p<.001). More strongly, attractiveness did notcorrelate significantly with time and per-centage of interactions with the first threefemale friends, but it did for other friends(time: r = .39, percentage: r= .51 , both/»<.001). Evidently, attractive males ex-panded their interaction with females by in-creasing contact with less close female friends.

Same-sex interaction quantity revealed aninteresting pattern when examined sepa-rately for close and other friends. Percentage,number of interactions, and time all revealednegative correlations with attractiveness forthe top three friends but showed positive cor-relations for other friends (percentage: r =-.47 vs. .20, interactions per day, r = -.26vs. .36, time per day, r= -.39 vs. .19, alldifferences were significant atp < .05). Thus,attractive males increased their interactionswith more superficial male friends at the ex-pense of time spent with closer male friends.

Separate analyses by which friend did notexplain the lack of relationship found for fe-males.

Qualitative Aspects of Social Interaction

Table 3 presents the correlations betweeninteraction quality and physical attractive-ness. As predicted, males' attractiveness cor-related consistently with rated intimacy, self-disclosure, and other-disclosure in all of thecomposition categories. In contrast, pleas-antness and satisfaction, the two measuresof affective quality, showed no significantcorrelations for males. Among females, in-timacy and disclosure correlated similarlywith attractiveness, although their magnitudewas diminished sufficiently to make mostnonsignificant. Primarily in same- and op-


• * *

1.2 2.0 2.8 ).« ».»1.4 2.« 3.2 «.0

.50 1.1 Z.f l.f «.5 S.»1.0 2.0 9.0 «.« ».0

OPPOSITE-SEX INTEMCTIONS PHI BUY OPPOSITt-SEX INTBMCtlONS ft" 0*V

Figure 2. Scatterplot for physical attractiveness and opposite-sex interaction.

posite-sex categories, these relationships at-tained marginal significance (p<AO).Overall pleasantness and satisfaction weresignificantly correlated with attractivenessfor females, stemming predominantly fromsame-sex interactions. Pleasantness was alsorelated significantly to attractiveness in op-posite-sex and mixed-sex groupings. For bothsexes, these data were not influenced by thecloseness of the interaction partner.

Regarding initiation and influence, we hy-pothesized that attractiveness would be pos-itively related to self-perceived initiation inopposite-sex interaction by males and nega-tively related to initiation by females. Con-sistent with traditional sex roles, males re-ported opposite-sex interaction as self-initi-ated more often than females (male M-3.84, female M = 4.23, t(94) = 2.98, p < .01).Although the correlations within each sexonly approached significance, the sex differ-ence strongly supported the prediction. At-tractive males reported more frequent self-initiations than unattractive males; incontrast, attractive females felt they had self-initiated less often than unattractive females(z difference = 2.18, p<.03). Breakdowns

revealed that these effects arose primarilyfrom the best three friends rather than fromothers.

The Role of Social Competence

Before examining the influence of socialcompetence in mediating the relationshipbetween physical attractiveness and socialinteraction, we will briefly note the sex effectsthat emerged. On the DAQ, females ap-peared somewhat more assertive than males(Ms = 59.41 vs. 56.26, F(l, 83) = 5.61, p <.02), mostly due to a difference on the datingsubscale (Ms = 29.37 vs. 26.48, F(l, 83) =11.31, /x.OOl). The general assertivenesssubscale yielded no sex difference, nor didthe Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS)and the social self-esteem measure (TexasSocial Behavior Inventory). Males were higherthan females on the Social Avoidance andDistress Scale (Ms = 4.77 vs. 3.22, F(l, 83) =4.20, p < .05), indicating that they felt moreanxious and avoidant in social situations.Finally, fear of rejection and trust bothshowed no sex differences. However, bothsexes feared rejection by the opposite sex


more than by the same sex (males: 15.39 vs.9.88, females: 14.10 vs. 9.31, F(l, 91) =32.25, p< .001) and trusted the same sexmore than the opposite sex (males: 15.93 vs.14.06, females: 16.25 vs. 12.88, F(l, 91) =120.37, p < .01). Neither of these differencesinteracted with subject sex.

Table 3Physical Attractiveness Correlations WithInteraction Quality


Intimacy (overall) .56 .26Same .49 .26Opposite .49 .23Mixed .38 .15Group .29 .14Self-disclosure (overall) .50 .26Same , .45 .23Opposite .38 .29Mixed .45 .14Group .31 .21Other-disclosure (overall) .48 .25Same .44 .26Opposite .36 .17Mixed .35 .14Group .28 .16Pleasantness (overall) .12 .41Same .14 .40Opposite .01 .27Mixed -.05 .27Group -.06 .26Satisfaction (overall) .14 .33Same .21 .32Opposite .01 .21Mixed -.12 .21Group -.08 .23Initiation (overall) -.19 .05Same -.07 -.03Opposite -.25 .21Mixed -.06 .00Group -.03 -.09Influence (overall) -.07 .08Same .04 .15Opposite -.23 -.07Mixed -.05 .11Group .08 .07

Note. All items are scored so that larger numbers cor-respond to greater satisfaction, intimacy, and so on. Ini-tiation and influence are scored so that larger numbersindicate greater other-initiation and influence. To besignificant at p < .05, male r > .30, female r > .27. Fullerexplanation of the measures used can be found in thesection labeled "Construction and Nomenclature of In-teraction Variables."

Table 4Correlations of Physical Attractiveness andSocial Competence


DAQ .43** -.39**Dating assertiveness .42** —.12General assertiveness .30* -.46**

RAS .19 -.27*SAD. -.24 -.01Social self-esteem .23 -.16Fear of rejection

Opposite sex -.45** .00

Trust

Same sex .19 .03

Note. DAQ = Dating and Assertion Questionnaire;RAS = Rathus Assertiveness Schedule; SAD = SocialAvoidance and Distress Scale.* p < .05. ** p< .01.

Social Competence and PhysicalAttractiveness

Table 4 presents the correlations betweenthe various social competence measures andrated physical attractiveness. The most strik-ing result is that the DAQ and beauty cor-related positively among males but nega-tively among females. Thus our hypothesiswas strongly confirmed. Appearance had dia-metrically opposed consequences for the so-cial assertiveness of females and males. Thisreversal was clearest on the general asser-tiveness subscale of the DAQ. Additionally,a simijar pattern appeared on the dating as-sertiveness subscale for males and on theRAS for females. Two other competencevariables, although nonsignificant, producedtrends consistent with this result. Attractive-ness correlated positively with social self-es-teem among males but negatively among fe-males. These correlations differed from eachother at p < .06. Secondly, social avoidanceand distress tended to be higher among lessattractive males than their attractive coun-terparts.

Fear of rejection and trust also supportedour hypotheses. As predicted, fear of rejec-tion was negatively correlated with appear-ance among males. The more attractive amale was rated by the judges, the less he


feared rejection by females. On the otherhand, trust of the opposite sex correlated sig-nificantly with rated beauty among females,so that the more attractive a woman was, theless she trusted males.

Social Competence and Social Interaction

We next examined the relationship of so-cial competence to the interaction records.These data are important in and of them-selves, because there are no available studiesdocumenting the connection between as-sessed social competence and people's actualsocial experiences in everyday life. For thisreason, the following section includes a fullpresentation of these results.

As shown in Table 5, the DAQ correlatedsignificantly with a wide range of interactionvariables among males.3 Males who werehigher in dating assertiveness and to a lesserextent higher in general assertiveness dem-onstrated the following pattern of social par-ticipation: more interactions with more dif-ferent females for a greater time per day; agreater percentage of their interactions withfemales, and a lesser percentage with malesj-and greater reported intimacy, self-disclo-sure, other-disclosure and pleasantness of in-teraction in all composition categories. Inother words, males who were more assertiveassociated with females more frequently andfound all of their interactions more involv-ing. The possibility that this may reflect ageneral social competence factor is supportedby a similar pattern of correlations for socialself-esteem and fear of rejection by the op-posite sex. The more males feared such re-jection, the fewer females they interactedwith, the less often they socialized with fe-males (favoring more contact with males in-stead, in terms of time, frequency, and per-centage), and the less intimate and disclosingtheir interactions with both sexes. To sum-marize this section, among males, socialcompetence skills were strongly related tohaving more interaction with females thanmales and to more intimate and enjoyableinteractions across the board.

Table 6 presents the comparable correla-tion coefficients for females. Generally, thepattern of significant relationships is less

widespread than for males. However, socialself-esteem revealed a fascinating reversal.Whereas for males, high self-confidence pre-dicted more interaction with the opposite sexand less interaction with the same sex, amongfemales, high self-confidence was linked withmore same-sex and less opposite-sex contact.This can be seen for the percentage, inter-actions per day, and time variables.

More consistent with the males' data werethe results for interaction quality. High socialself-esteem and dating assertiveness tendedto be positively related to intimacy, pleas-antness, and satisfaction, although mostly inopposite-sex interactions. High fear of rejec-tion by the opposite sex also led to less fre-quent contact with males and less pleasantinteractions generally. Although not listed inTable 6, the Social Avoidance and DistressScale also predicted satisfaction in opposite-sex interactions (r = -.37, p < .01), as wellas in other categories (rs range from .23 to.28), indicating that greater satisfaction wasfound among less distressed women. Trustof the opposite sex was predicted to be a cen-tral determinant of females' interaction pat-terns. Although the results were weak, theywere in the appropriate direction. The morea female trusted males, the less she interactedwith females and the more time she spentwith males.

Initiation and influence yielded resultsworth brief mention. Across all composi-tion categories, greater self-influence wasreported by males high in trust of the op-posite sex (r = -.40, p < .01), high in socialself-esteem (r = -.27, p < .10), low in socialavoidance and distress (r = .40, p < .01), andlow in fear of rejection by the opposite sex(r= .26, j?<.10). These correlations weresimilar across all four composition catego-ries. Fear of opposite-sex rejection also pre-dicted more self-initiated same-sex interac-tions (r = -.27, p < .10), whereas socialavoidance and distress predicted more other-initiated opposite-sex interactions (r = .27,p < .10). These two correlations are impor-tant because they suggest that fear of rejec-

3 For ease of inspection, only correlations that ap-proached significance at p<.10 are listed in Tables5 and 6.


tion or high social avoidance may lead a maleto seek put same-sex partners, while inter-acting with females only when sought after.

Greater self-influence was reported by fe-males high in social self-esteem (r = —.28,p < .05), general assertiveness (r = -.36, p <

Table 5Social Competence Correlated With Interaction: Males

Measure

Same listOpposite listPercent

SameOppositeMixedGroup

Interactions per dayOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

Time per dayOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

IntimacyOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

Self-disclosureOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

Other-disclosureOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

PleasantnessOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

SatisfactionOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

DAQ

.40

-.43.47

-.26

.40

-.28.39

.44

.41

.36

.33

.42

.38

.27

.36

.43

.39

.36

.34

.25

.34

.27

.25

Datingassertiveness

.32

-.32.43

-.30

.42

.39

.39

.38

.39

.30

.40

.36

.36

.31

.42

.35

.31

.39

.29

.32

Generalassertiveness

.31

-.36.31

-.30

-.33'

.32

.26

.25

.25

.25

.29

.27

.26

.32

.29

.27

Self-esteem

.23

-.30.39

.29

.27

.41

.32

.31

.27

.32

.32

.35

.35

.37

.27

.33

.30

.31

Rejection byopposite sex

-.36

.46-.50

.30-.37

.31-.39

-.35-.32-.34

-.40-.40-.25-.26

-.36-.37-.30

Trust ofopposite sex

-.25

-.26

-.25

.25

.25

Note. All correlations with p < . 10 are tabled. To be significant at p < .05, male rs > .30, female rs > .21. DAQ =Dating Assertion Questionnaire. Fuller explanation of the measures used can be found in the section labeled"Construction and Nomenclature of Interaction Variables."


.01), and low in fear of rejection by males(r = .27, p < .05, for opposite-sex interactionsonly). Finally, dating assertiveness was

greater among females who reported greaterother-initiation (r = .33, p < .05), consistentwith traditional sex-role attitudes.

Table 6Social Competence Correlated With Interaction: Females

DAQ

Same list .29Opposite listPercent

SameOppositeMixedGroup

Interactions per dayOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup .25

Time per dayOverallSameOppositeMixed .26Group .28

IntimacyOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

Self-disclosureOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

Other-disclosureOverallSameOppositeMixedGroup

PleasantnessOverallSameOpposite .32MixedGroup

SatisfactionOverall .24SameOpposite .38MixedGroup

Dating Generalassertiveness assertiveness

.37

.27

.33

.27

.34

.26

.37

.24

.29 .31.29

Rejection bySelf-esteem opposite sex

.48

.27 -.27

.33 .27-.39

.28 -.27

.38-.36-.29

.28

-.27.33

-.34 -.27

.24\

.31

-.35

.25 -.51-.28

.36

.40 -.26

.31

Trust ofopposite sex

-.34

.24

-.25

.24

Note. All correlations with p < . 10 are tabled. To be significant at p < .05, male rs > .30, female rs > .27. DAQ =Dating Assertion Questionnaire. Fuller explanation of the measures used can be found in the section labeled"Construction and Nomenclature of Interaction Variables."


Does Social Competence Mediate theRelationship Between PhysicalAttractiveness and Social Interaction?

The final question concerns the issue ofcausality: How is it that physical attractive-ness comes to influence people's social in-teraction? To address this subject, a partial-ing procedure was used. Based on our reviewof the literature, two causal paths seemedviable. The first will be referred to as themediational path: As a result of a person'sphysical attractiveness, differential levels ofsocial competence are acquired. These inturn affect social participation. The secondhypothesis is one of independence: Althoughboth physical attractiveness and social com-petence relate to social interaction, their ef-

Table 7Correlations of Attractiveness and SocialInteraction, Controlling for Social Competence

Variable correlatedwith: Zero-order r

Males

Partial r

Number of opposite-sex persons

Interactions per dayOpposite sex

Time per daySame sexOpposite sex

Percentage withSame sexOpposite sex

IntimacySame sexOpposite sex

Self-disclosureSame sexOpposite sex

Other-disclosureSame sexOpposite sex

InitiationOpposite sex

PleasantnessSame sexOpposite sex

SatisfactionSame sexOpposite sex

InitiationOpposite sex

.49

.41

-.43.25

-.30.44

.51

.49

.47

.35

.48

.35

-.28

Females

.36

.26

.27

.19

.25

.38

.28

-.33.07

-.11.27

.42

.40

.33

.27

.35

.25

-.28

.40

.49

.35

.43

.35

fects may be separate. If the mediational hy-pothesis is correct, then partialing socialcompetence out of the physical-attractive-ness-social-interaction correlations found tobe significant earlier should reduce them tononsignificance. On the other hand, the in-dependence hypothesis specifies that partial-ing should leave these correlations largelyunaltered, since the effects are mutually ex-clusive.4

For both sexes, the most important andrepresentative correlations found in Tables2 and 3 were recomputed, partialing out thepotential mediators identified in Tables 4, 5,and 6. Looking at the data for males first,this meant removing the effects attributableto dating assertiveness and fear of rejectionby the opposite sex. As can be seen in Table7, partialing consistently reduced but did noteliminate the interaction-attractiveness cor-relations.5 For example, appearance corre-lated .41 (p < .01) with the number of op-posite-sex interactions per day; controllingfor dating assertiveness and fear of rejection,this correlation dropped to .28 (/><.10).Apparently, part of the effect of appearanceon social interaction may be mediated byattractiveness-related differences in socialcompetence; however, an independent influ-ence remained.

For females, a more complex pictureemerged. The only major interaction vari-ables to relate strongly to appearance werepleasantness and satisfaction. Partialing gen-eral assertiveness, trust of the opposite sex,and the RAS (cf. Table 4) out of these cor-relations increased the magnitude of theseeffects, as listed in the lower half of Table 7.This was particularly true fpr opposite-sexinteractions. This result indicates coopera-tive suppression (Cohen & Cohen, 1975)/inwhich two variables, although negatively re-lated to each other, nonetheless both relate

4 The astute reader will note that other paths may beviable also. For example, competence might affect at-tractiveness, in that more attractive persons might paymore attention to grooming. Although studies of thesepaths might be fruitful, we sought here only to examinethe mediating link suggested by the reasoning proposedearlier: that attractiveness has long-term effects due toits impact on social competence.

5 The zero-order correlations of Table 7 may differsomewhat from those of Tables 2 and 3 due to missingdata on the social competence measure.


positively to a third variable. For example,recall that attractiveness and general asser-tiveness both correlated positively with op-posite-sex satisfaction. However, they cor-related negatively with each other (r = -.46).Together, they enhance each other's utilityby accounting for different proportions ,ofvariance and by suppressing irrelevant errorvariance in each other. This means that thecomponents of beauty and social skill thatrelate to satisfaction are not related to eachother. Instead, different aspects of these vari-ables are responsible for their negative rela-tionship. More simply put, attractive womenwere more satisfied with their contacts inspite of the fact that their lesser assertivenesspredicted that they would be less satisfied.Cooperative suppression was found for thefollowing opposite-sex variables: pleasant-ness, satisfaction, initiation (which are shownin Table 7) intimacy, self-disclosure, other-disclosure, and length, which also increasedwhen partialed but by lesser amounts. Ratherthan mediating the effects of appearance, so-cial competence produced contrary conse-quences.

Discussion

We will begin by summarizing the resultsthat bear on our initial hypotheses, (a) Formales, physical attractiveness related posi-tively to the quantity of social interactionwith females and negatively to that withmales; for females, attractiveness did not re-late to the quantity of socializing, (b) Attrac-tiveness related positively to the quality ofsocial experience for both sexes. Attractivemales had more intimate and disclosing in-teractions across all partners. Attractive fe-males' interactions were generally more satis-fying, pleasant, intimate, and disclosing, (c)Attractive males were more assertive andwere lower in fear of rejection by the oppositesex. Attractive females were less assertive andwere lower in trust of the opposite sex. (d)For both sexes, assertiveness related posi-tively to the quantity and quality of socialparticipation. Fear of rejection by females ledmales to interact less with females and morewith males and to have poorer quality inter-actions overall, (e) Social competence me-diated part of the influence of beauty on

males' interaction patterns. For females, theeffects of social competence on interactionwere opposite to those of attractiveness, sug-gesting that they operate divergently.

The finding that physical attractivenessrelated to interaction quantity among malesand not females verifies the result found byReis et al. (1980). More importantly, it elim-inates the potential marketplace explanationfor this finding. Apparently, the advantagesthat attractive males have in social partici-pation are not due to differential selectionpressures brought on by the pool of availablealternatives. Thus it seems safe to concludethat males' beauty is of greater consequence,insofar as amount and distribution of s,o-cializing is concerned, than that of females.

Clearly, this finding contradicts many be-liefs pervasive in popular culture, which holdthat a woman's beauty is the major deter-minant of her access to males. Perhaps moreimportantly, it also contradicts studies show-ing that attractiveness plays a focal role infemales' popularity (e.g., Berscheid, Dion,Walster, & Walster, 1971; Coombs & Ken-kel, 1966). It may well be that this preceptis so ingrained in our culture that it servesas an explanation whenever possible, despiteminimal validity. This is what Nisbett andWilson (1977) referred to as an a priori the-ory: a cultural belief applied to a given sit-uation simply because of its salience and su-perficial applicability, even though it may notbe correct. If this is true, future researchersmust be cautious to distinguish actual be-havioral differences from those that are partof this mythical belief system.

Of course, this begs the important ques-tion: Why wasn't interaction quantity relatedto females' beauty as it was for males? Onepotential explanation arises from the socialcompetence data. Attractive males were gen-erally more assertive and less fearful ofwomen. It therefore seems likely that theywould approach womep more readily. Givena woman's likely response to being sought bya socially desirable person, the attractivemale would probably gain approval. In sup-port is the correlation found between attrac-tiveness and opposite-sex self-initiation. Onthe other hand, attractive women were lessassertive than unattractive women and re-ported more other-initiated opposite-sex en-


counters. In other words, they were morelikely to wait to be approached by others,perhaps because of cultural stereotypes abouttheir social demand. These same cultural ste-reotypes might induce most males to evalu-ate their chances of acceptance as small, how-ever, resulting in fewer initiations than mightbe expected from the attractiveness myth. Amale fearful of rejection might estimate hisprobability of acceptance as higher with a lessattractive woman and pursue her instead(Huston, 1973). Such a female is also moreassertive, as we saw earlier, facilitating fur-ther interaction. To summarize this line ofargument, people's beliefs about the role ofappearance in acceptance and rejection mayactually inhibit the social contacts of beau-tiful females, both due to their own lack ofskills and because of probability estimates bymales. Doubtless some males do approachattractive females, precluding a negative cor-elation between appearance and quantity ofinteraction. A pattern of essentially no rela-tionship results, as was depicted in Figure 2.

A complementary accounting is affordedby Deaux's (1977) postulates about the socialorientations of males and females. Accordingto Deaux, malesN are status assertive, seekingto enhance their social standing through theirrelationships. Attractive males, possessing avaluable social asset, would assess their lotmore favorably and pursue the company ofattractive women. After all, the companion-ship of an attractive female can enhanceone's status (Sigall & Landy, 1973). Unat-tractive males, aware of the matching hy-potheses and more afraid of rejection, wouldsimply be less likely to try. Females are morestatus neutralizing in Deaux's system, in thatthey strive to eliminate differences in socialrank, preferring closeness instead. Tangibleassets such as beauty play less of a determin-ing role. The absence of one type of rela-tionship, such as with a male of great socialdesirability, would simply lead to acceptinganother, since the material assets of one'spartner are not quite so important as the rela-tionship itself.

The contention that a compensatorymechanism may be involved for females issupported by the finding of a positive cor-relation between beauty and interactionquality. Attractive females reported more sat-isfying and pleasant interactions. Perhaps

this is indicative of having more choiceamong potential partners, giving one greaterfreedom to socialize with rewarding friendsand rebuff others. A greater feeling of per-sonal control over social time would be partof ftiis pattern as well. It is tempting to arguethat attractive females may in fact be moreskilled, at least in domains other than asser-tiveness, as a result of their history of positivesocial feedback. Our data do not support thishypothesis. For one, attractive women werenot more skilled on any of the competencemeasures we collected. More importantly,Table 6 revealed that social competence, par-ticularly dating assertiveness, related to in-teraction quality favorably. Attractive womenwere more satisfied even though they pos-sessed less of the skills that favor satisfaction.This is the suppressor effect noted in Table7. The implication is that somehow beautyovercomes and then supplements the affec-tive experience that might be expected for aless socially competent person.

To what may we attribute this augmentingeffect? One possibility stems from the self-fulfilling prophecy demonstrated by Snyderet al. (1977). In that study, males were toldthat an anonymous female telephone partnerwas either attractive or unattractive. Whensubjects thought she was pretty, their con-versation changed sufficiently to elicit morepositive behavior in return. It may be thatthis occurs regularly in the lives of attractivefemales. People expect them to be more so-cially adept (Dion et al., 1972) and are prob-ably more pleased to share their company.Others' behavior is more positive, inducingsimilar behavior on the attractive females'part and creating a generally enjoyable ex-perience for both. Therefore, despite a cer-tain skills deficit, attractive females may par-take in more favorable social episodes. Thispoint certainly warrants future research. In-terestingly, the argument accounts neatly forBerscheid et al.'s (Note 1) finding of lessersatisfaction in later life among college beau-ties. After having learned to enjoy socializingenhanced in large part by the reactions ofothers to one's appearance rather than one'ssocial competence, a deficiency endures thatbecomes consequential once beauty fadesand other people no longer provide the spark.

The picture for males is considerably sim-pler. As Reis et al. (1980) found, attractive


males relied more heavily on interaction withfemales, in terms of percentage, frequency ofevents, time, and number of different others.In that study, appearance predicted variancepercentages in the range of 25%; in this studyapproximately 16% of the variance was ac-counted for (medium effects in Cohen's[1980] guidelines). At least part of this rela-tionship was mediated by social competence.For those variables demonstrating the effect,the amount of variance accounted fordropped from approximately 16% to 9%when social competence was controlled. Inother words, about half of the attractivenesseffect may be mediated in this way. Moreintuitively, recall that attractive males weremore assertive and less afraid of rejection bywomen, in addition to participating in inter-actions that they felt were more intimate anddisclosing. A pattern emerges of more mean-ingful experiences and greater skill, or at leastwillingness, to solicit social contact. It seemsobvious that a history of positive social feed-back would create such proficiency. Moreimportantly, interaction with more intimate,disclosing, assertive, and unafraid males islikely to be more gratifying in and of itself,making them more desirable partners re-gardless of their appearance. The fact that themediation hypothesis accounted for onlypart of the variance suggests, however, thatbeauty still does have an impact on males'interactions, probably in much the samemanner as discussed earlier for females. Ifpeople hold "what is beautiful is good" ex-pectations for males (Dion et al., 1972), thentheir expectations ought to elicit more fa-vorable responses from attractive males. Infact, Andersen and Bern (1981) have shownthis, using the Snyder et al. (1977) telephonecall paradigm (although the direction differedfor androgynous and traditional women).Consequently, beautiful males may add self-fulfilling prophecies to their social compe-tence advantage.

A few words on our methodology are inorder. Although the controls might have beentighter in the laboratory, we see two majoradvantages to this naturalistic paradigm. Thefirst is the assessment of how appearance ac-tually affects social behavior in everyday life;the second is the emphasis on underlyingcausal processes. Speaking to the first issue,many of our results imply that people's naive

postulates about beauty differ substantiallyfrom what truly occurs. Much of the litera-ture is based on perceptions of hypotheticalstimulus persons, making it probable thatthese studies are more informative about thestereotype than about actual behavior. Cer-tainly such knowledge is useful; however, itis equally important to document and un-derstand how appearance influences people'sreal experiences. The Rochester InteractionRecord is a standardized instrument provid-ing a reliable and accurate assessment of so-cial participation. By its various scales, it en-ables examination of many of the parametersthat more global scales overlook. By directingthe respondent's attention to single incidentsone at a time, it eliminates many of the errorsthat might be attributable to biased infor-mation scanning and processing. Most im-portantly, the method of tabulation furnishesquantitative estimates of various specific as-pects of social participation as they naturallyoccur in everyday life. As we have seen, someof these related to physical attractiveness,whereas others did not.

Once the veridical effects of beauty havebeen established, it is possible to focus on themechanisms by which it influences ongoingbehavior. In the absence of experimentalmanipulation (which would be impossible ina naturalistic setting lasting 2 weeks), par-tialing techniques provide strong tests ofwhether the data are consistent with theo-retically derived causal networks. Often, re-searchers give causal-like explanations forhypotheses derived from nonlaboratory data.We wish to emphasize the necessity for test-ing these notions within the field context. Inthis research, those tests bore fruit. We foundthat supply-and-demand issues were of littleimportance in predicting attractiveness ef-fects; we also found that although social com-petence mediated part of the impact ofbeauty on social interaction, an independentinfluence remained.

Consideration of social consequences im-bues physical attractiveness with more im-portance than is typically thought. Manythink of it as a superficial factor with limitedimpact. Berscheid and Walster (1974) spec-ulated that its effects might occur primarilyin first-time or short-term encounters. How-ever, we have seen that attractiveness influ-enced both sexes' social competence in a


manner consistent with traditional sex roles,that attractive males socialized more withfemales and less with males, and that attrac-tive persons' interactions were more quali-tatively rewarding, generally across both closeand less close friends. Would anyone judgethese phenomena to be superficial or of lim-ited importance? We think not. Because per-ceptions of beauty and their social ramifi-cations bear heavily on these behaviors,beauty is a vital and significant variable wor-thy of investigation.

Reference Notes

1. Berscheid, E., Walster, E., & Campbell, R. Grow oldalong with me. Unpublished manuscript, Universityof Minnesota, 1972.

2. Wheeler, L., Reis, H. T., & Nezlek, J. Loneliness,social interaction, and sex roles. Manuscript submit-ted for publication, 1982.

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Received August 24, 1981Revision received April 21, 1982 •

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