Male physical attractiveness as a potential contaminating variable in ratings of heterosocial skill

Abstract

Researchers have had difficulty isolating the specific behaviors that comprise heterosocial skill. Some researchers have found differences between anxious and non-anxious American subjects, and had suggested that observers' ratings of global skill may be contaminated by physical attractiveness. Each subject completed the Survey of Heterosexual Interactions before participating in 10-min pre and post-treatment in vivo conversations with a female confederate. He was then photographed, and his physical attractiveness was measured objectively by having 10 undergraduate women independently compare his photograph to each of 45 male photographs and judge which man was more attractive. The average number of photographs against which a subject was judged more attractive constituted the measure of attractiveness. Thus, attractiveness was judged independently of heterosocial skill.