Personality and Individual Differences 50 (2011) 159–162

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Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Who is the fairest of them all? Race, attractiveness and skin color
sexual dimorphism
Michael B. Lewis ⇑
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Previous research has suggested that perceived attractiveness and personality are affected by the race
Received 28 June 2010 such that White faces are more attractive but less masculine than Black faces. Such studies, however,
Received in revised form 10 September have been based on very small stimulus sets. The current study investigated perceived attractiveness
2010
and personality for 600 Black, White and mixed-race faces. Many of the investigated personality traits
Accepted 15 September 2010
were correlated with race when rated by White participants. Attractiveness specifically was greater for
Available online 13 October 2010
Black male faces than White male faces and among mixed-race faces. Blackness correlated with increased
attractiveness. A reverse pattern was found for female faces with Whiteness being associated with attrac-
Keywords:
Race
tiveness. The results are discussed in terms of the sexual dimorphism demonstrated in skin color.
Attractiveness Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Skin color
Sexual dimorphism
Mate selection
Mixed race

1. Introduction selection for reproduction. Females’ faces change during puberty in

A dominant feature in human mate selection is facial attractive-
ness, arguably because it can be used as an indicator of phenotypic
quality (Scheib, Gangestad, & Thornhill, 1999). But what makes a
face attractive? Research has shown averageness and symmetry
(Grammer & Thornhill, 1994) are important determinants of
attractiveness and these properties may be a result of phenotypic
quality. While these features are attractive in both men and
women, some features are attractive because they are associated
more with one particular sex (that is, they are sexually dimorphic).
In many animal species, highly sexually dimorphic features are
considered attractive in a mate (e.g., extremely long tails in the
male widowbird, Andersson, 1992). Compared to many other ani-
mals, human males are similar to human females but a degree of
sexual dimorphism does occur. During puberty, male facial fea-
tures change as a result of hormone action (Tanner, 1978). This
can explain why youthfulness is a prized asset in attractiveness
for females (Cunningham, 1986). For males, secondary sexual fea-
tures such as a square jaw or a prominent forehead may also be
considered attractive although research suggests that women’s ap-
praisal of such features vary over their menstrual cycle (Penton-
Voak et al., 1999) indicating its importance is with regard to sexual
⇑ Tel.: +44 2920875399.
E-mail address: Lewismb@cf.ac.uk
terms of their soft tissue more than male faces (Nanda, Meng,
Kapila, & Goorhuis, 1990). This leads to a sexual dimorphism in
lip size which can explain why fuller lips are considered attractive
in females (Keating, 1985).
Important for the research reported here is that humans dem-
onstrate sexual dimorphism in their skin color. After puberty,
males are darker-skinned than females in all human populations
examined to date (see van den Berghe & Frost, 1986, for a review
of the evidence). This difference is most visible in human popula-
tions of medium skin color (as it is constraint by floor or ceiling
effects in populations that are very dark or very light skinned –
see Frost, 2007, comment on Madrigal & Kelly, 2007). It was also
shown that many cultures value lighter skin color as an attractive
feature in females. In the English language, for example, the term
‘fair’ can refer to both a light skin tone but also be used for attrac-
tiveness in females (as when Snow White’s stepmother famously
questions her magic mirror). Frost (1994) demonstrated that skin
color preference in male faces changed according to the raters’
menstrual cycle in a manner similar to that for masculine features
shown by Penton-Voak et al. (1999) affirming its importance with
regard to sexual selection. The hypothesis considered here, there-
fore, is that lighter women will be more attractive than darker
women and darker men will be more attractive than lighter men.
This hypothesis is consistent with the stated preferences observed
by Feinman and Gill (1978). Such a hypothesis, of course, considers
only the average of the groups and says little about individual faces

0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.09.018
160 M.B. Lewis / Personality and Individual Differences 50 (2011) 159–162
or individual raters (or indeed the changes across the menstrual
cycle).
Skin color is linked in a perceptual manner to race. If one ex-
cludes albinos then sub-Saharan Africans are always darker than
northern Europeans. Putting the sexual dimorphism of skin color
together with racial categories suggest that on average White fe-
males will be more attractive than Black females and on average
Black males will be more attractive than White males.
The current evidence, however, does not support Black males
being more attractive than White males. Wade, Irvine, and Cooper
(2004) investigated whether race would have an effect on a variety
of ratings of different characteristics including attractiveness for
male faces. The races they explored were Black, White and mixed
race. Their results indicated that White faces were seen as the most
attractive, warm and socially competent whereas Black faces were
seen as the most masculine, dominant and strong.
Belletti and Wade (2008) conducted a similar study with female
faces. In this case the faces were White, Black, East Asian and blends
between pairs of these. For the White, Black and White/Black
blended faces there was a clear correlation between race and
attractiveness such that more White faces were perceived as more
attractive than more Black faces. So this study did support the link
between skin color and sexual dimorphism – at least for female faces.
These two studies, taken together, suggest that there is a
preference for people with lighter skin rather than a sexual dimor-
phism. Care, however, should be taken when interpreting these
two studies. The latter study employed just three faces as the stim-
uli (one White, one East Asian and one Black). There is no guaran-
tee that these three faces are typical representatives of their race. If
the White model were more attractive than the Black model then
the results are bound to be as they were found. The study
attempted to generalise to a population from a single example.
The blends of these faces also do not truly represent mixed-race
individuals as it is suggested that they do. The study by Wade
et al. (2004) on male faces did not even use three faces but rather
just sketch representations of two faces with intermediate faces
generated from these. Generalisation to a population from a sketch
is even more difficult than generalisation from a single example.
What is being rated in this experiment is the attractiveness of
the image that the artist has of a typical White male and a typical
Black male. This may have little to do with actual facial attractive-
ness of the Black and White populations.
To investigate the relationship between race and attractiveness
it is necessary to use a sample of faces large enough such that it
allows generalisation to the population (just as one would test a
large enough sample of participants to generalise to the popula-
tion). The current experiment aims to do this. Care was also taken
to distinguish between Black faces and mixed-race faces.
The relationship between race and attractiveness has been
investigated previously with a large set of faces (Lewis, 2010). This
study demonstrated that mixed-race faces were perceived as more
attractive than either Black or White faces. The explanation for this
finding was based on the genetic idea of hybrid vigor or heterosis
such that the offspring of parents of diverse genetic backgrounds
will be genetically fitter than those of parents with a more similar
genetic background (Jorde & Wooding, 2004). One might think it
surprising that the more genetically dissimilar individuals (other-
race) were not selected as the most attractive as these would be
the partners who would provide off spring with the greatest genet-
ic fitness. It appears that we are more attracted to genetic fitness in
a mate than their ability to provide a genetically fit offspring.
The current experiment explores a wider range of perceived
properties of faces – specifically, those considered by Wade et al.
(2004) – but in the analysis of the data it is important to consider
the potential genetic advantage of being mixed race independently
for any skin color or race effects.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Ten female and eight male students of Cardiff University took
part. They were all White British and they were aged between 18
and 28 years.
2.2. Stimuli
Sets of 300 male faces and 300 female faces were generated
from images taken from the website facebook.com. One third of
these faces were from people who belonged to groups that identi-
fied themselves as being Black and from an African country; one
third were from groups that identified themselves as mixed race,
and one third were taken from groups associated with a region
of the UK that is predominately White. Facebook images were used
if they contained just one face that was of a quality such that it
would be recognisable by a friend and did not have a weird expres-
sion. The faces were equally distributed between males and
females meaning that there were 100 faces of each sex by race
type.
2.3. Procedure
Male participants viewed only the female faces and female par-
ticipants viewed only the male faces. Participants were presented
with a set of 300 faces eight times in eight different random orders.
During each presentation, the faces were rated on eight different
seven-point scales. These scales were: race (Black to White); mas-
culinity (feminine to masculine); strength (weak to strong);
warmth (cold to warm); attractiveness (unattractive to attractive);
maturity (immature to mature); dominance (submissive to domi-
nant), and social competence (inept to competent).
3. Results
The ratings for the race of the faces coincided with the racial
categories given to them such that Black faces were seen as more
black than mixed-race faces which were seen as more Black than
White faces (see Table 1). These differences were significant for
both male and female faces (F’s(2, 297) > 1400; p < 0.001). This
confirmed the appropriateness of the categories applied to the
faces.
The scores from the remaining 7 ratings scales for male and
female faces are shown in Fig. 1. This figure shows a variety of
robust differences between the mean ratings given to faces of dif-
ferent racial groups. Two multivariate analyses (one for each gen-
der) revealed a significant interaction between judgement type and
race (for males: F(12,1782) = 10.242; p < 0.001, for females:
F(12,1782) = 9.704; p < 0.001). A series of 14 ANOVAs were applied
to the data applying a conservative Bonferroni correction to inves-
tigate which of these differences were robust. For ratings of the
female faces there were significant differences between the races
on: the attractiveness ratings (F(2, 297) = 16.470; p < 0.001) with
mixed-race faces being rated as more attractive than Black or
Table 1
Means (and Standard deviations) of the race ratings for the six sets of 100 faces. The
scale ranged from 1 (labelled Black) to 7 (labelled White).
Race Male Female
Black 1.305 (0.421) 1.424 (0.347)
Mixed race 3.974 (1.160) 3.285 (0.895)
White 6.863 (0.231) 6.261 (0.415)
 M.B. Lewis / Personality and Individual Differences 50 (2011) 159–162
4.8 * *
4.55
4.3
4.05
Average 3.8
ratings
3.55
3.3
3.05
2.8
Attractiveness Competence Dominance
6.8
6.3
* * * * *
5.8
5.3
Average
ratings
4.8
4.3
3.8
3.3
2.8
Attractiveness Competence Dominance
Fig. 1. Average ratings for the 6 sets of 100 faces on the seven different ratings. Asterisks show significant difference between sets after Bonferroni corrections. Error bars
show + 1 standard error from a by items analysis.
White faces; the maturity ratings (F(2, 297) = 9.303; p < 0.001)
with Black faces being rated as more mature than Mixed-race
faces; the strength ratings (F(2, 297) = 17.173; p < 0.001) with
Black faces being rated as stronger than White or mixed-race faces;
and the masculinity ratings (F(2, 297) = 14.534; p < 0.001) with
Black faces being rated as more masculine than White or mixed-
race faces.
A similar analysis was performed for the male faces. For ratings
of the male faces there were significant differences between the
races on: the attractiveness ratings (F(2, 297) = 13.955; p < 0.001)
with Black faces being seen as more attractive than White faces;
the competence ratings (F(2, 297) = 19.162; p < 0.001) with Black
faces being seen as more competent than White or mixed-race
faces; the dominance ratings (F(2, 297) = 30.391; p < 0.001) with
White faces being seen as less dominant than Black or mixed-race
faces; the warmth ratings (F(2, 297) = 6.848; p < 0.001) with Black
faces being seen as more warm than mixed-race faces; the matu-
rity ratings (F(2, 297) = 39.984; p < 0.001) with Black faces being
seen as more mature than White or mixed-race faces; the strength
ratings (F(2, 297) = 52.839; p < 0.001) with Black faces being seen
as stronger than mixed-race faces which are seen as stronger than
White faces; and masculinity ratings (F(2, 297) = 42.042; p < 0.001)
with Black faces being seen as being more masculine than White or
mixed-race faces.
Correlational analysis was also conducted within the mixed-
race data to explore the relationship between the perception of
race and attractiveness. This analysis was restricted to just
mixed-race faces as analysis over all through racial groups would
confound effects of hybrid vigor and variations in race ratings for
Black faces or White faces were not large enough for a correlation
to be meaningful. Over the 100 mixed-race female faces there was
a positive significant correlation (r = .204; p < 0.05) between per-
ceived race and attractiveness such that the more White the face
was rated the more attractive it was perceived. Over the 100
mixed-race male faces there was a negative significant correlation
(r = -.230; p < 0.05) between perceived race and attractiveness such
161
* * * * *
Female faces
Black
Mixed
White
Warmth Maturity Strength Masculinity
* * * ** * * *
Male faces
Black
Mixed
White
Warmth Maturity Strength Masculinity
that the more Black the face was rated the more attractive it was
perceived.
4. Discussion
The results reported above clearly demonstrate that race, or at
least the perception of race, affects a variety of perceived charac-
teristics of faces. One main contrast between the findings here
and the findings by Wade et al. (2004) concerns the attractiveness
of the male faces. Wade et al. found that participants rated their
sketches of White faces as more attractive than the sketches of
Black faces, Here, however, it was found that, on average, the 100
Black male faces were perceived as more attractive than the 100
White male faces. This result is consistent with the findings of
Lewis (2010) although the Black/White contrast was not explicitly
reported in that article. One can conclude, therefore, that if one
uses a set of faces that is representative of the populations then
Black males are seen as more attractive than White males. The
current findings that Black males are seen as stronger, more dom-
inant and more masculine than White faces are consistent with
Wade el al.’s findings. Unlike Wade at al’s findings, Black faces
were perceived as being more socially competent than White faces
but there was no robust difference for perceived warmth.
Mixed-race faces, within this set, were not significantly differ-
ent in their attractiveness from Black faces (unlike as reported in
Lewis, 2010). Analysis of the mixed-race faces in isolation meant
that any potential effect of hybrid vigor could be eliminated. In this
way, they allowed for a correlational exploration of the relation-
ship between race and attractiveness. The findings were that those
male faces that were seen as being more Black were also seen as
being more attractive.
The relationship between race and attractiveness for female
faces is in stark contrast to those of male faces. Female faces clearly
showed the benefit of hybrid vigor as previously documented
(Lewis, 2010) with mixed-race faces being seen as the most
162 M.B. Lewis / Personality and Individual Differences 50 (2011) 159–162
attractive. Beyond this effect, it was also found that White faces
were seen as more attractive than Black faces but this was only sig-
nificant if one did not apply the Bonferroni correction. Exploring
the relationship between perceived race and attractiveness within
the mixed-race faces showed that faces seen as more White were
also seen as more attractive. These results tell us that once an
advantage for being mixed race is removed, there remains a pref-
erence for Whiter faces in attractiveness ratings for female faces.
The perceived personalities of the faces also differed according
to race unlike in the paper by Belletti and Wade (2008). Black fe-
male faces were perceived as more mature, more masculine and
stronger than the White faces.
One explanation for the results found in the current experiment
is that they represent an over-compensation as a result of preju-
dice avoidance. The participants may wish to avoid appearing prej-
udiced and so rate other-race faces as being more positive. This
source of bias would not invalidate the findings. In particular, the
sex difference in attractiveness patterns remains interesting as
both male raters and female raters are immersed in the same ideo-
logical environment. If the pattern of results is a consequence of
over-compensation then the participants would have been over-
compensating during the entire 90 min of the experiment. It is
quite possible, that this over-compensation is part of their daily life
and attitudes. Consequently, the same form of over-compensation
may occur when they are choosing partners for real. Hence, even if
the findings are over-compensation then it is still a real finding and
one that may occur outside the laboratory as well as inside it.
While the current experiment only explored the perception of
White British participants, it is still useful to be able demonstrate
differences in preferences between the sexes regarding attractive-
ness and skin tone sexual dimorphism. It is also worth pointing out
that previous studies into this topic used similarly restricted
groups of participants (or at least did not analyse the differences
between different participant groups). At the very least, the re-
search results here question the notion that lighter skin is always
perceived as more attractive.
5. Conclusion
The results here are strikingly different from previous studies
that explored race, attractiveness and personality. These previous
studies employed far fewer faces than employed here. While the
current experiment is still limited in that only 600 faces were used,
this sample does allow for inferential statistics to be used to gen-
eralise to populations. The results relating to attractiveness are
consistent with there being a sexual dimorphism in terms of skin
color. This sexual dimorphism appears to be related to ideals of
perceived attractiveness: Lighter skin tone is a female trait and is
associated with more attractive females whereas darker skin is a
male trait and is associated with more attractive males, at least
when rated by White British participants.
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