2015/03/02 by Yvette van Osch, Irene Blanken, Maartje H. J. Meijs +1 · 1 citation
Psychology · Business, Management and Accounting · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Animal Behavior and Reproduction
paper · doi:10.1177/0146167215572799
openalex publication_date 2015/03/02 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We tested whether the perceived physical attractiveness of a group is greater than the average attractiveness of its members. In nine studies, we find evidence for the so-called group attractiveness effect (GA-effect), using female, male, and mixed-gender groups, indicating that group impressions of physical attractiveness are more positive than the average ratings of the group members. A meta-analysis on 33 comparisons reveals that the effect is medium to large (Cohen's d = 0.60) and moderated by group size. We explored two explanations for the GA-effect: (a) selective attention to attractive group members, and (b) the Gestalt principle of similarity. The results of our studies are in favor of the selective attention account: People selectively attend to the most attractive members of a group and their attractiveness has a greater influence on the evaluation of the group.