Task measuring implicit attractiveness as a function of skin tone and facial features: a failed replication

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Perception

Background:

• Facial attractiveness perception is influenced by various factors, including features and skin tone.
• Implicit bias can affect judgments, but its role in attractiveness perception requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the influence of implicit facial primes (Afrocentric vs. Eurocentric features, dark to light skin tone) on the perception of environmental scene attractiveness.
• To examine the relationship between implicit attractiveness judgments and explicit attractiveness ratings.

Main Methods:

• Participants completed an implicit attractiveness task, categorizing environmental scenes as attractive or unattractive after being primed with faces.
• Faces varied in Afrocentricity/Eurocentricity and skin tone (dark to light).
• Study 2 included explicit attractiveness ratings of the same faces.

Main Results:

• Study 1 suggested differential accuracy based on face type and target attractiveness at medium skin tones.
• Study 2, a more robust study, failed to replicate these findings.
• No correlation was found between explicit attractiveness ratings and implicit task accuracy.

Conclusions:

• Implicit facial primes, varying in features and skin tone, did not significantly impact the implicit perception of environmental scene attractiveness in a larger study.
• Explicit attractiveness ratings did not predict performance in the implicit task, suggesting distinct cognitive processes.