Digital Beautification and Attractiveness Perception: Female Faces Gain Greater Advantages, but Familiarity Attenuates Gender Differences

Appearance significantly impacts social and evolutionary contexts, with women's facial attractiveness often being more influential. However, it remains unclear whether methods of appearance enhancement, such as makeup or digital beautification, affect perceptions of facial attractiveness differently across genders. Digital facial beautification is now widespread among both genders, allowing for meaningful cross-gender comparisons. This study employed an attractiveness rating task to examine how beautification affects unfamiliar (Experiments 1 & 2) and familiar (Experiment 2) female and male faces. The results showed: (1) For unfamiliar faces, beautification significantly enhanced attractiveness, showing a stronger effect on female faces compared to male faces; (2) For familiar faces, beautification also increased attractiveness, but the gender difference in the enhancement effect disappeared. Beautification thus has a more pronounced impact on unfamiliar female than male faces, but familiarity diminishes these gender disparities. It highlights that individuals are more sensitive to changes in attractiveness for female faces, and women benefit more from modifications to their appearance. This study reveals gender-differentiated effects of digital beautification on facial attractiveness and how familiarity moderates them, while also clarifying how widely used beautification technologies shape social impressions in everyday digital contexts.