The role of perceived health in preferences for average face shapes

Many studies have reported that faces with less distinctive (i.e., more average or prototypical) shapes are perceived to be more attractive. This preference for faces with less distinctive shapes is often explained in terms of a psychological adaptation in which putative health cues are considered attractive. While evidence that individuals with less distinctive face shapes are actually healthier than those with distinctive face shapes is mixed, there is good evidence that faces with less distinctive shapes are perceived to be healthier. To date, only one study has tested whether preferences for average faces are mediated by health perceptions, finding that health perceptions partially mediated the negative relationship between facial attractiveness and distinctiveness. However, facial distinctiveness was assessed using distinctiveness ratings, which are only modestly correlated with objective measures of shape distinctiveness. Consequently, we tested whether health perceptions mediated the negative relationship between facial attractiveness and shape distinctiveness using a sample of 50 male and 50 female face images for which it has previously been reported that both health and attractiveness ratings were negatively correlated with an objective measure of shape distinctiveness. Mediation analysis showed that ~63% (95% CI [40%, 80%], p < .001) of the negative relationship between facial attractiveness and shape distinctiveness could be attributed to the effects of health perceptions. This finding contributes to growing evidence that preferences for face shapes with low distinctiveness occur, at least in part, because less distinctive faces appear to be healthier.