Measuring Behavior 2002: Kopatz et al.

Body language and mate choice:
an empirical ethological study

A. Kopatz¹, W. Henke¹ and K. Grammer²

¹Anthropological Institute, University of Mayence, Mayence, Germany
²University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

The field of human mate choice and attractiveness is one of intensive study. Despite the enormous amount of data collected, human mate choice is still not fully understood. This is due to the huge number of ways in which mate choice can be influenced. So far, research has dealt predominantly with the assessment of attractiveness from photographs, body and face symmetry, analysis of non-verbal communication, and sexual signals during courtship and flirting. In contrast, human body movement has not been of great research interest. Although early attempts at methodologically objective research were undertaken during the 1920s [1], this aspect of mate choice was of very low interest to researchers, mainly because of the lack of available technology.

In many other aspects, it has been shown that body movements are used, both deliberately and indeliberately, to support communication. To date, however, there has been a lack of research concerning how people are influenced by body movement when considering attractiveness [2]. Therefore, our work focuses on studying how people judge others when movement is the only criterion. We wish to investigate the following hypotheses:

There is a significant difference between male and female judgement regarding the attractiveness of body movement.

Male and female observers do not judge sex and age significantly differently.

The attractiveness of the opposite sex is rated significantly differently to that of the same sex.

Self-assessment of attractiveness differs significantly from that of an observer.

To examine these hypotheses, the following methods will be applied. A pool of stimulus subjects will be filmed in front of a neutral background so as to gain maximum contrast and detail. They will be filmed in three different situations: greeting, self-presentation and walking. Prior to filming each stimulus subject, a questionnaire will record demographic data, personality and self-assessment, as well as mate choice behavior.

The recorded material will be cut and edited. With the help of the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute, Vienna, a special software package will analyse the films to assess the intensity and duration of body movements. Next, the material will be digitally modified with a 'quantized-display' technique [3] to match a mosaic structure. This step is necessary to neutralize possible influences of mimic, skin texture, voice and sound, such that raters receive only the movement information. These modified films will be presented to a rater group, who will judge the subjects on the basis of attractiveness, vitality, aesthetics etc. The results of this research will be available later this summer.

References

Flach, A. (1928). Die Psychologie der Ausdrucksbewegung. Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie. 65.

Striebel, B.; Grammer, K. (2000). Body Movement: Attractiveness and Personality. In: Proceedings 4. Kongress der Gesellschaft für Anthropologie (GfA, Schultz et al., eds.), 127-131.

Berry, D.S. et al. (1991). Quantized Displays of Human Movement: A Methodological Alternative to the Point-Light Display. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 15(2), 81-97.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2002 , 4^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 27-30 August 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands