**6. Conclusions**

continue to influence preferences in adolescence. For the post-pubertal males, experience with their own face and faces of other post-pubertal male peers should shape their represen-

There are other discrepancies in the literature regarding whether female adolescents prefer facial femininity or masculinity when judging males' attractiveness. For example, pre-pubescent females (11- to 14-year-olds) displayed significantly lower preferences for a masculinized than feminized version of a male face compared with mid- and post-pubescent females (15- to 25-year-olds [72]. It is possible that like the post-pubescent males in the other study [71], the post-pubescent females are developing a more masculine representation for male faces due to their greater experience with post-pubertal males at this age. Yet, discrepancies exist regarding female preferences for male facial masculinity or femininity in other studies as well [65], leading to suggestions that preferences for masculine or feminine male faces may be context-dependent [71, 73, 74]. For example, adolescent and adult females (aged 16–39) preferred masculine faces when they were considering a short-term relationship or were already in a relationship [73]. Females may prefer feminine male faces due to their cuing of prosocial and other desirable traits, such as warmth, honesty, and cooperativeness [75], but prefer masculine male faces for cues related to dominance and genetic quality [76, 77]. In line with this theory, when women saw pairs of male faces and were asked to select which face better represented different traits, they rated masculine male faces as more dominant but less

It is possible that discrepancies in preferences for masculine and feminine male faces stem from conflicting developmental processes. Recall that masculinity was a more salient cue than attractiveness when infants and children categorized male faces. If 12-month-olds categorized low masculine male faces due to an overgeneralization of their ability to categorize female faces [39], it might serve as a precursor to linking feminine attributes to low masculine males. Similarly, 4- to 5-year-olds' slower reaction time and higher error rate when classifying the sex of low than high masculine male faces [43] might persist throughout development. Indeed, adults' initial reaction upon viewing a low masculine male and selecting a genderrelated attribute was to initially move their computer mouse toward the side of the screen with a feminine attribute (e.g., caring) before moving it toward the side of the screen with a masculine attribute (e.g., aggressive) [79]. Prosocial qualities often associated with women, therefore, seem to be instinctively overgeneralized to low masculine male faces. During adolescence, such qualities should be preferred in certain contexts more than others. More research is needed, however, to understand whether and how early emerging attention to facial masculinity interacts with the developmental issues adolescent females encounter to

What is clear during adolescence is that attractiveness continues to more significantly impact female than male targets. Thirteen- to 19-year-old males rated young adult females who were high attractive more positively than low attractive females, whereas 13- to 19-year-old females did not significantly differ in their evaluations of high versus low attractive young adult males [80]. The emergence of mating motives in adolescence, in combination with early experiences that bias preferences toward attractive female faces, might account for males'

tation for this face category and subsequently influences preferences [71].

136 Perception of Beauty

warm and less faithful than feminine male faces [78].

influence their preference for low or high masculine males.

strong attractiveness biases for female targets [81].

Infants with predominant female facial experience develop summary representations for faces that are female-like and attractive, which results in greater saliency of attractiveness cues for female than male targets early in development. With the maintenance of this greater experience with female than male faces beyond infancy, several studies suggest cascading effects of having an attractive, female-like facial representation on children's person perception—attractiveness more strongly influences how they judge and process information about females than males. Despite developing more differentiated facial representations later in development, older children and adolescents still seem to be more influenced by females' than males' attractiveness, perhaps because of the prolonged period of having an attractive, female-like facial representation earlier in development.

More research is needed, however, that examines children with predominant male facial experience or more equally distributed experience with females and males to understand the role early facial experience plays in the development of salient social cues and the resultant impact on person perception. It is also critical to conduct more research directly comparing responses to female and male targets beyond attribution tasks, so the impact of attractiveness and target gender is understood across various contexts. Work is also needed to understand whether the differences in how female and male targets are judged based on attractiveness are more evident when adults versus peers' faces are used as targets. Whereas all the infant research included adult faces as stimuli, studies with children typically include peers' faces. If the attractive, female-like facial representation is also adult-like and children's faces are more like female adult than male adult faces, the discrepancies in how attractiveness affects judgments of female and male targets might be more evident for adult than child faces. Last, longitudinal research is needed to determine how early emerging face processing abilities predict later biases and processing of females and males based on attractiveness. Developmental researchers have investigated different types of research questions during different developmental periods, making it difficult to provide a complete picture of whether and how attractiveness influences children's responses for female and male targets in a similar or different manner across development.

Despite the need for more research, the data presented in this chapter demonstrate the importance of early facial experience in shaping attention toward faces. Most children's early predominant female facial experience seems to lead to attractiveness becoming a more salient cue for female than male targets. The greater saliency of female than male attractiveness means that it has more practical and social implications for female targets in terms of how others judge and treat them and ultimately how females behave during social interactions. It is critical to better understand the development of attractiveness biases, so as to raise awareness of such biases and create ways to reduce negative outcomes.
