The Connection Between Physical Attraction and Beauty Standards in Dating

Beauty standards shape physical attraction in dating from the first glance, and a large part of those standards is learned. People agree on who is attractive within and across cultures, yet a large study of twins found that each person’s own taste in faces comes mostly from their individual environment.

Shared Judgements of Attractiveness

In 2000, Judith Langlois and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin published 11 meta-analyses of research on physical attractiveness in Psychological Bulletin. Raters agreed on who was attractive, both within a culture and across cultures. Attractive children and adults were judged more favourably and treated better, including by people who knew them well.

The meta-analyses also found that attractive children and adults showed slightly more positive behaviours and traits on average.

Individual Taste in Faces

A 2015 study in Current Biology, led by Laura Germine, asked 547 pairs of identical twins and 214 pairs of non-identical twins to rate the attractiveness of 200 faces. More than 35,000 people also rated faces online. When 2 participants were picked at random, their face preferences agreed only about 48% of the time.

Comparing the 2 kinds of twins showed that individual face preferences were explained mainly by each person’s own environment. Germine pointed to subtle influences, such as friends and media, and found that shared family factors such as schooling or neighbourhood mattered little. The ability to recognise faces, measured in the same study, was explained mainly by genes.

Attraction at the First Meeting

In 1966, Elaine Walster and colleagues matched 752 first-year students at the University of Minnesota at random for a dance. The partner’s physical attractiveness was by far the largest factor in how much each student liked the partner and wanted another date. The result was the same regardless of how attractive the student was. Measures of personality and intelligence did not predict who got along.

In 2008, Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkel published a speed-dating study with 163 undergraduates. Each participant met about 12 partners for 4 minutes at a time and then said if they wanted to see each partner again. On paper, men rated looks as more important and women rated earning prospects as more important. In person, interest was tied to attractiveness and earning prospects to the same degree for both sexes, and the preferences participants stated in advance did not predict whom they actually liked, which led the authors to suggest that people may have limited insight into what drives their own attraction.

Age and the Double Standard

In a 1972 essay, Susan Sontag argued that society treats ageing in men more leniently than in women, and that lines on a man’s face are taken as signs of character. Women, she argued, are treated as though their value declines with age.

A woman dating an older man meets that double standard inside her own relationship, because the same added years are judged one way for him and another for her.

Weight Ideals Across Cultures

The International Body Project, led by Viren Swami and published in 2010, surveyed 7,434 people in 26 countries across 10 world regions. Participants chose the most attractive female figure from a set of drawings. Differences between regions were small among high-income sites. Within Malaysia and South Africa, people at lower-income sites preferred heavier bodies than people at higher-income sites, and Austria showed no such gap. Exposure to Western media predicted body weight ideals and, among women, body dissatisfaction. Age and body mass index predicted weight ideals as well, and the authors concluded that a desire for thinness was common in high-income settings in every region.

Acquaintance and Physical Attraction

A 2015 study by Lucy Hunt and colleagues looked at 167 dating and married couples who had been together for an average of 8.5 years, from 3 months to 53 years. Each couple reported how long they had known each other before they started dating, and judges rated each partner’s attractiveness from video of the couple talking about their relationship. Couples who got together soon after meeting were closely matched in physical attractiveness. Couples who had known each other for longer before dating, including those who were friends first, were less closely matched. In this research, looks matter less once 2 people know each other, and couples matched on looks were no happier than couples who were not. The researchers suggested that more time together lets other qualities, such as compatibility as a partner, make a person appealing.

The Halo Effect

The halo effect leads observers to credit attractive people with traits they may not have, a tendency psychologists also summarise as “what is beautiful is good”. In a 1972 study by Karen Dion and colleagues, students judged people in attractive photographs as having better personalities and higher occupational status than people in less attractive photographs.

The term is also used more widely for any judgement shaped by a single likable trait. On a date, the same bias can lead someone to assume good character from a good face before there is any evidence of it. The 1972 participants judged strangers from photographs alone, which is close to how a dating profile is first seen.

Cosmetic Procedures Worldwide

The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery recorded close to 38 million aesthetic procedures in 2024 in its annual global survey. More than 17.4 million were surgical and about 20.5 million were non-surgical, and the total had grown by at least 40% since 2020. Eyelid surgery was the most common surgical procedure, and botulinum toxin injections led the non-surgical list with 7.8 million. Hyaluronic acid filler followed with 6.3 million. The United States performed the most procedures, with more than 6.1 million, followed by Brazil. Eyelid surgery and botulinum toxin both change the face, and in the Walster dance study, physical attractiveness was the largest factor in who wanted a second date.

Body Image in Australia

In a 2023 survey of 2,942 Australians aged 12 to 18, the Butterfly Foundation found that 57% were dissatisfied with how their body looked, and 49% said body dissatisfaction had stopped them from attending school. Some 62% said social media made them feel worse about their bodies. These are the standards young Australians bring to their first relationships. A report commissioned by Butterfly and released in 2025 put the annual cost of body dissatisfaction to Australia at $36.6 billion.

Beauty Standards Over the Course of a Relationship

The shared part of beauty standards has the most force at the first glance, when strangers have nothing else to go on. A profile photo gives a stranger only that shared standard to judge by. In the couples study, the longer 2 people knew each other before dating, the less their match depended on looks. The standards a culture teaches therefore matter most at the moment a dating profile or a first meeting asks people to rely on them.