User:SKHAN24.0/sandbox

Hands
Hands have been found to be physically attractive. Attractiveness of a partner's hands are important. The type of hands that are physically attractive are those with longer index and ring fingers. [SK1] Men have a smaller index-to-ring-finger ratio than women. The gender differences in the ratio between the index and ring fingers are said to be influenced by exposure to testosterone within the womb. In a study where participants were shown computer-based images of hands, male participants found feminine hands with a smaller index finger more attractive. Whereas females found masculine hands with a longer ring finger more attractive. The study suggests that finger length has an effect on physical attraction because it gives indication of the desirable sex-hormone dependent traits which one may possess. Another study found that averageness, healthiness of the skin, how fat the hands appear to be, and the grooming of the hands, all effect the attractiveness of hands. What is meant by averageness is the degree to which the hands look like an average of the hands in the population. Average looking hands give an indication of an individual's health (because there are no abnormalities). The healthier looking the skin on the hands, the more attractive they appear. Reasons given for this say skin health may reflect an individual's overall health. Healthy skin can show that someone is free from illness because some illnesses have a bad effect on the look of skin. These features are found attractive because they show that the person has good genes and is therefore a suitable mate to reproduce with. Skin health may also give an indication of socioeconomic status, as rough hands may indicate a low paying laborious job. Low socioeconomic status might show that someone does not have resources to provide for the offspring, therefore this is less attractive. The more fat the hands appear, the less attractive they are. This is because of the co-morbidity associated with obesity. If someone is overfat, they may have another disease, which means they may not be able to produce healthy offspring. The attractiveness of the hands also gives an indication of other features of the individual, people with more attractive hands have been found to be taller and slimmer. In most of these hand attractiveness studies only white, European hands were used and the participants were in the age range between 18-26. So, the attractiveness of non-white hands and of different age groups was not tested. Also, the people who rated the hand attractiveness were white European, so their ratings may not represent how individuals of other skin colours and cultures would rate the hands.

Facial hair
One study shows that men with facial hair covering the cheeks, upper lip, and lower jaw were perceived as more physically attractive than men with patchy facial hair. In this study, men’s facial hair was split into four categories, each differing in the thickness and coverage: very light, light, medium, and heavy. Light facial hair was rated as the most attractive, followed by medium, heavy, and the least attractive was ‘very light’. This study suggests that some facial hair is better than none because it shows the masculine development as beard growth requires the conversion of testosterone. The problem with this study is it only looked at the facial hair of European men with brown hair. So, the results may not represent men of all ethnicities and hair colours. A different study found women are more attracted to clean-shaven faces than bearded faces. With different studies finding different results about whether facial hair is attractive or not we cannot conclude the effect of them.

Group attractiveness effect
The group attractiveness effect is where a group's overall attractiveness rating is higher than the mean of each individuals’ attractiveness rating. This occurs because people selectively attend to the most attractive group members and thus they get the most attention. Men selectively attend to attractive people more than women, it has been suggested that this could be because men are less invested in their offspring, so they are less choosy when it comes to sexual partners, and therefore they are more easily attracted. As a result of selective attention, people end up giving a group rating which is biased as the rating focuses mainly on the attractive members and ignores the less attractive members. So the overall attractiveness rating is skewed towards more attractive. The group attractiveness effect was investigated in a study which got participants to rate the physical attractiveness of a group of females as a whole, individually in a group, and individually on their own. Participants were asked to give a rating of 1-7, with 1 being very unattractive and 7 being very attractive. The group attractiveness effect has been replicated with males as the main group and also with a group of both males and females. This effect may not be demonstrated across all cultures because the sample only contained Dutch university students.