The current global pandemic situation due to the Covid-19 has implied several consequences at all psychological levels. One of the main differences with respect to the pre-pandemic life in most of ...countries around the world is the obligation to wear a mask for citizens. This new habit could have several issues for human relationships. The current research aimed to explore the effect of wearing a mask on both emotion recognition and perception of attractiveness. Two hundred and two participants completed a task consisting of 24 face images presented twice, with and without mask. Of them, there were six images for emotion: anger, sadness, fear, and happiness. The results showed that emotion recognition was worse when wearing a face mask except for surprise: happiness, η2 = 0.84; anger, η2 = 0.74; anger, η2 = 52. Moreover, wearing a mask enhanced the perception of attractiveness both in male and female in all emotions except for happiness: sadness, η2 = 0.22; surprise, η2 = 0.05, and anger, η2 = 0.03. Finally, social implications and limitations of the study are discussed.
The fourth industrial revolution has fundamentally altered the way we live, and social media has become a crucial channel for the promotion of brands through influencers. This study explored the ...relationship between a virtual influencer's attractiveness and a consumer's purchase intention, the mediating effect of mimetic desire and brand attachment, as well as the moderating effect of the product–endorser fit with the brand. An online survey of 364 female Instagram users was developed using confirmatory factor analysis and PROCESS macro models 4 and 59. The findings revealed that virtual influencers' attractiveness was not directly associated with purchase intention; however, mimetic desire and brand attachment mediated this relationship. Additionally, the conditional direct effect of virtual influencers' attractiveness on purchase intention was partially supported while indirect effects via mimetic desire and brand attachment were moderated by the product–endorser fit. This study makes important contributions to source attractiveness model literature through emphasis on the role of virtual influencers in enhancing customers' favorable perceptions toward advertisements, which in turn leads to greater purchase intention. It also suggests managerial implications for marketers, including the finding that a good product–endorser match is a crucial factor in determining the effectiveness of advertisements.
•Virtual influencer's attractiveness was not associated with purchase intention.•Mimetic desire and brand attachment mediated this relationship.•Product–endorser fit with the brand moderated the mediation effect.•What a low product-endorser fit with the brand means for potential customers.
Appearance-based inequalities are gaining increasing interest in sociology. This article is the first to systematically examine the extent to which attractiveness is linked to culturally shared ideas ...of representatives of different occupations. We conceptualise these cultural expectations as ‘occupation-congruent appearance’. To understand the gendered dynamics between attractiveness and looking ‘congruent’, we analyse large-scale photograph data representing a heterogeneous group of different occupations ( n = 1411), including population-level ratings on those photographs ( n = 3456). We find that for both men and women, attractiveness is generally associated with an increase in perceived occupation-congruent appearance. However, this association is gendered, so the differences between occupational categories are greater for men than for women. Therefore, we argue that attractiveness can magnify appearance-based status differences, particularly among men. The research opens new perspectives to examine appearance and inequalities, not only from the perspective of looking attractive, but also through looking congruent.
The attractiveness of a person, a complex, and socially relevant type of information, is transmitted in many ways, not least through face and voice. However, it is unclear how the stimulus domains ...carrying attractiveness information interact. The present study explored the audiovisual perception of attractiveness in a Stroop-like paradigm using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants were presented with face-voice pairs carrying congruent or incongruent attractiveness information and, in turn, judged the attractiveness level of each domain while ignoring the other. Voice attractiveness judgments were influenced by unattended face attractiveness, in terms of both, early perceptual encoding (N170, P200) as well as later evaluative stages (N400, LPC). In contrast, effects of unattended voice attractiveness on face attractiveness judgments were confined to early perceptual encoding (N170). These results demonstrate not only the interaction of multiple domains in human attractiveness perception at different processing stages but also a relative dominance of face over voice attractiveness.
This systematic literature review identifies major trends that guided tourism research on beauty and aesthetics, critiques its current state, and proposes directions to advance tourism theory and ...practice. The review categorizes 39 studies into five themes corralled into two meta-themes: Consuming aesthetic value (Aesthetic Judgement & Experiences, Effects of Tourism Aesthetics, Tourism Aesthetics & Sustainability) and Producing aesthetic value (Foundational Issues in Aesthetics Management, Management of Destination Aesthetics). Proposed future research directions include challenging West European aesthetic ideas, considering the perspectives of destination residents, and expanding research to aesthetic categories beyond the beautiful. The article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Beauty & Aesthetics in Tourism. The Collection contains all past articles published in Annals of Tourism Research on the topic, and continues to grow as new articles are added.
•Paper systematically reviews existing research (N = 39) on tourism aesthetics.•Identifies 5 themes arranged as meta-themes Consuming vs. Producing aesthetics•Proposes future research directions to advance aesthetic-focused research in tourism
The present article summarizes an oral presentation provided at the second forum of Japanese Psychonomic Science. We discuss the effects of partial occlusion of face masks on interpersonal ...communication in terms of perception of facial emotional expressions, person identification, perception of physical attractiveness. We discuss the two-factor model of attractiveness perception of masked faces and the moderate interpolation hypothesis of perception of attractiveness for masked faces.
•Influencer attributes cause customers to form and maintain influencer characterizations.•Characterizations determine purchase intention according to the persuasion theory.•Parasocial relationship ...(PSR) characterization is stronger than expertise or trustworthiness.•In forming PSR, social attractiveness is stronger than physical attractiveness or attitude homophily.•The persuasion theory is empirically validated in the context of social media influencer marketing.
Social media influencer marketing has recently received significant attention. Many studies have explored the parasocial relationship (PSR) formation between influencers and followers. PSR has not often been weighted against other widely used relationship marketing constructs, despite the multitude of PSR studies. This study developed a research model based on the theory of persuasion, which was constructed to investigate the relative weight of the PSR. The study considered three personal attributes (attitude homophily, physical attractiveness, and social attractiveness) and three characterizations (trustworthiness, perceived expertise, and PSR) as antecedents of purchase intention. Data were collected through a survey of respondents who bought products/services after watching YouTube advertisements made by influencers. The study found that PSR had a significantly positive impact on purchase intentions relative to other characterizations and that PSR was significantly related to the three personal attributes. In addition, PSR formation was significantly influenced by consumers’ perceived influencer types. The survey showed that social media influencer marketing strategies need to be fine-tuned based on personal attributes, characterizations, and influencer types. This paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
Physical attractiveness is a highly valued trait in prospective romantic partners. However, it is unclear whether romantic partners' attractiveness is associated with commitment to the relationship. ...We report the results of a study of 565 male-female couples residing in Austria, Germany, or Switzerland. Employing dyadic analytical methods, we show that both men and women were more committed to their relationships if they perceived their partners as attractive. However, attractiveness also had a negative effect on commitment: People tended to feel less committed the more attractive their partners perceived themselves. Furthermore, although partners perceived themselves as similar in attractiveness to their partners, analyses revealed that similarity was not associated with commitment. Together, the findings demonstrate that attractiveness does matter for commitment to existing romantic relationships and emphasize the value of dyadic approaches to studying romantic relationships.
