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Article Excerpt
Ethnographers have long held that cultures differ widely in their attitudes towards obesity and body shape (Brown & Konner, 1987; Ford & Beach, 1952; Popenoe, 2003; Sobal & Stunkard, 1989; but see Ember, Ember, Korotayez, & de Munck, 2005), and a number of psychological studies have since confirmed the existence of cross-cultural differences in what constitutes a desired or desirable body size (e.g. Furnham & Alibhai, 1983; Furnham & Baguma, 1994; Marlowe & Wetsman, 2001; Swami & Tovee, 2005a; Wetsman & Marlowe, 1999; Yu & Shepard, 1998). In particular, it has been frequently noted that there seems to be a greater positive association between body fat and prestige in the South Pacific, as body fat is more likely to reflect access to food resources (Becker, 1995; Brewis & McGarvey, 2000; Craig, Swinburn, Matenga-Smith, Matangi, & Vaughan 1996; McGarvey, 1991; Wilkinson, Ben-Tovin, & Walker, 1994).
A series of recent studies (e.g. Swami, Knight, Tovee, Davies, & Furnham, 2006; Swami & Tovee, 2005a; Swami, Tovee, Furnham, & Mangalparsad, in press) have confirmed that body weight, as opposed to body shape (measured by the waist-to-hip ratio; WHR), is the primary cue to female physical attractiveness across cultures. Importantly, these studies show that the judgments of body weight differs according to socio-economic status (SES), with low SES observers preferring heavier figures than high SES observers. Swami and Tovee (2005a), for example, investigated judgments of body weight along a socioeconomic gradient in Malaysia and Britain, finding that observers from high SES settings in both countries tended to prefer a lower female body weight than observers from a medium SES setting, who in turn preferred a lower body weight than a comparatively low SES group. They argue that their results lend credence to the view that physical attractiveness may be linked less to ethnicity than increased SES (Lee & Lee, 2000; Sobal & Stunkard, 1989).
Until recently, this pattern linking resource availability (as indicated by SES) and female body weight lacked an obvious psychological mechanism. One possible suggestion is that this pattern of norms derives from individuals' direct assessment of collective resources. Nelson and Morrison (2005), however, think this unlikely, as perceptions of the economy show only modest accuracy and, in any case, arc thought to reflect personal political beliefs more than the actual state of the economy (Mutz, 1998). Furthermore, personal experience plays a role in perceptions of the economy, leading to wide variability. Finally, direct assessment is unlikely because, even when reported as conscious decisions, preferences seem to be made at the subconscious level (e.g. Wiederman & Dubois, 1998).
Instead, Nelson and Morrison (2005) proposed an implicit psychological mechanism based on the situational influence of environmental conditions. They argue that the consequence of collective resource scarcity is that individual members of a society in which resources are scarce are likely to lack resources themselves. They further argue that the affective and physiological states associated with individual-level resource availability provide implicit information about collective resource availability, and that this then plays a role in the construction of judgments.
In a series of studies, Nelson and Morrison (2005) tested this hypothesis by manipulating people's financial satisfaction or hunger (both these being proxies for personal resources in industrialized societies) and measuring their preferences for potential romantic partners. Their studies confirmed that implicit cues to resource availability influence preference for potential mates: financially dissatisfied and hungry men preferred a heavier mate than did financially satisfied men or satiated men, respectively. One notable aspect of these studies was the dependent variable used: participants were asked to indicate what they 'personally consider ideal in a member of the opposite sex' by responding on a 15-point scale 'how much he/she would weigh relative to the average member of that sex' (Nelson & Morisson, 2005: 168). Past research indicates, however, that observers have difficulty making accurate judgments of body weight in the absence of corresponding real-life body mass (e.g. Tovee, Emery, & Cohen-Tovee, 2000).
In order to test the validity of Nelson and Morrison's (2005) conclusions, we replicated their studies on hunger with a different dependent variable: we asked participants to rate a series of photographs of women with known body weight and shape. This provides a substantial improvement over the original study for a number of reasons. First, by using a set of stimuli depicting real women, it is possible to more sensitively determine the effects of hunger on ratings of attractiveness in ways that more closely approach real-life decisions. Second, it allows the data here to be compared with respect to previous studies that have used the same methodology and analysis (e.g. Swami, & Tovee, 2005a; Tovee, Hancock, Mahmoodi, Singleton, & Cornelissen, 2002). Finally, by using photographic stimuli where body weight is quantified as the body mass index (BMI), we are able to show more precisely the effects of changes to judgments, in contrast to previous studies that have used only a general measure of body weight. In addition, we used a more stringent measure of hunger and satiety than that...
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