Effects of Gender and Physical Attractiveness on Visual Attention to Facebook Profiles

The current study examined viewers' gaze while observing Facebook profiles of strangers varying in gender and physical attractiveness. Fifty-one participants viewed four Facebook profiles, a physically attractive and unattractive individual of each gender. Participants' eye movements were tracked as they viewed each profile for 60 seconds. Results showed that participants paid more attention to the physical appearance (main profile photograph) of female than of male profile owners and to the personal information (likes and interests) of male than to female profile owners. Participants spent more time focusing on information that was irrelevant to forming an impression of the profile owner (advertisements) when viewing the profiles of unattractive than attractive individuals, suggesting that they made a greater effort to learn about these individuals.

[1]  William Ickes,et al.  Shyness and Physical Attractiveness in Mixed-Sex Dyads , 1991 .

[2]  G. L. Lorenzo,et al.  What Is Beautiful Is Good and More Accurately Understood , 2010, Psychological science.

[3]  Ran R. Hassin,et al.  Facing faces: studies on the cognitive aspects of physiognomy. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[4]  Daniel Bar-Tal,et al.  Physical attractiveness and its relationship to sex-role stereotyping , 1976 .

[5]  Shailey Minocha,et al.  Revisiting Web Design Guidelines by Exploring Users' Expectations, Preferences and Visual Search Behaviour , 2005, BCS HCI.

[6]  Thomas S. Tullis,et al.  Generation Y, web design, and eye tracking , 2010, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[7]  Steven L. Neuberg,et al.  Sexually selective cognition: beauty captures the mind of the beholder. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[8]  Joseph B. Walther,et al.  Nonverbal Dynamics in Computer-Mediated Communication or: (And the Net: ('S with You, :) and You :) Alone , 2006 .

[9]  L. White,et al.  The Continuing Role of Physical Attractiveness in Marriage. , 1987 .

[10]  Sabrina C. Eimler,et al.  Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus? Examining Gender Differences in Self-Presentation on Social Networking Sites , 2012, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[11]  Bertram Gawronski,et al.  I think I like you: Spontaneous and deliberate evaluations of potential romantic partners in an online dating context , 2010 .

[12]  Brandon Van Der Heide,et al.  Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook , 2008, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[13]  G. William Walster,et al.  Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis☆ , 1971 .

[14]  Bernd Marcus,et al.  Personality in cyberspace: personal Web sites as media for personality expressions and impressions. , 2006, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[15]  Erin M. Schumaker,et al.  The Effects of Verbal Versus Photographic Self‐Presentation on Impression Formation in Facebook , 2012 .

[16]  Laura E. Buffardi,et al.  Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites , 2008, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[17]  J. Langlois,et al.  Maxims or myths of beauty? A meta-analytic and theoretical review. , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[18]  D. Berry,et al.  Perceiving character in faces: the impact of age-related craniofacial changes on social perception. , 1986, Psychological bulletin.

[19]  Michael A. Stefanone,et al.  Face off: Implications of visual cues on initiating friendship on Facebook , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[20]  Thomas F. Cash,et al.  Sexism and beautyism in personnel consultant decision making. , 1977 .