Attractiveness is a proposed universal cue to overall biological quality. Nonetheless, local raters and raters of the same ethnicity may be more accurate in assessing the cues for attractiveness than distant and unfamiliar raters. Shared ethnicity and shared environment may both affect rating accuracy: our aim was to compare their relative influence. Therefore, we photographed young Vietnamese participants (N = 93, 33 women) from Hanoi, Vietnam. The photographs were rated by Czechs, Asian Vietnamese, and Czech Vietnamese (raters of Vietnamese origin who lived in Czechia for all or most of their life). Using geometric morphometrics, we measured facial shape cues to biological quality: averageness, asymmetry, and sexual dimorphism. We expected that Vietnamese raters residing in Czechia and Vietnam would agree on perceived attractiveness and use shape-related facial cues to biological quality better than Czech European raters, who are less familiar with East Asians. Surprisingly, mixed-effect models and post hoc comparisons identified no major cross-group differences in attributed attractiveness and path analyses revealed that the three groups based their rating on shape-related characteristics in a similar way. However, despite the considerable cross-cultural agreement regarding perceived attractiveness, Czech European raters associated attractiveness with facial shape averageness significantly more than Vietnamese raters.

• MeSH
• Beauty * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Southeast Asian People * MeSH
• Perception MeSH
• Sex Characteristics * MeSH
• Eastern European People MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Geographicals
• Vietnam MeSH

It has been demonstrated that sociocultural environment has a significant impact on human behavior. This contribution focuses on differences in the perception of attractiveness of European (Czech) faces as rated by Czechs of European origin, Vietnamese persons living in the Czech Republic and Vietnamese who permanently reside in Vietnam. We investigated whether attractiveness judgments and preferences for facial sex-typicality and averageness in Vietnamese who grew up and live in the Czech Republic are closer to the judgements and preferences of Czech Europeans or to those of Vietnamese born and residing in Vietnam. We examined the relative contribution of sexual shape dimorphism and averageness to the perception of facial attractiveness across all three groups of raters. Czech Europeans, Czech Vietnamese, and Asian Vietnamese raters of both sexes rated facial portraits of 100 Czech European participants (50 women and 50 men, standardized, non-manipulated) for attractiveness. Taking Czech European ratings as a standard for Czech facial attractiveness, we showed that Czech Vietnamese assessments of attractiveness were closer to this standard than assessments by the Asian Vietnamese. Among all groups of raters, facial averageness positively correlated with perceived attractiveness, which is consistent with the "average is attractive" hypothesis. A marginal impact of sexual shape dimorphism on attractiveness rating was found only in Czech European male raters: neither Czech Vietnamese nor Asian Vietnamese raters of either sex utilized traits associated with sexual shape dimorphism as a cue of attractiveness. We thus conclude that Vietnamese people permanently living in the Czech Republic converge with Czechs of Czech origin in perceptions of facial attractiveness and that this population adopted some but not all Czech standards of beauty.

• MeSH
• Asian People psychology   MeSH
• White People psychology   MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Beauty * MeSH
• Cultural Diversity * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Judgment physiology   MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Face physiology   MeSH
• Sex Characteristics MeSH
• Facial Recognition physiology   MeSH
• Sex Factors MeSH
• Social Environment * MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Comparative Study MeSH
• Geographicals
• Czech Republic ethnology   MeSH
• Vietnam ethnology   MeSH

Static photographs are currently the most often employed stimuli in research on social perception. The method of photograph acquisition might affect the depicted subject's facial appearance and thus also the impression of such stimuli. An important factor influencing the resulting photograph is focal length, as different focal lengths produce various levels of image distortion. Here we tested whether different focal lengths (50, 85, 105 mm) affect depicted shape and perception of female and male faces. We collected three portrait photographs of 45 (22 females, 23 males) participants under standardized conditions and camera setting varying only in the focal length. Subsequently, the three photographs from each individual were shown on screen in a randomized order using a 3-alternative forced-choice paradigm. The images were judged for attractiveness, dominance, and femininity/masculinity by 369 raters (193 females, 176 males). Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) was measured from each photograph and overall facial shape was analysed employing geometric morphometric methods (GMM). Our results showed that photographs taken with 50 mm focal length were rated as significantly less feminine/masculine, attractive, and dominant compared to the images taken with longer focal lengths. Further, shorter focal lengths produced faces with smaller fWHR. Subsequent GMM revealed focal length significantly affected overall facial shape of the photographed subjects. Thus methodology of photograph acquisition, focal length in this case, can significantly affect results of studies using photographic stimuli perhaps due to different levels of perspective distortion that influence shapes and proportions of morphological traits.

• MeSH
• Photography * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Masculinity MeSH
• Face anatomy & histology   MeSH
• Optics and Photonics * MeSH
• Femininity MeSH
• Visual Perception * MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH