Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 1973, 1, 2, pp. 202--213
Facial Attractiveness and Juvenile Delinquency Among Black and White Offenders 1 NORMAN CAVIOR 2 AND L. RAMONA HOWARD 3
West Virginia University Facial pictures of black and white delinquents were significantly less attractive than pictures of corresponding groups of high school students, as judged by same-race raters. Significant differences were found among the white delinquents, but not among the black, for Quay's four behavioral dimensions of delinquency. Black delinquents were significantly darker in skin color than the black high school students, and lightness of skin color was positively correlated with physical attractiveness ratings made by both black and white raters, indicating that neither race has yet assimilated the saying "black is beautiful." This and other evidence suggest that facial attractiveness may be causal in delinquency.
Several recent investigations have yielded high, positive correlations between physical attractiveness and (a) popularity among children (Cavior, 1970; Pope, 1953; Staffieri, 1967), (b) popularity and dating preferences among adolescents (Cavior, 1970; Cavior & Miller, 1972), (c) acceptance into college sororities and fraternities (Roff & Brody, 1953), (d) popularity and dating preferences among college students (Berscheid, Dion, Walster, E., & Walster, G. M., 1971; Brislin & Lewis, 1968; Byrne, Ervin, & Lamberth, 1970; Coombs & Kenkel, 1966; Perrin, 1921; Stroebe, Insko, Thompson, & Layton, 1971; Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rottman, 1966), (e) actual dating partners (Murstein, 1972; Silverman, 1971), and (10 actual marriage partners (Cavior & Boblett, 1972). These and other studies indicate the importance of physical attractiveness in various dyadic and 1 These studies were conducted with the cooperation of the staff of the Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center, Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice. The center is not responsible for the contents of this report; the report does not necessarily represent the Center's views. The portion of this paper dealing with the white offenders was presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, Massachusetts, April 1972. 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. Norman Cavior, Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506. 3The authors would like to thank Hayne W. Reese for his assistance.
202 Copyright 9
by V. H. Winston & Sons, Inc.
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group processes and suggest the possibility that unattractive people may be rejected by others. Such rejection may lead to retaliatory antisocial behavior. It has long been suggested that the somatotype of the male juvenile offender is characterized by a predominance of mesomorphy and an absence of ectomorphy and endomorphy as compared with youths not labeled as delinquent (Glueck, S., & Glueck, E., 1950; Sheldon, 1949). Research by Staffieri (1967) and Cavior (1970) has indicated that in the general population high ratings of physical attractiveness are associated with mesomorphy and low ratings with ectomorphy and endomorphy. If the same relations were found among delinquents, it would seem that physical attractiveness does not play a contributory role to delinquency. An experimental study with adults in the New York City Department of Corrections, however, showed that cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery significantly reduced the recidivism rate among nonaddict criminals with facial deformities, as compared with a control group of criminals with similar facial problems who did not receive surgery (Kurtzberg, Safar, & Cavior, 1968). In addition, informal observations of white delinquents, made by Cavior in the New York City correctional system and at the Kennedy Youth Center, also suggested that there was a greater proportion of unattractive faces among prison immates than among the general population outside of prison. These findings and observations suggested the two hypotheses tested in the first study of the present report: 1. There is a positive relationship between facial appearance and delinquent behavior; i.e.,juvenile delinquents are less facially attractive than nondelinqnents. 2. There are significant differences in the degree of facial physical attractiveness among Quay's four behavior dimensions of juvenile offenders (Quay, 1972; Quay & Parsons, 1971; U.S. Department of Justice, 1970). The classification system at the Kennedy Youth Center is based on the use of three instruments developed in an extensive program of research into the dimensions of deviant behavior in adolescents and children. Data from the instruments are transformed into scores for each behavior dimension and the delinquent is assigned to the dimension on which he obtained the highest composite score. The four dimensions are inadequate-immature, neuroticdisturbed, unsocialized-psychopathic, and socialized-subcultural. Research has shown that the delinquents selected as extremes on the dimensions systematically vary along a number of psychologically relevant dimensions (e.g., Borkovec, 1970; Orris, 1969; Skrzypek, 1969). The first study of this report dealt with white delinquents; the second study, black delinquents. At the time Study I was initiated there were very few black raters available to rate the pictures of the black students
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at the Kennedy Youth Center. Later the investigators were able to secure the help of black raters to replicate this study with the black offenders. STUDY I
Method Subjects. The Kennedy Youth Center furnished facial photographs of the inmates as well as their behavior dimension dassffication. The pictures had been taken on the photographic vending machines found in many stores and amusement parks. There were 103 inmates, all white males, who ranged in age from 16 to 21 with a median of 18. The facial pictures of 78 white nondelinquents were obtained from the yearbook of a high school in Morgantown, West Virginia. The 78 nondelinquents comprised the entire male graduating class for that year, and ranged in age from 17 to 19 with a median age of 18. The pictures of the high school students were approximately the same size as the delinquents' pictures (2 x llA in.), but they were printed on different paper. Everything below the neck was covered with tape to prevent judgements from being affected by ties, shirt styles, or other clothing. It was not possible to control for factors such as smiling, although in our experience factors such as clothing styles and smiling do not seem to make major differences in judging physical attractiveness; structural characteristics and hair styles seem to be more important. The hair styles in the delinquent and high school groups were similarly short. The pictures were judged by freshmen and sophomores in introductory psychology classes at West Virginia University. There were two groups of judges, each consisting of 30 males and 30 females, all white, with a median age of 18. One group of males and females judged the Kennedy Youth Center pictures and the other group judged the high school pictures. (The data on the high school students were originally gathered for another study.) Procedures. The pictures were placed on 3 x 5 in. index cards, coded on the back. The judges sorted the pictures into five physical-attractiveness categories, from very unattractive (1) to very attractive (5). Cavior and Dokecki (1973) have found that this rating procedure yields results extremely similar to those obtained by a ranking procedure tested for significance by the Kendall Coefficient of Concordance, and that both types of measures are reliable. The deck of pictures was shuffled before each judge sorted them. The persons who collected the data on the delinquents and the judges who rated them knew nothing of the purposes or hypotheses of the study, and the judges did not know the pictures were of delinquents. The person who collected the data with the pictures of the nondelinquents knew that they were of high school students
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although the judges who rated them did not. Neither of the persons who collected the data in the two parts of this study had any knowledge that the data would be compared with each other since this was not originally planned.
Re~l~ Interrater reliability was extremely high as indicated by very low standard deviations of the ratings; for the pictures of the delinquents the mean standard deviation was .53, and of the high school group .46. In addition, the correlation between male and female ratings of the delinquent pictures was .92 (p < .001), and of the nondelinquent pictures .94 (p < .001). Only the results of the combined ratings of male and female judges are presented since separate analyses yielded identical results. A one-way analysis of variance with five levels (four behavior dimensions plus the high school students) was used to analyze the facial-attractiveness ratings and yielded an F ratio of 4.78 (dr = 4/176; p < .01), which indicated that there were significant differences among the mean facial attractiveness ratings assigned to the five groups of pictures. Duncan's New Multiple Range Test indicated that each group differed significantly from every other group (p < .05), with one exception. The one exception was that there was no significant difference between the high school group and the delinquent socialized-subcultural group; however, the difference between these two groups reached a significance level of .10. In descending order, the means of the facial attractiveness ratings for each of the five groups of subjects were: high school students, 2.73 (SD = .46,N = 78); socialized-subcultural, 2.46 (SD = .61, N = 26); neurotic-disturbed, 2.28 (SD = .48, N = 40); inadequate-immature, 2.05 (SD = .43, N = 28); and unsocialized-psychopathic, 1.90 (SD = .56, N = 9). In terms of the overlap of the ratings, 9% of the delinquents' pictures received mean ratings of 3 or higher (3 = average) as compared to 37% of the high school pictures. STUDY II After the first study was completed, the second study was begun with black inmates at the Kennedy Youth Center. In addition to the two hypotheses examined in Study I, it was hypothesized that 1. Black inmates are darker in skin color than black high school students. 2. Lightness of skin color is positively correlated with physical attractiveness, rated by both black and white raters. 3. White raters give higher physical attractiveness ratings than black raters. The hypothesis that black delinquents are darker in skin color than black high school students was suggested by research findings such as those obtained by
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Ransford (1970), who interviewed 312 black males shortly after the Watts riot. Dark blacks were found to be in lower occupational and income positions than light blacks, even when education (as a measure of skill) was held constant. Moreover, blacks who had moved to the periphery or completely out of the ghetto and those in more prestigeful white-collar jobs tended to be lighter than those in the ghetto or at the bottom of the class structure. Similar results have been obtained by Edwards (1959), Drake and Cayton (1962), Frazier (1962), and Bullough (1969). The hypotheses that physical attractiveness and lightness of skin color are positively correlated and that white raters would give higher physical attractiveness ratings than black raters were based on the following considerations. Until very recently, with the increased emphasis on black identity and the consequent beauty of blackness, a dark color had been devalued within the black community; blacks were socialized to accept the white world and white standards of beauty (e.g., Stevenson & Stewart, 1958). There developed among blacks a color stratification system in which light skin color was valued and dark skin color was viewed as an unfortunate disability (Brody, 1963; Brown, 1969; Lincoln, 1967). Similarly, Cavior and Dokecki (1970) found a high positive correlation between lightness of skin color and peer-rated physical attractiveness among Mexican children in Monterrey, Mexico; and Cavior (1970) found a positive correlation between lightness of skin color and peer-rated physical attractiveness among white fifth- and eleventh-grade children. Not only are blacks now being taught to think that black is beautiful, but so are whites, although neither group seems to be learning and behaving accordingly. Whites, in particular, would likely find it very difficult, especially in the presence of a black person, to describe blacks as less than average in attractiveness. In other words, white raters' responses might in large part be determined by their defensiveness, in the presence of a black experimenter, against stating that they Find blacks generally unattractive.
Method Sub]ects. Facial pictures and behavior dimension ratings of 56 black residents were obtained from the Kennedy Youth Center. These were all the pictures available at the time study was initiated. The residents, all black males, ranged in age from 16 to 21 with the median age of 18. Pictures of 56 black, nondelinquent high school seniors were randomly selected from a yearbook of a high school in Atlanta, Georgia. These subjects ranged in age from 17 to 19 with a median age of 18. The two groups of pictures were the same size as those in Study I, and the same precautions were taken to minimize effects that might result from the differences in quality between them.
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Raters. The pictures were rated by three groups of raters. One group included 30 black males and 30 black females, average age 19, who were students at West Virginia University. This group of raters rated the pictures on physical attractiveness. Another group of raters consisted of 15 white females, average age 25, and 15 white males, average age 31. The females in this group were primarily graduate students at West Virginia University; the males were psychology department faculty and graduate students. This group of raters also rated the pictures on physical attractiveness. The third group of raters consisted of 15 black females, average age 30, and 15 black males, average age 23, who rated the pictures for skin color. The females in this group were teachers in an elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia; the males consisted of five teachers in the same school and 10 undergraduate students from West Virginia University. None of the raters knew the purpose of the study. Procedure. The two sets of pictures (delinquent and nondelinquent) were combined into a single group of 112 pictures, which were rated on physical attractiveness with the same scale as in Study I. The ratings of skin color were also on a 5-point scale from very dark (1) to very light (5). Results Interrater reliability within each of the three groups of raters was high as indicated by low standard deviations on almost all the pictures: for the attractiveness ratings of the high school and delinquent pictures, respectively, the mean standard deviations among the black raters were .48 and .51, and among the white raters .52 and .57. The standard deviations of the skin-color ratings were similar in magnitude. The between-sex correlations were .90 (p < .001) for blacks judging physical attractiveness, .88 (p < .001) for whites judging physical attractiveness, and .98 (p < .001) for blacks judging skin color. Therefore, only the combined ratings of the male and female raters are reported; results were identical when analyzed separately for each sex. Three one-way analyses of variance with five levels (four behavior dimensions from Kennedy Youth Center, plus high school subjects) were used to examine the facial attractiveness and skin-color ratings. The results indicated that there were significant differences among the five groups for blacks judging skin color (F = 23.397, df = 4/107, p < . 0 0 1 ) , and for blacks judging physical attractiveness (F = 4.357, df = 4/107, p < .003), but not for whites judging physical attractiveness (F =.949, df= 4/107, p > .05). The mean physical attractiveness and skin-color ratings, and the results of Duncan's New Multiple Range Tests, are shown in Table 1. For blacks judging physical attractiveness and skin color there were no significant differences among the four dimensions of delinquency, but the subjects representing each of the four dimensions were rated as significantly less attractive and darker in skin
t~
TABLE 1
PA PA SC
Black White Black .48 .52 .67 2.16" 2.98* 2.11'
M
.63 .49 .95
SD
Inadequateimmature (N = 15)
1.79" 2.52* 1.71"
M
.33 .66 .51
SD
Neuroticdisturbed (N = 7)
2.01" 2.88* 1.76"
M
.44 .44 .58
SD
Unsocialize~ psychopathic (iV = 13)
2.09* 2.90* 2.03*
M
.44 .60 .77
SD
Socializedsubcultur~ (N = 21)
*Means which did not differ significantly from each other according to Duncan's New Multiple Range Test.
2.40 2.90* 3.24
SE
judged M
High school (N= 78)
Dimension
Race of raters
Group
MEAN PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS (PA) AND SKIN COLOR (SC) RATINGS IN STUDY II
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209
color than the high school students. Results support the hypotheses that black delinquents are less attractive and darker in skin color than black high school students, but failed to confirm the finding obtained in Study I that there are significant differences in physical attractiveness among the four dimensions. In terms of the overlap of the ratings of attractiveness made by the black raters, 45% of the delinquent pictures received mean ratings of 2 or higher (2 = less than average) as compared to 77% of the high school pictures. There was very little overlap in the skin-color ratings: 83% of the high school pictures were rated as light as compared to 17% of the delinquents' pictures. The results shown in Table 1 also support the hypothesis that white raters assign higher physical-attractiveness scores to black pictures than do black raters. Furthermore, even though interrater reliabilities were extremely high in both studies, the white judges assigned substantially higher physical-attractiveness ratings to black pictures (Study II) than to the white pictures (Study I). This result lends further support to the hypothesis that whites may be rating the black pictures from a position of defensiveness. The correlations between the lightness of skin color and physical attractiveness ratings were .53 (p < .001) for the black raters and .72 (p < .001) for the white raters. The difference between these two correlation values was significant (Z = 1.77, p < .05, one-tailed test), indicating that white raters respond more to skin color in judging the attractiveness of blacks than do black raters. DISCUSSION The data from both studies can be interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that both black and white delinquents are significantly lower in facial attractiveness than nondelinquents. This ffmding suggests that there is a relationship between facial attractiveness and delinquency, and is congruent with the findings of Kurtzberg et al. (1968) on the effectiveness of facial plastic surgery in reducing recidivism. Although, strictly speaking, pictures were judged rather than persons, Cavior and Dokecki (1.973) found high, postive correlations between ratings of pictures made by persons who knew and others who did not know the persons judged. Presumably the raters who knew the persons depicted were ranking the actual persons when they were ranking the pictures. The comparison of ratings between Kennedy Youth Center offenders and the high school students suggests that a lack of facial attractiveness may play a contributory role in the development of antisocial behavior and/or reduce the probability that the offender will receive a suspended sentence, or even that he will be arrested. A recent study by Dion (1972) on physical attractiveness and evaluation of children's transgressions indicated that adults display differential treatment toward attractive and unattractive children in circumstances in which
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their behavior is identical, and further that the severe transgression of an attractive child is less likely to be seen as reflecting an enduring disposition toward antisocial behavior than that of an unattractive child. In addition, the transgression itself tends to be less negatively evaluated when committed by an attractive child. Finally, research by Miller (1970) and Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) indicated that positive personality descriptions and predictions regarding future behavior are assigned to attractive individuals, while negative personality descriptions and predictions are assigned to unattractive individuals. The finding in Study I, with white offenders, that physical attractiveness varies among the four dimensions of delinquent behavior described by Quay, suggests the possibility that different behaviors or different perceptions of similar behaviors are associated with different levels of physical attractiveness. This would follow Dion's (1972) finding that for the same transgression, children of different levels of physical attractiveness are treated differently. Whether the absence of a relationship between physical attractiveness and Quay's dimensions among the black delinquents resulted from the relatively small sample size, methodological problems, the positive correlation between lightness of skin color and physical attractiveness, or whether no relationship exists, cannot be determined at this time. The results of Study II also confirmed the hypotheses that black delinquents are significantly darker in skin color than black high school students and that there is a positive correlation between lightness of skin color and physical attractiveness rated by both black and white raters. These findings suggest that dark-skinned blacks may receive different treatment even within the black culture, in addition to being treated differently by the white culture. This may be due to an internalization by both cultures of the concept that the color white symbolizes and connotes positive adjectives such as purity, cleanliness, and godliness, while black symbolizes and connotes such things as dirt, evil, and death; good cowboys wear white hats and the outlaws, black hats. From a theoretical viewpoint, either the stimulus value of the person to the observer or attribution, self-concept, or reinforcement theory, among others, can be invoked to account for the results, either alone or in combination. In addition, attitude-similarity research tends to suggest that liking (and therefore acceptance) is dependent on the extent of either perceived attitude similarity or actual attitude similarity (e.g., Byrne, 1969; Cavior & Miller, 1972). One could therefore speculate that the apparent visibility of the black skin, coupled with stereotyped expectancies, would necessarily establish barriers to perceived attitude similarity and subsequent liking as well as subsequent handling in various aspects of the legal process. It is important to note that there were some qualitative differences between the photographs of the delinquent and high school groups, and that different rating methods were used in the two studies. These differences might also
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explain some of the present findings; consequently, the results and conclusions should be considered as suggestive of the possible contribution of physical appearance to social deviance. These differences cannot account for the difference in physical attractiveness ratings among the four dimensions of definquency in Study I, nor the finding, in Study II, that white raters assigned significantly higher ratings to the pictures of blacks than did the black raters. In addition, the issue of the defensiveness of the white raters, in Study II, is difficult to evaluate since the effects due to the presence of a black experimenter cannot be separated from the effects due to the photographs of the black subjects. Future research in this area might benefit from nonreactive (unobtrusive) research strategies. For example, it should be possible to observe directly actual courtroom situations in which blacks and whites of different levels of physical attractiveness and skin coloration are tried for similar offences. REFERENCES Berscheid, E., Dion, K., Walster, E., & Walster, G. M. Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1971, 7, 173-189. Borkovec, T. D. Autonomic reactivity to sensory stimulation in psychopathic, neurotic and normal delinquents. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1970, 35,217-222. Brislin, R. W., & Lewis, S. A. Dating and physical attractiveness: Replication. Psychological Reports, 1968, 22, 976. Brody, E. B. Color and identity conflict in young boys. Psychiatry, 1963, 26, 188-200.
Brown, H. R. Die nigger die. New York: The Dial Press, 1969. Bullough, B. Social psychological barriers to housing desegregation. University of California: The Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, 1969. Byrne, D. Attitudes and attraction. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 4. New York: Academic Press, 1969. Byrne, D., Ervin, C. R., & Lamberth, J. C. Continuity between the experimental study of attraction and "real life" computer dating. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 16, 157-165. Cavior, N. Physical attractiveness, perceived attitude similarity, and interpersonal attraction among fifth and eleventh grade boys and girls. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Houston, 1970. Cavior, N., & Boblett, P. J. Physical attractiveness of dating versus married couples. Proceedings of the 80th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1972, 7, 175-176. Cavior, N., & Dokecki, P. R. Physical attractiveness and interpersonal attraction among fifth grade boys: A replication with Mexican children. Paper presented at the meeting of the Southwestern PsychOlogical Association: St. Louis, Mo.: Apr. 25, 1970.
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Cavior, N., & Dockecki, P. R. Physical attractiveness, perceived attitude similarity, and academic achievement as contributors to interpersonal attraction among adolescents. Development Psychology, 1973, 8, in press. Cavior, N., & Miller, K. Physical attractiveness, attitude similarity, and length of acquaintance as contributors to interpersonal attraction among adolescents. Unpublished manuscript, West Virginia University, 1972. Coombs, R. H., & Kenkel, W. F. Sex differences in dating aspirations and satisfaction with computer-selected partners. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1966, 28, 62-66. Dion, K. Physical attractiveness and evaluations of children's transgressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24,207-213. Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24,285-290. Drake, S. C., & Cayton, H. R. Black metropolis. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. Edwards, F. The Negro professional class. Glencoe, II1.: The Free Press, 1959. Frazier, E. F. Black bourgeoisie: The rise of a new middle class in the United States. New York: Collier Books, 1962. Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. Unraveling ]uvenile delinquency. New York: Harper, 1950. Kurtzberg, R. L., Safar, H., & Cavior, N. Surgical and social rehabilitation of adult offenders. Proceedings of the 76th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1968, 3,649-650. Lincoln, C. Color and group identity in the United States. Daedalus, 1967, 96, 527-541. Miller, A. G. Role of physical attractiveness in impression formation. Psychonomic Science, 1970, 19,241-243. Murstein, B. I. Physical attractiveness and marital choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 22, 8-12. Orris, J. B. Visual monitoring performance in three subgroups of male delinquents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1969, 74, 227-237. Perrin, F. A. C. Physical attractiveness and repulsiveness. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1921, 4, 203-217. Pope, B. Socioeconomic contrasts in children's peer culture prestige values. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 1953, 48, 157-220. Quay, H. C. Patterns of aggression, withdrawal and immaturity. In H. C. Quay & J. S. Werry (Eds.), Psychopathological disorders o f childhood. New York: Wiley, 1972. Quay, H. C., & Parsons, L. B. The differential behavioral classification of the juvenile offender. (Federal Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice) Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Ransford, H. E. Skin color, life chances and anti-white attitudes. Social Problems, t970, 18, 164-179. Roff, M., & Brody, D. S. Appearance and choice status during adolescence. Journal of Personality, 1953, 36, 347-356. Sheldon, W. H. Varieties of delinquent youth: An introduction to constitutional psychiatry. New York: Harper, 1949.
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Silverman, I. Physical attractiveness and courtship. Sexual Behavior, Sept. 1971, 22-25. Skrzypek, G. J. Effect of perceptual isolation and arousal on anxiety, complexity preference and novelty preference in psychopathic and neurotic delinquents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1969, 74, 321-329. Staffieri, J. R. A study of social stereotype of body image in children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1967, 1, 101-104. Stevenson, H. W., & Stewart, E. C. A developmental study of racial awareness in young children. Child Development, 1958, 29, 399-409. Stroebe, W., Insko, C. A., Thompson, V. D., & Layton, B. D. Effects of physical attractiveness, attitude similarity and sex on various aspects of interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1971, 18, 79-91. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center. Differential t r e a t m e n t . . . A way to begin. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970. Walster, E., Aronson, V., Abrahams, D., & Rottman, L. Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1966, 4, 508-516.
Facial Attractiveness and Juvenile Delinquency Among Black and White Offenders 1 NORMAN CAVIOR 2 AND L. RAMONA HOWARD 3
West Virginia University Facial pictures of black and white delinquents were significantly less attractive than pictures of corresponding groups of high school students, as judged by same-race raters. Significant differences were found among the white delinquents, but not among the black, for Quay's four behavioral dimensions of delinquency. Black delinquents were significantly darker in skin color than the black high school students, and lightness of skin color was positively correlated with physical attractiveness ratings made by both black and white raters, indicating that neither race has yet assimilated the saying "black is beautiful." This and other evidence suggest that facial attractiveness may be causal in delinquency.
Several recent investigations have yielded high, positive correlations between physical attractiveness and (a) popularity among children (Cavior, 1970; Pope, 1953; Staffieri, 1967), (b) popularity and dating preferences among adolescents (Cavior, 1970; Cavior & Miller, 1972), (c) acceptance into college sororities and fraternities (Roff & Brody, 1953), (d) popularity and dating preferences among college students (Berscheid, Dion, Walster, E., & Walster, G. M., 1971; Brislin & Lewis, 1968; Byrne, Ervin, & Lamberth, 1970; Coombs & Kenkel, 1966; Perrin, 1921; Stroebe, Insko, Thompson, & Layton, 1971; Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rottman, 1966), (e) actual dating partners (Murstein, 1972; Silverman, 1971), and (10 actual marriage partners (Cavior & Boblett, 1972). These and other studies indicate the importance of physical attractiveness in various dyadic and 1 These studies were conducted with the cooperation of the staff of the Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center, Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice. The center is not responsible for the contents of this report; the report does not necessarily represent the Center's views. The portion of this paper dealing with the white offenders was presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, Massachusetts, April 1972. 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. Norman Cavior, Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506. 3The authors would like to thank Hayne W. Reese for his assistance.
202 Copyright 9
by V. H. Winston & Sons, Inc.
FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
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group processes and suggest the possibility that unattractive people may be rejected by others. Such rejection may lead to retaliatory antisocial behavior. It has long been suggested that the somatotype of the male juvenile offender is characterized by a predominance of mesomorphy and an absence of ectomorphy and endomorphy as compared with youths not labeled as delinquent (Glueck, S., & Glueck, E., 1950; Sheldon, 1949). Research by Staffieri (1967) and Cavior (1970) has indicated that in the general population high ratings of physical attractiveness are associated with mesomorphy and low ratings with ectomorphy and endomorphy. If the same relations were found among delinquents, it would seem that physical attractiveness does not play a contributory role to delinquency. An experimental study with adults in the New York City Department of Corrections, however, showed that cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery significantly reduced the recidivism rate among nonaddict criminals with facial deformities, as compared with a control group of criminals with similar facial problems who did not receive surgery (Kurtzberg, Safar, & Cavior, 1968). In addition, informal observations of white delinquents, made by Cavior in the New York City correctional system and at the Kennedy Youth Center, also suggested that there was a greater proportion of unattractive faces among prison immates than among the general population outside of prison. These findings and observations suggested the two hypotheses tested in the first study of the present report: 1. There is a positive relationship between facial appearance and delinquent behavior; i.e.,juvenile delinquents are less facially attractive than nondelinqnents. 2. There are significant differences in the degree of facial physical attractiveness among Quay's four behavior dimensions of juvenile offenders (Quay, 1972; Quay & Parsons, 1971; U.S. Department of Justice, 1970). The classification system at the Kennedy Youth Center is based on the use of three instruments developed in an extensive program of research into the dimensions of deviant behavior in adolescents and children. Data from the instruments are transformed into scores for each behavior dimension and the delinquent is assigned to the dimension on which he obtained the highest composite score. The four dimensions are inadequate-immature, neuroticdisturbed, unsocialized-psychopathic, and socialized-subcultural. Research has shown that the delinquents selected as extremes on the dimensions systematically vary along a number of psychologically relevant dimensions (e.g., Borkovec, 1970; Orris, 1969; Skrzypek, 1969). The first study of this report dealt with white delinquents; the second study, black delinquents. At the time Study I was initiated there were very few black raters available to rate the pictures of the black students
204
CAVIOR AND HOWARD
at the Kennedy Youth Center. Later the investigators were able to secure the help of black raters to replicate this study with the black offenders. STUDY I
Method Subjects. The Kennedy Youth Center furnished facial photographs of the inmates as well as their behavior dimension dassffication. The pictures had been taken on the photographic vending machines found in many stores and amusement parks. There were 103 inmates, all white males, who ranged in age from 16 to 21 with a median of 18. The facial pictures of 78 white nondelinquents were obtained from the yearbook of a high school in Morgantown, West Virginia. The 78 nondelinquents comprised the entire male graduating class for that year, and ranged in age from 17 to 19 with a median age of 18. The pictures of the high school students were approximately the same size as the delinquents' pictures (2 x llA in.), but they were printed on different paper. Everything below the neck was covered with tape to prevent judgements from being affected by ties, shirt styles, or other clothing. It was not possible to control for factors such as smiling, although in our experience factors such as clothing styles and smiling do not seem to make major differences in judging physical attractiveness; structural characteristics and hair styles seem to be more important. The hair styles in the delinquent and high school groups were similarly short. The pictures were judged by freshmen and sophomores in introductory psychology classes at West Virginia University. There were two groups of judges, each consisting of 30 males and 30 females, all white, with a median age of 18. One group of males and females judged the Kennedy Youth Center pictures and the other group judged the high school pictures. (The data on the high school students were originally gathered for another study.) Procedures. The pictures were placed on 3 x 5 in. index cards, coded on the back. The judges sorted the pictures into five physical-attractiveness categories, from very unattractive (1) to very attractive (5). Cavior and Dokecki (1973) have found that this rating procedure yields results extremely similar to those obtained by a ranking procedure tested for significance by the Kendall Coefficient of Concordance, and that both types of measures are reliable. The deck of pictures was shuffled before each judge sorted them. The persons who collected the data on the delinquents and the judges who rated them knew nothing of the purposes or hypotheses of the study, and the judges did not know the pictures were of delinquents. The person who collected the data with the pictures of the nondelinquents knew that they were of high school students
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although the judges who rated them did not. Neither of the persons who collected the data in the two parts of this study had any knowledge that the data would be compared with each other since this was not originally planned.
Re~l~ Interrater reliability was extremely high as indicated by very low standard deviations of the ratings; for the pictures of the delinquents the mean standard deviation was .53, and of the high school group .46. In addition, the correlation between male and female ratings of the delinquent pictures was .92 (p < .001), and of the nondelinquent pictures .94 (p < .001). Only the results of the combined ratings of male and female judges are presented since separate analyses yielded identical results. A one-way analysis of variance with five levels (four behavior dimensions plus the high school students) was used to analyze the facial-attractiveness ratings and yielded an F ratio of 4.78 (dr = 4/176; p < .01), which indicated that there were significant differences among the mean facial attractiveness ratings assigned to the five groups of pictures. Duncan's New Multiple Range Test indicated that each group differed significantly from every other group (p < .05), with one exception. The one exception was that there was no significant difference between the high school group and the delinquent socialized-subcultural group; however, the difference between these two groups reached a significance level of .10. In descending order, the means of the facial attractiveness ratings for each of the five groups of subjects were: high school students, 2.73 (SD = .46,N = 78); socialized-subcultural, 2.46 (SD = .61, N = 26); neurotic-disturbed, 2.28 (SD = .48, N = 40); inadequate-immature, 2.05 (SD = .43, N = 28); and unsocialized-psychopathic, 1.90 (SD = .56, N = 9). In terms of the overlap of the ratings, 9% of the delinquents' pictures received mean ratings of 3 or higher (3 = average) as compared to 37% of the high school pictures. STUDY II After the first study was completed, the second study was begun with black inmates at the Kennedy Youth Center. In addition to the two hypotheses examined in Study I, it was hypothesized that 1. Black inmates are darker in skin color than black high school students. 2. Lightness of skin color is positively correlated with physical attractiveness, rated by both black and white raters. 3. White raters give higher physical attractiveness ratings than black raters. The hypothesis that black delinquents are darker in skin color than black high school students was suggested by research findings such as those obtained by
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Ransford (1970), who interviewed 312 black males shortly after the Watts riot. Dark blacks were found to be in lower occupational and income positions than light blacks, even when education (as a measure of skill) was held constant. Moreover, blacks who had moved to the periphery or completely out of the ghetto and those in more prestigeful white-collar jobs tended to be lighter than those in the ghetto or at the bottom of the class structure. Similar results have been obtained by Edwards (1959), Drake and Cayton (1962), Frazier (1962), and Bullough (1969). The hypotheses that physical attractiveness and lightness of skin color are positively correlated and that white raters would give higher physical attractiveness ratings than black raters were based on the following considerations. Until very recently, with the increased emphasis on black identity and the consequent beauty of blackness, a dark color had been devalued within the black community; blacks were socialized to accept the white world and white standards of beauty (e.g., Stevenson & Stewart, 1958). There developed among blacks a color stratification system in which light skin color was valued and dark skin color was viewed as an unfortunate disability (Brody, 1963; Brown, 1969; Lincoln, 1967). Similarly, Cavior and Dokecki (1970) found a high positive correlation between lightness of skin color and peer-rated physical attractiveness among Mexican children in Monterrey, Mexico; and Cavior (1970) found a positive correlation between lightness of skin color and peer-rated physical attractiveness among white fifth- and eleventh-grade children. Not only are blacks now being taught to think that black is beautiful, but so are whites, although neither group seems to be learning and behaving accordingly. Whites, in particular, would likely find it very difficult, especially in the presence of a black person, to describe blacks as less than average in attractiveness. In other words, white raters' responses might in large part be determined by their defensiveness, in the presence of a black experimenter, against stating that they Find blacks generally unattractive.
Method Sub]ects. Facial pictures and behavior dimension ratings of 56 black residents were obtained from the Kennedy Youth Center. These were all the pictures available at the time study was initiated. The residents, all black males, ranged in age from 16 to 21 with the median age of 18. Pictures of 56 black, nondelinquent high school seniors were randomly selected from a yearbook of a high school in Atlanta, Georgia. These subjects ranged in age from 17 to 19 with a median age of 18. The two groups of pictures were the same size as those in Study I, and the same precautions were taken to minimize effects that might result from the differences in quality between them.
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Raters. The pictures were rated by three groups of raters. One group included 30 black males and 30 black females, average age 19, who were students at West Virginia University. This group of raters rated the pictures on physical attractiveness. Another group of raters consisted of 15 white females, average age 25, and 15 white males, average age 31. The females in this group were primarily graduate students at West Virginia University; the males were psychology department faculty and graduate students. This group of raters also rated the pictures on physical attractiveness. The third group of raters consisted of 15 black females, average age 30, and 15 black males, average age 23, who rated the pictures for skin color. The females in this group were teachers in an elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia; the males consisted of five teachers in the same school and 10 undergraduate students from West Virginia University. None of the raters knew the purpose of the study. Procedure. The two sets of pictures (delinquent and nondelinquent) were combined into a single group of 112 pictures, which were rated on physical attractiveness with the same scale as in Study I. The ratings of skin color were also on a 5-point scale from very dark (1) to very light (5). Results Interrater reliability within each of the three groups of raters was high as indicated by low standard deviations on almost all the pictures: for the attractiveness ratings of the high school and delinquent pictures, respectively, the mean standard deviations among the black raters were .48 and .51, and among the white raters .52 and .57. The standard deviations of the skin-color ratings were similar in magnitude. The between-sex correlations were .90 (p < .001) for blacks judging physical attractiveness, .88 (p < .001) for whites judging physical attractiveness, and .98 (p < .001) for blacks judging skin color. Therefore, only the combined ratings of the male and female raters are reported; results were identical when analyzed separately for each sex. Three one-way analyses of variance with five levels (four behavior dimensions from Kennedy Youth Center, plus high school subjects) were used to examine the facial attractiveness and skin-color ratings. The results indicated that there were significant differences among the five groups for blacks judging skin color (F = 23.397, df = 4/107, p < . 0 0 1 ) , and for blacks judging physical attractiveness (F = 4.357, df = 4/107, p < .003), but not for whites judging physical attractiveness (F =.949, df= 4/107, p > .05). The mean physical attractiveness and skin-color ratings, and the results of Duncan's New Multiple Range Tests, are shown in Table 1. For blacks judging physical attractiveness and skin color there were no significant differences among the four dimensions of delinquency, but the subjects representing each of the four dimensions were rated as significantly less attractive and darker in skin
t~
TABLE 1
PA PA SC
Black White Black .48 .52 .67 2.16" 2.98* 2.11'
M
.63 .49 .95
SD
Inadequateimmature (N = 15)
1.79" 2.52* 1.71"
M
.33 .66 .51
SD
Neuroticdisturbed (N = 7)
2.01" 2.88* 1.76"
M
.44 .44 .58
SD
Unsocialize~ psychopathic (iV = 13)
2.09* 2.90* 2.03*
M
.44 .60 .77
SD
Socializedsubcultur~ (N = 21)
*Means which did not differ significantly from each other according to Duncan's New Multiple Range Test.
2.40 2.90* 3.24
SE
judged M
High school (N= 78)
Dimension
Race of raters
Group
MEAN PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS (PA) AND SKIN COLOR (SC) RATINGS IN STUDY II
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209
color than the high school students. Results support the hypotheses that black delinquents are less attractive and darker in skin color than black high school students, but failed to confirm the finding obtained in Study I that there are significant differences in physical attractiveness among the four dimensions. In terms of the overlap of the ratings of attractiveness made by the black raters, 45% of the delinquent pictures received mean ratings of 2 or higher (2 = less than average) as compared to 77% of the high school pictures. There was very little overlap in the skin-color ratings: 83% of the high school pictures were rated as light as compared to 17% of the delinquents' pictures. The results shown in Table 1 also support the hypothesis that white raters assign higher physical-attractiveness scores to black pictures than do black raters. Furthermore, even though interrater reliabilities were extremely high in both studies, the white judges assigned substantially higher physical-attractiveness ratings to black pictures (Study II) than to the white pictures (Study I). This result lends further support to the hypothesis that whites may be rating the black pictures from a position of defensiveness. The correlations between the lightness of skin color and physical attractiveness ratings were .53 (p < .001) for the black raters and .72 (p < .001) for the white raters. The difference between these two correlation values was significant (Z = 1.77, p < .05, one-tailed test), indicating that white raters respond more to skin color in judging the attractiveness of blacks than do black raters. DISCUSSION The data from both studies can be interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that both black and white delinquents are significantly lower in facial attractiveness than nondelinquents. This ffmding suggests that there is a relationship between facial attractiveness and delinquency, and is congruent with the findings of Kurtzberg et al. (1968) on the effectiveness of facial plastic surgery in reducing recidivism. Although, strictly speaking, pictures were judged rather than persons, Cavior and Dokecki (1.973) found high, postive correlations between ratings of pictures made by persons who knew and others who did not know the persons judged. Presumably the raters who knew the persons depicted were ranking the actual persons when they were ranking the pictures. The comparison of ratings between Kennedy Youth Center offenders and the high school students suggests that a lack of facial attractiveness may play a contributory role in the development of antisocial behavior and/or reduce the probability that the offender will receive a suspended sentence, or even that he will be arrested. A recent study by Dion (1972) on physical attractiveness and evaluation of children's transgressions indicated that adults display differential treatment toward attractive and unattractive children in circumstances in which
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their behavior is identical, and further that the severe transgression of an attractive child is less likely to be seen as reflecting an enduring disposition toward antisocial behavior than that of an unattractive child. In addition, the transgression itself tends to be less negatively evaluated when committed by an attractive child. Finally, research by Miller (1970) and Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) indicated that positive personality descriptions and predictions regarding future behavior are assigned to attractive individuals, while negative personality descriptions and predictions are assigned to unattractive individuals. The finding in Study I, with white offenders, that physical attractiveness varies among the four dimensions of delinquent behavior described by Quay, suggests the possibility that different behaviors or different perceptions of similar behaviors are associated with different levels of physical attractiveness. This would follow Dion's (1972) finding that for the same transgression, children of different levels of physical attractiveness are treated differently. Whether the absence of a relationship between physical attractiveness and Quay's dimensions among the black delinquents resulted from the relatively small sample size, methodological problems, the positive correlation between lightness of skin color and physical attractiveness, or whether no relationship exists, cannot be determined at this time. The results of Study II also confirmed the hypotheses that black delinquents are significantly darker in skin color than black high school students and that there is a positive correlation between lightness of skin color and physical attractiveness rated by both black and white raters. These findings suggest that dark-skinned blacks may receive different treatment even within the black culture, in addition to being treated differently by the white culture. This may be due to an internalization by both cultures of the concept that the color white symbolizes and connotes positive adjectives such as purity, cleanliness, and godliness, while black symbolizes and connotes such things as dirt, evil, and death; good cowboys wear white hats and the outlaws, black hats. From a theoretical viewpoint, either the stimulus value of the person to the observer or attribution, self-concept, or reinforcement theory, among others, can be invoked to account for the results, either alone or in combination. In addition, attitude-similarity research tends to suggest that liking (and therefore acceptance) is dependent on the extent of either perceived attitude similarity or actual attitude similarity (e.g., Byrne, 1969; Cavior & Miller, 1972). One could therefore speculate that the apparent visibility of the black skin, coupled with stereotyped expectancies, would necessarily establish barriers to perceived attitude similarity and subsequent liking as well as subsequent handling in various aspects of the legal process. It is important to note that there were some qualitative differences between the photographs of the delinquent and high school groups, and that different rating methods were used in the two studies. These differences might also
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explain some of the present findings; consequently, the results and conclusions should be considered as suggestive of the possible contribution of physical appearance to social deviance. These differences cannot account for the difference in physical attractiveness ratings among the four dimensions of definquency in Study I, nor the finding, in Study II, that white raters assigned significantly higher ratings to the pictures of blacks than did the black raters. In addition, the issue of the defensiveness of the white raters, in Study II, is difficult to evaluate since the effects due to the presence of a black experimenter cannot be separated from the effects due to the photographs of the black subjects. Future research in this area might benefit from nonreactive (unobtrusive) research strategies. For example, it should be possible to observe directly actual courtroom situations in which blacks and whites of different levels of physical attractiveness and skin coloration are tried for similar offences. REFERENCES Berscheid, E., Dion, K., Walster, E., & Walster, G. M. Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1971, 7, 173-189. Borkovec, T. D. Autonomic reactivity to sensory stimulation in psychopathic, neurotic and normal delinquents. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1970, 35,217-222. Brislin, R. W., & Lewis, S. A. Dating and physical attractiveness: Replication. Psychological Reports, 1968, 22, 976. Brody, E. B. Color and identity conflict in young boys. Psychiatry, 1963, 26, 188-200.
Brown, H. R. Die nigger die. New York: The Dial Press, 1969. Bullough, B. Social psychological barriers to housing desegregation. University of California: The Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, 1969. Byrne, D. Attitudes and attraction. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 4. New York: Academic Press, 1969. Byrne, D., Ervin, C. R., & Lamberth, J. C. Continuity between the experimental study of attraction and "real life" computer dating. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 16, 157-165. Cavior, N. Physical attractiveness, perceived attitude similarity, and interpersonal attraction among fifth and eleventh grade boys and girls. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Houston, 1970. Cavior, N., & Boblett, P. J. Physical attractiveness of dating versus married couples. Proceedings of the 80th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1972, 7, 175-176. Cavior, N., & Dokecki, P. R. Physical attractiveness and interpersonal attraction among fifth grade boys: A replication with Mexican children. Paper presented at the meeting of the Southwestern PsychOlogical Association: St. Louis, Mo.: Apr. 25, 1970.
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Cavior, N., & Dockecki, P. R. Physical attractiveness, perceived attitude similarity, and academic achievement as contributors to interpersonal attraction among adolescents. Development Psychology, 1973, 8, in press. Cavior, N., & Miller, K. Physical attractiveness, attitude similarity, and length of acquaintance as contributors to interpersonal attraction among adolescents. Unpublished manuscript, West Virginia University, 1972. Coombs, R. H., & Kenkel, W. F. Sex differences in dating aspirations and satisfaction with computer-selected partners. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1966, 28, 62-66. Dion, K. Physical attractiveness and evaluations of children's transgressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24,207-213. Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24,285-290. Drake, S. C., & Cayton, H. R. Black metropolis. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. Edwards, F. The Negro professional class. Glencoe, II1.: The Free Press, 1959. Frazier, E. F. Black bourgeoisie: The rise of a new middle class in the United States. New York: Collier Books, 1962. Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. Unraveling ]uvenile delinquency. New York: Harper, 1950. Kurtzberg, R. L., Safar, H., & Cavior, N. Surgical and social rehabilitation of adult offenders. Proceedings of the 76th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1968, 3,649-650. Lincoln, C. Color and group identity in the United States. Daedalus, 1967, 96, 527-541. Miller, A. G. Role of physical attractiveness in impression formation. Psychonomic Science, 1970, 19,241-243. Murstein, B. I. Physical attractiveness and marital choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 22, 8-12. Orris, J. B. Visual monitoring performance in three subgroups of male delinquents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1969, 74, 227-237. Perrin, F. A. C. Physical attractiveness and repulsiveness. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1921, 4, 203-217. Pope, B. Socioeconomic contrasts in children's peer culture prestige values. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 1953, 48, 157-220. Quay, H. C. Patterns of aggression, withdrawal and immaturity. In H. C. Quay & J. S. Werry (Eds.), Psychopathological disorders o f childhood. New York: Wiley, 1972. Quay, H. C., & Parsons, L. B. The differential behavioral classification of the juvenile offender. (Federal Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice) Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971. Ransford, H. E. Skin color, life chances and anti-white attitudes. Social Problems, t970, 18, 164-179. Roff, M., & Brody, D. S. Appearance and choice status during adolescence. Journal of Personality, 1953, 36, 347-356. Sheldon, W. H. Varieties of delinquent youth: An introduction to constitutional psychiatry. New York: Harper, 1949.
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Silverman, I. Physical attractiveness and courtship. Sexual Behavior, Sept. 1971, 22-25. Skrzypek, G. J. Effect of perceptual isolation and arousal on anxiety, complexity preference and novelty preference in psychopathic and neurotic delinquents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1969, 74, 321-329. Staffieri, J. R. A study of social stereotype of body image in children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1967, 1, 101-104. Stevenson, H. W., & Stewart, E. C. A developmental study of racial awareness in young children. Child Development, 1958, 29, 399-409. Stroebe, W., Insko, C. A., Thompson, V. D., & Layton, B. D. Effects of physical attractiveness, attitude similarity and sex on various aspects of interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1971, 18, 79-91. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center. Differential t r e a t m e n t . . . A way to begin. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970. Walster, E., Aronson, V., Abrahams, D., & Rottman, L. Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1966, 4, 508-516.
