The research described in this proposal will continue our investigation into the origins and significance of appearance-based stereotypes. The research plan has four major goals. The first is to determine the generality of infant preferences for attractive faces by studying these preferences across sets of culturally diverse faces and male faces. The second goal is to examine the social consequences of preferences for attractive faces by studying the reactions of adults to children who differ in appearance and by examining the relationship between attractiveness an minor physical anomalies in high risk children. The third goal is to understand the functional significance of appearance-based information by determining what information is conveyed to perceivers in faces differing in levels of attractiveness. Specifically, cues specifying age, gender, prototypicality, and affect are proposed to be facially-based signals which convey important information to perceivers about interactional partners. Our last goal is to conclude the series of studies we have been conducting on the role of appearance in biasing research using global judgments of attractive and unattractive targets. The work is expected to lead to new and different views of the role of appearance in development and to new explanations of the functional significance of appearance-based information.
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