title: Johnny Depp, Reconsidered: How Category-Relative Processing Fluency Determines the Appeal of Gender Ambiguity.
abstract: Individuals that combine features of both genders-gender blends-are sometimes appealing and sometimes not. Heretofore, this difference was explained entirely in terms of sexual selection. In contrast, we propose that part of individuals' preference for gender blends is due to the cognitive effort required to classify them, and that such effort depends on the context in which a blend is judged. In two studies, participants judged the attractiveness of male-female morphs. Participants did so after classifying each face in terms of its gender, which was selectively more effortful for gender blends, or classifying faces on a gender-irrelevant dimension, which was equally effortful for gender blends. In both studies, gender blends were disliked when, and only when, the faces were first classified by gender, despite an overall preference for feminine features in all conditions. Critically, the preferences were mediated by the effort of stimulus classification. The results suggest that the variation in attractiveness of gender-ambiguous faces may derive from context-dependent requirements to determine gender membership. More generally, the results show that the difficulty of resolving social category membership-not just attitudes toward a social category-feed into perceivers' overall evaluations toward category members.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
authors: Helen E
authors: HE
authors: Owen
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
authors: Jamin
authors: J
authors: Halberstadt
authors: Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.
authors: Evan W
authors: EW
authors: Carr
authors: Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.|Behavioural Science Group, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.|Department of Psychology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland.
authors: Piotr
authors: P
authors: Winkielman
mesh_terms: D001504:Beauty; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D057227:Femininity; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057228:Masculinity; D000067029:Physical Appearance, Body; D044469:Racial Groups; D011897:Random Allocation; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012938:Social Perception; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult