Poster 11

Shirt Color and Perceived Attractiveness of Men

Danielle Quintana

Certain colors and the level of attraction for both men and women is a current topic of debate with researchers. The main question of debate is whether or not the ""Red-Romance Hypothesis"" influences women's perception of men's level of attractiveness when wearing the color red. Some hypothesize that red is seen as more attractive because it is an evolutionary trait passed down by males to display good health and superiority over other males, or in modern times displaying wealth, a high social status and desirability. In order to test this hypothesis a sample of sixty-five females rated three different men wearing a series of pink, black, and red shirts on a 5-point attractiveness scale created by the researcher. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three counterbalanced orders for rating the three men. Contrary to the Red-Romance Hypothesis, the data concluded that the color of the shirt does not affect the perceived level of attractiveness for each of the three models when wearing pink, black, or red shirts, with all resulting in a probability score of p > .05, and neither colored shirt showing an overall preference of being chosen. Results also indicated that the physical traits of all three models were more influential than the color of the shirt being worn, with bias shown towards model 3 who had an overall higher rating of attractiveness regardless of the shirt color worn compared to the other two models used in the study.

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