Effects of facial skin pigmentation on social judgments in a Mexican population

What is it about?

Skin color variation among human populations is one of the most fascinating examples of natural selection on humans and it has captured the attention of humans in several cultures all over the world, and has been perceived as a sign of attractiveness, social and even economic status. This raises the question whether skin color is currently under additional selection forces such as sexual or social selection? In an effort to answer this question, we designed a facial perception experiment in which we manipulated the skin color of several young men´s faces but left their facial shape untouched, we then asked participants from Mexico to rate how attractive, dominant, trustworthy, masculine, healthy and aggressive they found both versions of the faces.

Featured Image

Photo by Alan Quirvan on Unsplash

Photo by Alan Quirvan on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our findings show experimental evidence to support the hypothesis that skin color plays a major role when judging how attractive others are. They also partially support the idea that due to the highly visible association between skin color and social status during the colonial era in Mexico and the rest of the Americas, a cultural preference emerged for light skin color and other European phenotypical traits.

Perspectives