Briefly Glimpsed People are more Attractive

Assessments of attractiveness underlie selection and pursuit of potential mates. Previous research has shown that people are sometimes perceived to be more attractive with a brief glimpse, yet there is no explanation for why this effect might exist. Here, participants rated the attractiveness of males and females photographs, viewed in two conditions: once for 225 ms, and once without time constraints. In the former case, attractiveness judgments were on average higher: briefly glimpsed people were judged to be more attractive. This ‘glimpse effect’ was most pronounced when males rated photos of females. We discuss several possible explanations for these results, including the speculation that the brain determines attractiveness based on Bayesian risk, in which attractiveness ratings are upwardly biased by the high cost of missing a potential mate.