Gender Differences in the Motivational Processing of Babies Are Determined by Their Facial Attractiveness

Rinah Yamamoto; Dan Ariely; Won Chi; Daniel D. Langleben; Igor Elman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006042

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Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Gender Differences in the Motivational Processing of Babies Are Determined by Their Facial Attractiveness

Rinah Yamamoto,

Affiliation Clinical Psychopathology Laboratory, McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
⨯
Dan Ariely,

Affiliation Program in Media Arts and Sciences and Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
⨯
Won Chi,

Affiliation Clinical Psychopathology Laboratory, McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
⨯
Daniel D. Langleben,

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
⨯
Igor Elman

* E-mail: ielman@partners.org

Affiliation Clinical Psychopathology Laboratory, McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
⨯

Gender Differences in the Motivational Processing of Babies Are Determined by Their Facial Attractiveness

Rinah Yamamoto,
Dan Ariely,
Won Chi,
Daniel D. Langleben,
Igor Elman

Published: June 24, 2009
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006042

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Limitations of the study

Posted by D_D_L on 04 Aug 2009 at 22:54 GMT

The present results provide indirect support for Weiss' [10] idea that babies' esthetic appearance has a motivating influence on the adults' caretaking behavior.
http://plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0006042#article1.body1.sec4.p5

There are two caveats for the interpretation of these findings. First, the data are limited to adults’ response to images of unrelated babies, precluding automatic extension of these findings to the mother-child interaction. Second, the findings were only in the category of abnormal babies and were not observed in the normal baby category, regardless of attractiveness.

No competing interests declared.

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Gender Differences in the Motivational Processing of Babies Are Determined by Their Facial Attractiveness

Gender Differences in the Motivational Processing of Babies Are Determined by Their Facial Attractiveness

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Limitations of the study

Posted by D_D_L on 04 Aug 2009 at 22:54 GMT