Smoking status and attractiveness among exemplar and prototypical identical twins discordant for smoking

Abstract

Smoking is associated with negative health of skin and increased signs of facial ageing. We aimed to address two questions about smoking and appearance: (1) does facial appearance alone provide an indication of smoking status, and (2) how does smoking affect the attractiveness of faces? We used faces of identical twins discordant for smoking, and prototypes made by averaging the faces of the twins. In Task 1, we presented exemplar twin sets and same sex prototypes side-by-side and participants (n = 590) indicated which face was the smoker. Participants were blind to smoking status. In Task 2 a separate sample (n = 580) indicated which face was more attractive. For the exemplar twin sets, there was inconclusive evidence participants selected the smoking twin as the smoker more often, or selected the non-smoking twin as the more attractive more often. For the prototypes, however, participants clearly selected the smoking prototypes as the smoker more often, and the non-smoking prototypes as the more attractive. Prototypical faces of non-smokers are judged more attractive, and prototypical faces of smokers are correctly identified as smokers more often than prototypical faces of matched smokers/non-smokers [corrected]. We discuss the possible use of these findings in smoking behaviour change interventions.

Keywords: attractiveness; facial; identical twins; smoking; status.

Figure 1.

Prototype male (top) and female (bottom) smoking (left) and non-smoking (right) faces.

Figure 2.

Task 1 exemplar results. Mean judgements of smoking status in male (1–3) and female (4–23) exemplars from male participants (a) and female participants (b). Responses were coded as non-smoker = 0, smoker = 1. Dotted line shows 0.5 level. Error bars are 95% binomial confidence intervals.

Figure 3.

Task 2 exemplar results. Mean judgements of attractiveness in male (1–3) and female (4–23) exemplars from male participants (a) and female participants (b). Responses were coded as non-smoker = 0, smoker = 1. Dotted line shows 0.5 level. Error bars are 95% binomial confidence intervals.

Figure 4.

Mean judgements of smoking status and attractiveness in male and female prototypes from male (M) and female (F) participants. Responses were coded as non-smoker = 0, smoker = 1. Dotted vertical shows 0.5 level. Error bars are 95% binomial confidence intervals.