Motion and Gender-Typing Features Interact in the Perception of Human Bodies

Abstract

The human body conveys socially relevant information, including a person's gender. Several studies have shown that both shape and motion inform gender judgments of bodies. However, while body shape seems to influence more the judgment of female bodies, body motion seems to play a major role in the judgments of male bodies. Yet, the interdependence of morphologic and dynamic cues in shaping gender judgment and attractiveness evaluation in body perception is still unclear. In two experiments, we investigated how variations of implied motion and shape interact in perceptual and affective judgments of female and male bodies. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to provide ratings for masculinity and femininity of virtual renderings of human bodies with variable gender-typing features and implied motion. We found evidence of a tendency to perceive bodies in static poses as more feminine and bodies in dynamic poses as more masculine. In Experiment 2, participants rated the same pictures for dynamism and pleasantness. We found that male bodies were judged more dynamic than female bodies with the same pose. Also, female bodies were liked more in static than in dynamic poses. A mediation analysis allowed us to further shed light on the relationship between gender-typing features and motion, suggesting that the less is the movement conveyed by a female body, the greater is an observer's sensitivity to its femininity, and this leads to a more positive evaluation of its pleasantness. Our findings hint to an association between stillness and femininity in body perception, which can stem from either the evolutionary meaning of sexual selection and/or the influence of cultural norms.

Keywords: attractiveness; body aesthetic; body image; gender bias; gender perception; implied motion; sex categorization.

FIGURE 1

Examples of female and male virtual models used in the study. The examples depict the body sex-typing variation of either static or dynamic female (A) and male (B) models.

FIGURE 2

Mean and standard error of mean for Femininity (A) and Masculinity (B) judgments of Female and Male models as a function of implied motion (static/dynamic) along the two categories of sex-typing traits expressed (60%/90%). Asteriks indicate significant pairwise comparisons.

FIGURE 3

Mean and standard error of mean for Dynamism judgment of Dynamic and Static postures as a function of gender (female/male) along the two categories of sex-typing traits expressed (60%/90%). Asteriks indicate significant pairwise comparisons.

FIGURE 4

Mean and standard error of mean for Liking judgment of Female and Male models as a function of implied motion (static/dynamic) along the two categories of sex-typing traits expressed (60%/90%). Asteriks indicate significant pairwise comparisons.

FIGURE 5

Path diagrams illustrating the two mediation models. The first model (A, upper panel) tested whether Femininity could mediate the influence of Dynamism (IV) on Liking judgments. The second model (B, lower panel) tested whether Dynamism could mediate the influence of Femininity (IV) on Liking judgments. For each path, values correspond to the unstandardized path coefficients for the association between variables. Namely, path a represents the relationship between IV and M, and path b represents the relationship between M and DV (controlling for IV). Path c represents the direct effect between IV and DV. Lastly, the indirect effect of the mediator, path c′, was quantified as the difference between the unstandardized path coefficients of the direct effect between the independent and the DV (path c), and the product of the unstandardized path coefficients, a and b. Asterisks denote significant (p < 0.05) regression coefficient. Significant differences between the direct and the indirect effects resulted from Sobel test in model (A), indicating that the negative relationship between Dynamism and Liking judgment is mediated by Femininity. Asteriks indicate significant pairwise comparisons.