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The study proposes a cognitive-and-semantic approach to the study of the category ‘urodstvo’ (‘ugliness’). This approach allowed, using a component analysis of the meanings of words - denote main lexical representatives of the category of ugliness in the Russian language, and establish a set of features of the category relevant to the basic level. Several prototypical features of ugliness have been identified: ‘the carrier of the feature is a living organism (human, animal, plant)’; ‘abnormality in the structure’; ‘innate abnormality’; ‘its physical (anatomical) character’. An exemplary representative of a category has all the prototypical features in contrast to non-exemplary representatives. Blurring of prototypical features in non-ideal representatives of the category is carried out in the process of development and expansion of the semantics of the words urodstvo (‘ugliness’), bezobraziye (‘deformity’), nekrassivost’ (‘unattractiveness’) in Russian.

The group attractiveness (GA) effect reveals that groups as a whole are perceived as more attractive than the average attractiveness of their members. This effect seems to be driven by selective attention to the most attractive members of a group. We hypothesized that when group members stand out because of their unattractiveness, they would make a group as a whole seem less attractive. In the current study (N = 621), we aimed to replicate the GA-effect as well as reverse it. Indeed, the data replicated a GA effect for relatively attractive groups, while in relatively unattractive groups the group as a whole was perceived as less attractive than the average attractiveness of their members.

Assessing facial attractiveness is a ubiquitous, inherent, and hard-wired phenomenon in everyday interactions. As such, it has highly adapted to the default way that faces are typically processed: viewing faces in upright orientation. By inverting faces, we can disrupt this default mode, and study how facial attractiveness is assessed. Faces, rotated at 90 (tilting to either side) and 180°, were rated on attractiveness and distinctiveness scales. For both orientations, we found that faces were rated more attractive and less distinctive than upright faces. Importantly, these effects were more pronounced for faces rated low in upright orientation, and smaller for highly attractive faces. In other words, the less attractive a face was, the more it gained in attractiveness by inversion or rotation. Based on these findings, we argue that facial attractiveness assessments might not rely on the presence of attractive facial characteristics, but on the absence of distinctive, unattractive characteristics. These unattractive characteristics are potentially weighed against an individual, attractive prototype in assessing facial attractiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an assessment of which animals visitors to zoos prefer and the reasons why this is the case. It expands on previous research that has tended to examine animal attractiveness indirectly and focused on attractiveness rather than also examining unattractiveness as a distinct issue. The paper is based on the results of a survey distributed to a convenience sample of 444 visitors to Durrell Wildlife Park, located on the island of Jersey, UK, immediately after their visit to the zoo. The study was undertaken during the summer of 2013. The results show that mammals are the favourite animals of visitors to zoos while reptiles and birds are the least favourite animals. Animals that are perceived to be entertaining and cute are clearly favoured by zoo visitors while those perceived to be boring and/or hard to see tend not to appeal. Other unappealing animal characteristics include scary and smelly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies suggest that human facial attractiveness is culturally universal. As they were conducted among Western populations and populations strongly influenced by the Western culture, it is not obvious if the preferences would also be the same in populations isolated from this culture. It is also not certain if the agreement would be the same in the case of attractive and unattractive faces. In the presented study participated 103 people from the Yali tribe (Papua, Indonesia) and 99 Poles. Their task was to choose the most attractive and unattractive face of the opposite sex from a set of 4 pictures (one attractive, one unattractive and two average faces of Polish people chosen in a pre-test). We showed significant cross-cultural differences in attractiveness preferences and similarities in choices of unattractive faces. We speculate that across cultures unattractiveness could be assessed on the basis of the same cues to health and biological quality. Attractiveness criteria seem to be more complex, specific to each population, and dependent on the population's ecological conditions and morphological characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mating preferences, including the proximate mechanisms of preferences, have not been well studied among parasitoid wasps. In the parasitoid wasp Spalangia endius Walker (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae), males chase after both mated females and virgin females equally. Not until contact or near contact are males more likely to retreat from mated females and hence less likely to mount them. This study used a behavioral perspective to test several hypotheses about the proximal cause of such retreats. Retreats do not seem to be a response to aggressive physical behavior by mated females. Male retreats also were not just a response to female motion; females were not consistently moving or consistently still before male retreats. Retreats were not simply a response to antiaphrodisiac pheromone on the surface of mated females; males did not avoid mounting dead females. If a pheromone is involved, females seem to be actively releasing it, in contrast to the antiaphrodisiac surface pheromones known in other hymenopterans. The mated female's head and thorax, but not her abdomen, were essential to unattractiveness at the mounting stage of mating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The proximal mechanisms leading to monandry have been little studied in most insect orders, including Hymenoptera. In the parasitoid wasp Spalangia endius, mated females are less attractive (less often mounted) than virgins and are unreceptive (unlikely to allow copulation). Which aspects of mating are responsible was tested by observing male responses toward females whose mating had been interrupted at various stages. All females were allowed to receive precopulatory courtship and to open their genital aperture to copulate. Then some were interrupted before copulation, some after copulation but before postcopulatory courtship, and some were allowed to complete postcopulatory courtship. Females that had copulated were not less attractive than females that had not. In contrast, females that had received postcopulatory courtship were clearly both less attractive and less receptive. Thus, postcopulatory courtship functions as extended mate guarding, by making the female less attractive and less receptive to subsequent males even after the original male is no longer present. The effect of postcopulatory courtship on female attractiveness was persistent but imperfect: when males were presented sequentially to mated females, most but not all males retreated without mounting, and a female could repulse more than twenty males in succession. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The group attractiveness (GA) effect reveals that groups as a whole are perceived as more attractive than the average attractiveness of their members. This effect seems to be driven by selective attention to the most attractive members of a group. We hypothesized that when group members stand out because of their unattractiveness, they would make a group as a whole seem less attractive. In the current study (N = 621), we aimed to replicate the GA-effect as well as reverse it. Indeed, the data replicated a GA effect for relatively attractive groups, while in relatively unattractive groups the group as a whole was perceived as less attractive than the average attractiveness of their members. • Replication group attractiveness effect with different stimuli and sample • Reversal group attractiveness effect • Group as whole perceived as less attractive than average attractiveness of members [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s, social psychologists conducted numerous studies analyzing physical appearance as a social variable. More recent studies in the social sciences appear to have abandoned this topic as unimportant; in any case, very few social scientific studies have been found that incorporate a measure of attractiveness into their analyses. The present study seeks to revive the emphasis on physical attractiveness as a social variable by testing the relationship between crime severity and physical attractiveness, i.e., by presenting evidence to suggest that physically unattractive men commit more serious offenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]