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posted by Fnord666 on Friday November 02 2018, @01:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the body-of-evidence? dept.

People Link Body Shapes with Personality Traits:

When we meet new people, our first impressions of their personality may depend, at least in part, on their body shape, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"Our research shows that people infer a wide range of personality traits just by looking at the physical features of a particular body," says psychological scientist Ying Hu of the University of Texas at Dallas, first author on the research. "Stereotypes based on body shape can contribute to how we judge and interact with new acquaintances and strangers. Understanding these biases is important for considering how we form first impressions."

Previous research has shown that we infer a considerable amount of social information by looking at other people's faces, but relatively little research has explored whether body shapes also contribute to these judgments.

[...] Hu and colleagues created 140 realistic body models, of which 70 were female and 70 male. The three-dimensional renderings were generated from random values along 10 different body dimensions, using data from laser scans of actual human bodies. Using these models allowed the researchers to know the precise physical measurements of each body shown in the study.

A total of 76 undergraduate participants viewed a set of models — they saw each body from two angles and indicated whether 30 trait words shown on screen applied to that body. The trait words reflected dimensions of the Big Five personality traits (a common measure of personality used in psychology research) typically seen as positive (e.g., enthusiastic, extraverted, dominant) or negative (e.g., quiet, reserved, shy).

[...] Generally, participants judged heavier bodies as being associated with more negative traits, such as being lazy and careless; they judged lighter bodies as having more positive traits, such as being self-confident and enthusiastic.

Furthermore, the participants perceived classically feminine (e.g., pear-shaped) and classically masculine (e.g., broad-shouldered) bodies as being associated with "active" traits, such as being quarrelsome, extraverted, and irritable. Male and female bodies that were more rectangular, on the other hand, were associated with relatively passive traits, such as being trustworthy, shy, dependable, and warm.

[...] These findings add a new layer to the science behind first impressions, revealing "the complicated and value-based judgments that people make about strangers based only on their bodies," Hu concludes.

Journal Reference:

Ying Hu, Connor J. Parde, Matthew Q. Hill, Naureen Mahmood, Alice J. O'Toole. First Impressions of Personality Traits From Body Shapes. Psychological Science, 2018; 095679761879930 DOI: 10.1177/0956797618799300


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  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:42PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:42PM (#757291)

    Runaway, like me... you are almost as lazy as most Americans.

    That makes a big difference in what we are willing to do to remain healthy (or smart or whatever). Knowing how to use raw ingredients to make something worth eating--and not burning the water while doing so--is an art being lost.

    For anyone that hasn't had the luxury of doing so, I recommend the Instant Pot appliance--my girlfriend's Hello Kitty rice steamer (yes... we had one) failed due to her inability to attend to its maintenance needs (overflowed for the last time and sizzled goop in the innards and fried too many things inside to salvage it).

    The Instant Pot is like a pressure cooker that has been modernized--you can make complete meals in it, but the best results are from making aspects of a meal in it to either save time or get something off the stove or out of the oven to leave room for other cooking tasks.

    The Instant Pot can then do a wide variety of cooking methods (as far as boiling, heating, and pressure cooking is concerned) and save a lot of time--boils rice, cooks beans, can make a pot roast, soup, potatoes, even make bread if you're willing to accept something sort of like bread (in my results at least).

    For all the non-Millenials out there that scoff at it--don't. It's a modern replacement for pressure cookers and crock pots and acts as a supplemental tool for cooking that allow you to save time.

    Combine that with Runaway's basics and you can feed yourself with decent meals on a regular basis--it can work on a timer too; drop in what you want to eat for dinner before you go to work in the AM, and it can turn on and make that pot roast or stew or whatever by the time you get home. Few things are better than getting home with a meal already waiting for you (it might not replace a significant other's cooking as far as how good it can get... but if she's not home from work yet, it might replace your cooking!)

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