There’s voluminous research, with multiple ways of determining attractiveness; sometimes independent judges are used; other times it is the subjective view of the spouse or partner. See below for one way of defining attractive.
For one study it was like this:
Physical attractiveness. Six trained research assistants rated the facial attractiveness of each spouse from the videotapes on a scale ranging from 1 to 10, in which higher ratings indicated more attractive faces. To maximize the objectivity of these ratings, (a) coders rated the first neutral still frame from within the first 60 s of partners’ first interaction, (b) coders rated each spouse independently by covering the face of one spouse at a time and rating all the husbands first and all the wives second, (c) and none of the coders who rated attractiveness also coded support interactions. Consistent with findings that people within and across cultures show very high levels of agreement about who is attractive (Langlois et al., 2000), the reliability of our coders was quite high (coefficient .90 for ratings of husbands, and coefficient .93 for wives). To assess levels of attractiveness, we computed the mean attractiveness rating across raters.
Physical Attractiveness, Romantic Love, and Equity Restoration in Dating Relationships
Authors: Joseph W. Critelli; Lewis R. Waid
Abstract
Measures of physical attractiveness, romantic love, and dominance were given to a sample of 123 dating couples. Contrary to expectation, attractive subjects were not loved more than those judged as less attractive. As suggested by equity theory, however, subjects who believed that their partners were the more attractive member of the dyad loved their partners more (p < .05) and indicated greater submission in their relationships (p < .01) than those who believed that they were the more attractive member. The results suggest that as the dating relationship progresses, the relative difference in attractiveness between partners may become a more important determinant of attraction than overall level of attractiveness.
Beyond Initial Attraction: Physical Attractiveness in Newlywed Marriage
James K. McNulty
University of Tennessee
Lisa A. Neff
University of Toledo
Benjamin R. Karney
University of California, Los Angeles
Physical appearance plays a crucial role in shaping new relationships, but does it continue to affect established relationships, such as marriage? In the current study, the authors examined how observer ratings of each spouse’s facial attractiveness and the difference between those ratings were associated with (a) observations of social support behavior and (b) reports of marital satisfaction. In contrast to the robust and almost universally positive effects of levels of attractiveness on new relationships, the only association between levels of attractiveness and the outcomes of these marriages was that attractive husbands were less satisfied. Further, in contrast to the importance of matched attractiveness to new relationships, similarity in attractiveness was unrelated to spouses’ satisfaction and behavior. Instead, the relative difference between partners’ levels of attractiveness appeared to be most important in predicting marital behavior, such that both spouses behaved more positively in relationships in which wives were more attractive than their husbands, but they behaved more negatively in relationships in which husbands were more attractive than their wives. These results highlight the importance of dyadic examinations of the effects of spouses’ qualities on their marriages.