Is That Quarterback Looking Good?
Yes, you are not confused, he is indeed looking good. A recent study has proved that, more athletic a person is; the more attractive is their face.
It is a very common observation by many that; athletes tend to be attractive. This observation lead scientists to the question, “Are more athletic individuals in fact perceived to be more attractive when only their faces are rated?” Scientists believe that, this facial attraction stands as an external cue for the society to easily identify the fit men.
Most team sports have players at different roles or positions and some of those positions require the most degree of athleticism. For example in soccer, the goalkeeper requires the highest level of athleticism. Based on this approach, in an earlier research, females were asked to rate the facial photos of the players in various positions in soccer and ice hockey. The results indicated that, players in the most demanding positions got the highest facial attractiveness rating. Even though these results confirmed the assumptions, this could not be concrete evidence, as the perception of the strongest position required for the games are not objective.
To solve this, researchers initially recruited 30 quarterbacks who play North American football. The quarterback is one of the most demanding and responsible positions in the game. Passer rating, a measure use by NFL to evaluate a quarterback’s performance was used as the athletic measure and thus eliminating any subjective measure or view of the athleticism of the players. Thirty female students then ranked the facial photos of the quarterbacks in a 10 point scale. Each player’s passer rating was collected from the NFL website. Statistical analysis on this data indicated a very strong correlation between the facial rating and the passer rating.
As a follow-up study, again 58 quarterbacks and 30 females who did not participate in the earlier study were recruited and the study was repeated. Several demographic factors such as height, weight, age, and ethnicity were also considered. Multiple regression analyses were performed and it was again confirmed that there was significant direct correlation between the facial rating and passer rating, independent of the various demographic factors considered.
Journal Reference: doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.09.003
Image Credit: Wikipedia
