An assessment of facial profile attractiveness of Historical and Contemporary norms as perceived by clinicians, patients and laypeople

This study investigated the influence of changing the antero-posterior (AP) position of the lower face on the rankings of facial attractiveness.

Three hundred and eighty two people of various ages and professions rated the attractiveness of antero-posteriorly altered male and female profile images on a computer based survey. Attractiveness ranking scores were obtained from the visual assessment of 3 digitally altered male and 3 female profile photographs that represented a range of 5 different AP positions from a more retrusive historical profile, to a more protrusive contemporary profile. There were two parts to the survey, the first part involved selecting the preferred image for each subject, and the second part rated each image individually for attractivness using a 5 point Likert scale. Statistical analyses were employed for comparison between the different age groups, genders, and professions.

The results showed a trend that raters’ occupation has an influence on how attractiveness was rated. Plastic surgeons, oral surgeons, and orthodontists preferred a mid to more protrusive profile, however only statistically significant in one subject. Dentists, dental students and laypeople appeared to have no preference in profile, with similar ratings between all the profiles. Gender had a limited influence on the perception of attractiveness. Occupations had a significant influence on difficultly rating the images, and difficultly telling the images apart. All groups found it moderate to very difficult. Dentists, dental students, and laypeople finding it significantly more difficult than the orthodontists, oral surgeons and plastic surgeons. Overall, minor facial profile variations of lip and chin position do not have a significant influence on the perception of facial profile attractiveness among the general population.