Original Article
High heels as supernormal stimuli: How wearing high heels affects judgements of female attractiveness

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.11.006Get rights and content

Abstract

There is a strong contemporary association between high heels and female sexuality. We investigated the hypothesis that one motivation for women wearing high heels is that it artificially increases the femininity of gait. We isolated the effects of heels on gait using point-light methodology. Females were recorded walking in flat shoes and high heels. Participants viewed point-light videos of the women wearing the two types of shoe. Participants judged the females in the heels condition as significantly more attractive (with a large effect size) than the females in the flat shoe condition. Biomechanical analyses revealed that wearing high heels led to increased femininity of gait including reduced stride length and increased rotation and tilt of the hips. We conclude that high heels exaggerate sex specific aspects of female gait and women walking in high heels could be regarded as a supernormal stimulus.

Introduction

From a historical perspective there have been a variety of influences on the height of shoes. For example, in the medieval period platform shoes served to raise the wearer out of muck on the street (Severn, 1964) and were worn by both men and women. However, in contemporary Western culture wearing high heels is associated exclusively with females. Furthermore, there is a popular association between high heels and women as erotic objects. Dietz and Evans (1982) in an analysis of the cover photographs of pornographic magazines noted that over 50% involved women wearing high heels. We investigated the hypothesis that the association between high heels and female sexuality is partly a function of the effect of high heels on how women walk; high heels may have the effect of exaggerating the sex-specific aspects of female gait.

Wearing high heels can cause chronic damage and increase the likelihood of accidental trauma (Saltzman, 1998). Despite the damaging physical effects of wearing high heels, an evolutionary explanation has been suggested (Smith, 1999, Smith and Helms, 1999) to explain why women wear high heels. Secondary sexual characteristics are thought to be important for attractiveness in both sexes. Therefore if wearing high heels emphasises some sex specific aspects of the female form they may make women more attractive, and one motivation (which may be conscious or unconscious) for wearing heels is that it is part of mate selection. In addition to any effects on gait, Smith and Helms (1999) suggest that wearing heels could make women more attractive by enhancing the contours of the leg and ankle, decreasing the perceived size of the foot, accentuating the bosom and the buttocks, adding height which would increase confidence and therefore attractiveness. However, there is little systematic empirical evidence to support such claims. Furthermore, we do not suggest that sexual attraction is necessarily the only motivation for wearing high heels. High heels have become a part of the uniform of female attire in a number of different contexts and as such are part of a much more complex set of display rules (Craik, 2009).

It is well established that there are characteristic differences in the way males and females walk and that such differences are perceivable from movement cues alone (Kozlowski & Cutting, 1977). In order to isolate movement cues from other cues to sex, researchers have employed point-light display methodology. Point-light displays represent the body as a series of markers placed on key landmarks on the body; the perceiver is presented with a pattern of dots on a screen. It has been found that perceivers are remarkably good at making sense of the patterns of movement of these dots and are able to distinguish between male and female gait (Mather & Murdoch, 1994), identify friends (Cutting & Kozlowski, 1977) and even recognise emotional expressions (Clarke, Bradshaw, Field, Hampson, & Rose, 2005). An increasing number of point-light studies have also examined the relationship between movement and attractiveness within the context of an evolutionary approach (Fink, Seydel, Manning, & Kappeler, 2007).

Using point-light methodology, people can identify the sex of walkers quite accurately (71% for views other than side-on [Pollick, Kay, Heim, & Stringer, 2005]). Specifically, male gait involves greater velocity, longer stride length and slower cadence (Murray, Kory, & Sepic, 1970). There are also differences in lateral sway. Men have more translation of the head and greater upper body lateral sway (Mather & Murdoch, 1994), whereas women have increased translation in the hips (Murray et al., 1970). Kerrigan, Todd, and Croce, (1988) in a study focused specifically on the biomechanics of gait, found that the most characteristic difference between males and female gait was greater hip flexion and less knee extension before contact in females.

In the current study in order to establish whether or not walking in high heels does enhance the femininity, attractiveness and youthfulness of gait, we compared judgements of females walking in flat shoes with the same women walking in high heels. We predicted than women wearing high heels would be rated as more attractive, feminine and younger. In a second judgement study participants were asked to categorise the same point-light walkers as male or female even though they were in fact all female. We predicted that more females wearing flat shoes would be incorrectly categorised as male than females wearing high heels. To ensure that perceivers focus exclusively on movement we employed a point-light methodology. One previous study (Walter, Brownlow, Ervin, & Williamson, 1998) examined the effects of wearing high heels on judgements of female gait using point light methodology. They found that women in high heels were judged to walk more rigidly and less sexily. The second result was particularly surprising, however, the point light methodology used was primitive and the biomechanical effects were based entirely on subjective judgements. The recording equipment we used allowed precise objective biomechanical measurement of female gait. Therefore, in addition to comparing the judgements of gait in high heels and flat shoes, we also compared biomechanical differences in gait and examined the relationship between the judgements and biomechanics. We also examined the extent to which one relatively stable individual difference (Body Mass Index [BMI]) would affect judgements of gait.

Section snippets

Collection of stimuli

An opportunity sample of twelve women (age M = 21.58; SD = 3.39; BMI M = 23.52, SD = 3.99) were paid to act as the walkers in the study. All possessed high heeled shoes (M [pairs] = 10.58, SD = 8.82) and wore them at least once a week. Biomechanical gait testing consisted of participants walking on a treadmill (1% gradient, Jones & Doust, 1996) at 4 km.h 1 for a total of four minutes in two conditions (in a random order); flat shoes and high-heeled shoes (height = 6 cm). All walkers were provided with

Judgement data

Participants made judgements of the femininity, attractiveness and age of the walkers. However the correlations between the results of the three judgements were all large (range of correlations .79 to .92), positive and statistically significant, therefore we decided to combine the scores to produce a single composite score (the link between age, femininity and female attractiveness is well established [Buss, 1989, Perret et al., 1998]). We named this composite score the attractiveness index

Participants

An opportunity sample of 120 participants (82 female; 38 male) was used in the study. There were no inclusion or exclusion criteria.

Design

Participants were randomly allocated to see one of 24 point-light displays of a female walking either in flat shoes or high heels. Five participants viewed each of the 24 displays, thus 60 participants (5 participants × 12 examples) viewed a female walking in high heels and 60 participants viewed a female walking in flat shoes (to ensure representative sampling of

Results

The data from all walkers were collapsed into a single analysis. Participants classified more walkers as female than male in both the high heels and flat shoes condition. However, more females were incorrectly classified as males in the flat shoes condition (inaccuracy rate 28%) than in the heels condition (17%), χ2 (1, N = 120) = 7.06, p = .008. Cramer's V = .24.1

Discussion

Participants rated the point-light displays of the walkers in high heels as significantly more attractive than the same walkers in flat shoes (with a large effect size). Females wearing flat shoes were also more likely to be incorrectly identified as males. There were also significant effects of wearing high heels on the pattern of gait, most with large effect sizes. Relative to the flat heels condition the females in the high heeled shoe condition walked in a fashion more characteristic of

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