Age and the Perception of Age and Attractiveness

Subjects of both sexes and two age groups, one ranging from 19 to 30 years and the other from 56 to 88 years, individually made ratings of the attractiveness and age of 12 precategorized artists' drawings of human faces. Significant age group effects were found in age and attractiveness ratings. The findings were viewed from the perspectives of both psychoanalytic and Adlerian theory, the former dealing with the ego's regulation of pleasure and reality issues in the preservation of ego integrity and the latter with compensatory striving.