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Research corroborates the notion that fundamental social motives play an important role in biases that favor attractive people. Although an adaptationist framework expects favorable social effects of good looks in most situations and contexts, it simultaneously allows for potential negative social reactions and outcomes that may be elicited by physical attractiveness in other contexts. These effects of attractiveness reect the reproductive opportunities and threats posed by potential mates and rivals.

Maestripieri et al. provide a valuable conceptual framework for understanding social biases associated with physical attractiveness. Although an adaptationist framework predicts positive social effects of physical attractiveness in some contexts, it also predicts negative social effects of attractiveness in other contexts. Moreover, there are important boundary conditions in how, when, and toward whom those biases are expressed. These patterns reect the reproductive opportunities and threats posed by potential mates and rivals.