In another study, experimenters had people rate the photographs of classmates in their high school yearbooks for how much they liked them and how attractive they felt that they were. Strangers of the same age also ranked the photographs for attractiveness. If liking had been irrelevant, the rating by classmates and the ratings by the strangers should have matched – but they didn’t the classmates’ attractiveness rating were swayed by how much they liked each person, further evidence that there is more to being good looking than looking good.

Even when you rate the faces of strangers, looks aren’t everything. One study found that a main factor in attractiveness has nothing to do with averageness, symmetry, sexual dimorphism or anything like that – it’s whether the person is smiling.~ Page 70