The Attractiveness of the Average Face

Margaret Collins

This article explores the connection between perceived beauty and average-
ness. Although throughout the history of mankind attractiveness was linked
to averageness, this concept is now being questioned in light of more recent
developments in Evolutionary Psychology. What follows is in an attempt to
open up the discussion on one aspect of beauty, averageness, including
literature from the Humanities and Evolutionary Psychology. (Semin Orthod
2012;18:217-228.) © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

have approached this article following the
I recommendation of Edward Angle (1865-
1930): All who hope to attain real success in the
correction of malocclusion should cultivate a love for
art and the beautiful . . . An appreciation and intelli-
gent application of the principle of art must ever go
hand in hand with the successful practice of ortho-
dontia.1
Averages are important for orthodontists
when planning treatment. Their use in anthro-
pometry date back to the second half of the 19th
century, when the basic laws of statistics were
well established. In 1842, the Swedish anatomist
Anders Retzius (1796-1860) introduced the cra-
nial index categorizing skulls as dolicho-, meso-,
and brachycephalic. The Facial Index subse-
quently categorized faces into lepto-, meso-, and
euryprosopic2 and the Nasal index into lepto-,
meso-, and platyrhine.3 In each case, the breadth
was related to the length and the midpoint or
average was identified and prefixed by the term
“meso.” These indexes continued into the 20th
century when Farkas developed normal propor-
tional indexes based on measurements from
1312 Caucasians’ heads.2
Consultant Orthodontist, Department of Orthodontics, The Den-
tal Institute, King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London, Eng-
land; Consultant Orthodontist, Department of Orthodontics, Queen
Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, Kent, England.
Address correspondence to Margaret Collins, BDS, FDSRCPS,
DOrth, MSc, MOrthRCS, MA, Orthodontic Department, The Den-
tal Institute, King’s College Hospital, London SE5 9RS, England.
E-mail: margaretcollins4@hotmail.co.uk
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1073-8746/12/1803-0$30.00/0
http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.sodo.2012.04.007
After Roentgen’s discovery of x-rays in 1895,4
and Pacini’s (1922)5 and Hofrath’s (1931)6 stan-
dardization of skull radiographs,7 craniometry was
transferred to the radiographic image.8 Cephalo-
metric analyses based on norms began in 1952
when Downs averaged a sample of 12-17 year olds
who had normal occlusion.9 Others followed in
pursuit of this ideal average. Ricketts10 averaged
findings of 1000 clinical cases. McNamara11 com-
bined the average values of the Bolton, Burling-
ton, and Ann Arbour growth studies. It is notewor-
thy that the cephalometric analysis undertaken by
Reidel on 30 “Seattle Seafair Princesses” showed
that each beauty queen was close to the average,
and the degree of similarity between these girls was
striking, mirroring findings recorded in previous
studies of normal occlusion. The girl selected as
queen among this group of princesses recorded
measurements, which fell within 1 degree or 1 mm
of the mean in almost every instance. Reidel12
concluded that the public’s concept of acceptable
facial aesthetics was close to the average and in
close agreement with standards established by or-
thodontists on the basis of normal occlusion. Oth-
ers have also found a preference for a normal
(Skeletal Class I) profile.13
However, cephalometric norms/averages are
not always available to define beauty. An exam-
ple of this is seen in the Sculpture of Queen Nefertiti
(1370-1330 BC), which dates back to the dawn of
Egyptian civilization, a time when the Nile valley
swamps were settled by people from Africa and
Asia. Nefertiti has been extolled as a standard of
beauty throughout the history of man,14 not sur-
prising, as her features represented the average
of the population in which she lived, of Asian
and African origin. However, we would struggle

Seminars in Orthodontics, Vol 18, No 3 (September), 2012: pp 217-228 217

218
Figure 1. Bust Sculpture of Queen Nefertiti. c. 1348-
1336/5 BC. Painted Limestone. Height 48.3 cm.
Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin. Nefertiti’s appealing fea-
tures represent the average of the Asian and African
population in which she lived. (Reprinted with per-
mission from bpk, Berlin/Aegyptisches Museum, Sta-
atliche Museen, Berlin, Germany/Margarete Büsing/
Art Resource, NY.) (Color version of figure is available
online.)
to find a set of cephalometric norms to accu-
rately represent her features, although radio-
graphic examination of the mummified remains
of ancient Egyptians confirm a high incidence of
bimaxillary prognathism (Fig. 1).15
The Attractiveness of the Average Face
From a Historical Perspective
Early Greek sculpture, such as the late 2nd cen-
tury BC Venus de Milo illustrate the Greek por-
trayal of beauty (Fig. 2). The link between it and
the average/mean was documented by Cicero
(106-44 BC) who reported that when the people
of Croton hired the esteemed artist, Zeuxis of
Herakleia, to paint a beautiful Helen, he re-
quested that they provide him “with the most
Collins
beautiful of virgins.” The citizens of Croton gath-
ered the virgins into 1 place from which Zeuxis
chose 5:
For he did not believe that it was possible to find in one body
all the things he looked for in beauty, since nature has not
refined to perfection any single object in all its parts. Conse-
quently, Zeuxis selected the best features of each of the virgins
whom he had chosen to serve as models for his paintings.16
The Greek physician, Galen (c.129-199 AC),
subsequently reinforced this idea when he ob-
served that “whatever form is most beautiful in
man” or animal is found by seeking “the mean
within each genus.”17
The Renaissance artists, in turn, were strongly
influenced by the Greeks, mentally merging the
images of many, to produce the ideal. When the
fresco of the beautiful and Greek mythological
nymph Galatea was finished (1483-1520), Raphael
was asked where he had found a model of such
beauty; he replied that:
Figure 2. Detail from Venus de Milo. c. 2nd-1st century
BC. Greek marble. Height 204 cm. Musée du Louvre,
Paris. Ancient Greek sculpture, such as Venus de Milo,
was influenced by the existing philosophy that beauty
should be sought from the mean of the population.
(Reprinted with permission. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art
Resource, NY.) (Color version of figure is available
online.)
 Attractiveness of the Average Face 219

man21 sought to determine whether stabilizing

selection, favoring average traits, was the key to
attractiveness. They superimposed one photo-
graphic facial image on top of another, to obtain
an average composite face. Composites look fa-
miliar and attractive because they are average or
representative faces, resembling many faces.20
This idea dates back to the philosopher Im-
manuel Kant22 (1724-1804) who, in “The Cri-
tique of Judgment,” referred to the mind’s abil-
ity to “superimpose as it were one image upon
another” and from this obtain a “mean contour”
or “average size,” which “underlies the normal
idea of a beautiful man.”
The fundamental relevance of the mean/av-
erage was developed further by the Belgian as-
tronomer and statistician Adolphe Quetelet
(1796-1874) who defined the “average man”
(l’h’omme moyen) in his treatise, Sur L’homme.
Quetelet compared his study of human bodily
proportions with those of the artist Albrecht

Figure 3. Raphael The nymph Galatea. c. 1512-1514.

Fresco.3 ⫻ 2.2 m. Sala di Galatea, Villa Farnesina,
Rome. The Renaissance artist Raphael created The
nymph Galatea by merging the features of “several
beauties.” (Reprinted with permission from Scala/Art
Resource, NY.) (Color version of figure is available
online.)

In order to paint a beauty I would have to see several

beauties, but since there is a scarcity of beautiful women, I
use a certain Idea that comes to mind (Fig. 3).

Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci (1511-1574) ap-

plied these principles when painting The head of
Leda and advised that to obtain beauty, the artist
should “consider what he saw and consult him-
self, choosing the most excellent part of every-
thing” (Fig. 4).18
This idea was taken further by Albrecht Dürer
(1471-1528) in Four Books on Human Proportion,
when he took detailed measurements from sev-
eral hundred individuals in an attempt to come
up with the average perfect canon of beauty, Figure 4. Detail from Leonardo da Vinci The head of
realizing that no single canon of beauty could be Leda. c. 1505-1506. Pen and ink over black chalk.
achieved.19 The Queens Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London.
The preference for facial averageness has Leonardo da Vinci, who struggled to find beauty in
been explained in terms of stabilizing selection, any single individual, sought instead the “most ex-
cellent part of everything” to create beauty seen in
where sexual selection favors the average (as The head of Leda. (Reprinted with permission from
opposed to directional selection which favors Royal Collection Trust/© HM Queen Elizabeth II
extremes traits).20 In 1990, Langlois and Rogg- 2012.) (Color version of figure is available online.)
220
Dürer. He argued that “the greater the number
of individuals observed, the more do individual
peculiarities, whether physical or moral, become
effaced.” He noticed that the anthropometric
data he collected fell into a bell-shaped curve,
the central portion of which, was called “the
mean.” This point represented the “average
man” who was the “type of all which is beauti-
ful— of all which is good.”23 During the same
time era, others were trying to come up with a
visual version of the average. The English phi-
losopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), famous
for coining the term “survival of the fittest,”
devised an instrument for tracing the longitudi-
nal, transverse, and horizontal sections of heads
onto transparent paper, to superimpose them.
At the same time but on the opposite side of the
world, a New Zealander, A.L. Austin, came up
with a similar idea and wrote a letter to Charles
Darwin observing that:
I find by taking two ordinary carte-de-visite photos of two
different persons’ faces, the portraits being about the same
sizes, and looking about the same direction, and placing
them in a stereoscope, the faces blend into one in a most
remarkable manner, producing in the case of some ladies’
portraits, in every instance, a decided improvement in
beauty.24
Galton believed that the composite portrait
was the pictorial equivalent of Quetelet’s statis-
tical tables
The process is one of pictorial statistics, suitable to give us
generic pictures of man, such as Quetelet obtained in outline
by ordinary numerical methods of statistics, as described in
his work on Anthropométrie . . . By the process of composites
we obtain a picture and not merely an outline.25
Galton reinforced Quetelet’s view, that the
“average” was attractive. He developed a way of
creating a composite photograph, which was the
physical equivalent of Kant’s imaginary superim-
posed images when he submitted a composite
facial image to the Anthropological Institute in
1879, which he achieved by throwing “faint im-
ages of the several portraits, in succession, upon
the same sensitized photographic plate.” The
result of the composite was “an imaginary figure
possessing the average feature of any given
group of men.” He described how he created the
image:
I begin by collecting photographs of the persons with whom I
propose to deal . . . I make two pinholes in each of them, to
Collins
enable me to hang them up one in front of the other, like a
pack of cards, upon the same pair of pins, in such a way that
the eyes of all the portraits shall be nearly as possible
superimposed.
He also recognized the attractiveness of the
average image created:
All composites are better looking than their components be-
cause the averaged portrait of many persons is free from the
irregularities that variously blemish the looks of each of them.
Fueled by this success, Galton attempted,
through the creation of average composites, to
define the “criminal type” using photographic
portraits of criminals convicted of murder, man-
slaughter, or robbery accompanied with vio-
lence. He failed to find the villainous face he
sought. On the contrary, the average criminal
face was, to his surprise, attractive:
..The features of the composite are much better looking than
those of the components. The special villainous irregularities
in the latter have disappeared, and the common humanity
that underlies them has prevailed . . . They represent, not the
criminal, but the man who is liable to fall into crime.14
In 1885, Galton26 was commissioned by the
Jewish historian, Joseph Jacobs (1854-1916), to
produce a composite image of Jewish boys, “The
Jewish Type.” The aim was to “bring together all
the data, scientific or historical, which bear
upon the purity of the Jewish race.” Galton took
photographs of 13 Jewish boys, chosen at ran-
dom from the “Jews’ Free School, Bell Lane” and
by superimposing one on top of the other, cre-
ated a series of composite photographs, which
he called “The Jewish Type.”27 The composite of
the Jewish face turned out to be “wonderfully
beautiful” (Fig. 5).26 He also attempted to use
facial composite photography as a means of dif-
ferentiating phthisical patients (suffering from
tuberculosis) from non-phthisical patients. But
he failed to find a connection. The composite
face did not reveal the illness.28 The French
photographer Arthur Batut (1846-1919) further
developed Galton’s composite methodology. His
composites were designed to reveal the local
characteristics of the beauty of the Arlésienne
(thought to be a mixture of Roman and Saracen
blood) with their allegedly less attractive sisters
in the port of Agde in the Languedoc (thought
to be of Greek origin).29
By the end of the 1840s, photography was
heavily involved in documentation and quantita-
 Attractiveness of the Average Face
Figure 5. The average image obtained from early composite photography revealed that The Jewish Type was
“wonderfully beautiful.” (Reprinted with permission from Jacobs.27) (Color version of figure is available online.)
tive measurement. Darwin’s theory of evolution
led to a new way of developing social structures,
which required stratification of man. Photogra-
phy was used to measure and classify the human
body in an attempt to define the characteristics
of a particular race, class, or social group.30 In
1875, an Anthropometric and Racial Committee
was set up in by the British Association for the
Advancement of Science. Photography was the
medium used for its documentation.29 Galton’s
composite photographs were a part of this pre-
occupation with categorization of man. Follow-
ing Charles Darwin’s (Galton’s first cousin) pub-
lication of On the Origin of Species (1859) and The
Descent of Man (1871), Galton also became pre-
occupied with the idea of improving one’s race.
In 1904, Galton coined the term “eugenics,”
which comes from the Greek, “eu” meaning
“well,” and gen, meaning “produce.”31
Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that
improve and develop inborn qualities of a race. The aim of
eugenics is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens,
causing them to contribute more than their proportion to the
next generation.32
Galton, however, never made the connection
between his 2 great interests, the composite fa-
cial average and “good genes.”33 The link be-
tween the 2 would take almost another century
to establish by the evolutionary psychologists
Langlois and Roggman.
221
The Attractiveness of the Average Face
From a Contemporary Perspective
In 1990, Langlois and Roggman21 used the same
principles as those described by Galton to digi-
tize and mathematically average male and fe-
male students’ faces and produce computer-gen-
erated composite images, which were then
ranked for attractiveness. The averaged compos-
ite of the 32 faces were judged as significantly
more attractive than the individual faces that
yielded them. In addition, the composite face
became more attractive as more faces were en-
tered. They concluded that attractive faces were
only average, and that this was “consistent with
evolutionary pressures that favor characteristics
close to the mean of the population” (Fig. 6).21
This view is supported by another study that
showed that full-face and profile views were per-
ceived as less attractive as they were morphed
away from the average.34 The profile view added
an additional advantage in that it allowed a face
to be morphed toward an average shape without
impacting on symmetry.34 Furthermore, aver-
aged composite profile photographs have been
shown to be more attractive than the original
photographs from which the composite was de-
rived.35
There are a number of possible explanations
for the attractiveness of the average face.
222
Figure 6. The averaged composite of faces becomes
more attractive as more faces are added which is seen
as you move down the column. (Reprinted with per-
mission from Langlois and Roggman.21) (Color ver-
sion of figure is available online.)
Langlois and Roggman21 put forward the idea
that the attractiveness of the average face is in
“keeping with the cognitive processes that favor
prototypical category members.” The model of a
prototype helps explain how we evaluate visual
stimuli and classifying these into categories.20 A
Collins
prototype is the central representation of any
category, the average or mean value; it is per-
ceived as “typical.” The average of a set of faces
is perceived as attractive because it appears more
facelike and more representative of the popula-
tion. Any face will be judged as attractive if it is
close to the average of the central tendency of
the population.21 Prototypes might be recog-
nized faster and more easily, and thus may cre-
ate higher nervous excitation. Our preference
for average stimuli may be because our brain
accepts such better-fitting stimuli more willingly
(neuroaesthetics).36 Typical faces close to the
population average are consistently rated as
more attractive than distinctive faces. Further-
more, the attractiveness of individual faces can
be increased or reduced, by moving their con-
figurations toward or away from an average con-
figuration for that sex, which supports the view
that average faces are attractive.37 Prototypes
help explain why the appreciation of beauty ap-
pears to be innate and present from birth.
Young infants, for example, looked longer at
attractive faces that are prototypical, easier to
classify, and possibly elicit a strong response
from the perceptual system. Through prototyp-
ing, our beauty standards adjust to the popula-
tion in which we live, with the most attractive
being close to the mean of that population. Pro-
totyping expands our possibilities of mate
choice. If we had an inflexible biological tem-
plate for the judgment of attractiveness, we
could risk never meeting somebody fitting the
template.21 However, some argue against proto-
typing because average faces are recognized
poorly, as they do not deviate from the templates
we use to store faces. Therefore, attractive peo-
ple with average faces would be disadvantaged as
individual recognition is the basis for social in-
teraction. Thus, one should expect deviations
from averageness to be found in the most beau-
tiful faces. A beautiful face has to be recogniz-
able and distinct to be memorable. Adding an
individual touch to averageness could thus make
an attractive face beautiful.36
Evolutionary psychology also linked attrac-
tiveness of individuals to their value as mates.
Thus, individuals who were attentive to cues of
high mate value, left behind healthier and more
fecund children than those who failed to attend
to those cues.38 Mating with an attractive partner
would increase the probability of successful repro-
 Attractiveness of the Average Face
duction and genetic transmission.39 We choose
mates for genetic disease resistance by scrutiny of
features whose expression is dependent on health.
Attractive traits signal mate quality, so that prefer-
ences increase offspring viability.40 Average pro-
portions often signal good health, good design,
and genetic fitness; for example, human babies
that are born larger or smaller than average are
less likely to survive. As evolutionary pressures fa-
vor the mean rather than the extremes of the
population, one could maximize the fitness of
one’s offspring by being attracted to and mating
with those who displayed average features.41 Facial
averageness reflects developmental stability, the
ability to maintain normal development despite
the environmental and genetic stresses. Develop-
mental instability, by contrast, results in deviations
from the average and craniofacial abnormalities.42
There is modest evidence that averageness indi-
cated health, specifically, facial distinctiveness, the
opposite of averageness at 17, a prime age for mate
choice, was associated with poor childhood health
in males and poor current and adolescent health
in females. Marked deviations from facial average-
ness are diagnostic of some chromosomal disor-
der, and more subtle deviations may prove cues to
health of potential mates. A preference for average
faces could therefore have evolved because it en-
hanced reproductive success, either because
healthy mates provide better parental care or be-
cause they confer genetic benefits to their off-
spring.43
Finally, preference for average facial features
could have evolved because it denotes genetic
heterozygosity, “good genes.” Heterozygosity re-
flects an outbred mate who provides genetic diver-
sity in defense against parasites. Facial averageness
reflects parasite-resistant genetic makeup, as it cor-
relates with high individual protein heterozygosity,
and thus with the presence of an array of alleles to
which the parasite must adapt.40 Attractive faces
therefore signal parasite resistance. Parasites are
ubiquitous and so humans, via their immune sys-
tem, evolve defensive adaptations against parasites.
In response, parasites evolve adaptations for cir-
cumventing these defensive mechanisms. There is
a continuing process of host-parasite coevolu-
tion, during which both hosts and parasites are
subjected to constant shifting selection pres-
sures. Parasites are best adapted to most com-
mon proteins and least adapted to the protein
products of rare alleles (sequences that code for
223
a gene). Thus, individuals possessing rare alleles
or uncommon proteins to which parasites are
poorly adapted, generally have higher fitness
with regard to parasitic infection. The more
heterozygous (the greater the genetic diversity)
an individual, the more uncommon alleles it
may possess, and the better the defense against
parasites.44
In summary, Symons concluded that the av-
erage of a population is attractive, as it repre-
sents a functionally optimal design and the fit-
test in many species. Evolutionary pressures
operate against the extremes of the population.
Facial averageness is associated with above-average
performance in tasks, such as chewing and breath-
ing, and hence during evolutionary history, Natu-
ral Selection favored it.45 Furthermore, homozy-
gous individuals tend to be over-represented at the
extreme tails of the distributions. By contrast,
heterozygous individuals tend to be over-repre-
sented at the middle of such distributions.36
The Average Is Not Necessarily the
Most Attractive Face
Alley and Cunningham counterargued in favor
of attractiveness related to directional selection
for extreme characteristics, such as dominant
features (large eyes) or juvenile features (blonde
hair) in females. In their opinion, evolutionary
selection dictated that the ideal mate for a male
was a female with a high reproductive capacity,
that is, a young woman. Hence, youthful traits
may take preference over average ones. Further-
more, some individual faces were more attractive
than the corresponding composite. They con-
cluded that although average faces were attrac-
tive, exceptionally attractive faces were atypical
in some way. They argued that the composite
produced an attractive face in part by the pro-
duction of an unusually symmetric face and also
by the elimination of skin blemishes or surface
irregularities, creating a “soft focus” as well as
smooth uniform skin tone.46
Perrett et al47 supported directional selection,
rather than stabilizing selection by showing that
the mean shape of a set of attractive faces is
preferred to the mean shape of the sample
from which the faces were selected. The aver-
age face from 60 females was less attractive
than a face representing the average of the 15
most attractive female faces from the same
224 Collins
group. In addition, the composites were made
more attractive by exaggerating the shape dif-
ferences from the sample mean. They con-
cluded that highly attractive facial configura-
tions are not average and moderately extreme
shapes enhanced attractiveness. Preference
for nonaverage face shapes would therefore
exert a directional selection pressure away
from the population mean.
In addition, it has been demonstrated that
the public prefer nonaveraged traits, specifically
a fuller more protrusive dentofacial pattern.
This was illustrated when the dentofacial ceph-
alometric measurements of professional models,
beauty contest winners, and performing stars
were found to be more protrusive than the av-
erage.48
Langlois et al countered their critics by ex-
plaining that averaged faces can be both average
in the sense of representing the mean and at the
same time extreme in characteristics, such as
youthfulness. They disagreed with the argument
that symmetry explains attractiveness, as symme-
try by itself is not enough to produce attractive-
ness. They demonstrated that although a math-
ematically averaged face will be symmetric, a
symmetric face is not necessarily highly attractive
or close to the mathematical average of a popu-
lation of faces. Furthermore, a highly attractive
face is not necessarily highly symmetric. Hence,
movie stars often want to be photographed from
their “good side.” In addition, they showed that
asymmetric faces were rated as more attractive
than the perfectly symmetric mirror-image right
and left faces (chimeras).
Langlois et al49 accepted that composite faces
have a “soft focus” and lack blemishes that in-
crease the appearance of youthfulness and sym-
metry, but neither alone can guarantee attractive-
ness; a face can be both young and symmetric, yet
still be unattractive. They agreed however that fa-
miliarity is related to averageness and attractive-
ness.
In conclusion, averageness is essential for fa-
cial attractiveness; however, it is not exclusive.
Youth (in females), symmetry, and sexually di-
morphic traits are also important, although even
they are not enough alone. Averageness is the
only characteristic discovered to date that is both
necessary and sufficient to ensure facial attrac-
tiveness—without a facial configuration close to
the average of the population, a face will not be
attractive no matter how smooth, youthful, or
symmetric. Averageness is fundamental.39
The Impact of Globalization on the
Average Face
If facial beauty is even partially determined by
average measurements, then it cannot be a pre-
determined standard planted in our mind. The
mechanism that stores and averages the face is
innate and universal, but the composite form is
dependent on the faces it sees.41 In 1872, Charles
Darwin recognized this concept, when he argued
that if a tribe spread over a continent they would
gradually subdivide into smaller isolated tribes,
each of which would subsequently be exposed to
a different environment, and by natural selec-
tion, their features would also change to some
degree:
As soon as this occurred, each isolated tribe would form for
itself a slightly different standard of beauty; and then un-
conscious selection would come into action through the more
powerful and leading savages preferring certain women to
others . . .
According to Darwin,50 we have survived not
only through our ability to adapt to our environ-
ment through natural selection but also by being
the offspring of those chosen through sexual
selection. The latter, from an aesthetic perspec-
tive, is close to the average of all the faces we
have seen.
Because of globalization, we are now exposed
to a much broader range of faces. This is altering
our internal averages to reflect a preference for
the universal face, a composite of all races. This
is evident in the cosmetic surgery people seek.
For example, in 2003, 1000 plastic surgeons in
Korea performed about half a million proce-
dures to create a more Western look.51 Mean-
while, the West is also moving away from its
traditional position. The preferred skin color is
no longer the palest shades, and plumper lips
are increasingly preferred. This reflects an inter-
nal average where Asian, African, and Hispanic
features are helping to recalibrate norms of
beauty.41
However, although globalization may lead to
a more universal standard of beauty across the
globe, fewer can hope to approximate this mean
than when the average of our own ethnic group
was the most attractive. Moreover, the average is
 Attractiveness of the Average Face 225

not best adapted to all environments. Face

shape, for example, is adapted to climate. The
most advantageous head shape in a cold cli-
mate would be rounded as it dissipates less
heat, as seen in brachycephalic Arctic Inuits.
Hot equatorial climates, by contrast, favor
long-headedness, which dissipates more heat as
seen in the dolichocephalic equatorial Africans.52
Nose shape is similarly affected. Platyrrhine is
best suited and more commonly found in hot
moist climates in comparison with leptorrhine in
cold dry ones. Eye shape is another adaptation.
The epicanthic fold present in the Asian face
protects against the glare of the sun, which
would have been essential for survival in the last
glaciation, and similarly the flatter facial form
protected against frostbite. Dark helicotrichous
hair in Africans has a protective value in areas of
strong sunlight. The converse is true for those
with blond cymotrichous hair in Northern cli-
mates.3 There is also a strong correlation be-
tween latitude, ultraviolet radiation, and skin
color. In equatorial sunshine, only the darkest
skin offers protection against skin cancer or fo-
late depletion. The fairest skin by contrast is best
adapted to northern latitudes offering greater
resistance to Rickets.53
In summary, the average may not be best
adapted to all climates, and it might be more
appropriate to temper our selection to the cli-
mate in which we live, rather than seek the
universal mean.
The Impact of Digital Technology on
the Average Face
The importance of the average face is evident
in the use of composite images to portray at-
tractiveness in the public domain. The photog-
rapher Christian Dorley-Brown achieved pleas-
ing results in his project “Haverhill 2000,”
which set out to establish a permanent and
accessible image of a town’s population. Using
computer software, 2000 individual photo-
graphs were merged. This hyper-real and
somewhat ghostly image is created from pho-
tographs of 1000 females and 1000 males aged
6 months to 80 years, covering 50 ethnic
groups (Fig. 7).54
Time magazine succeeded in producing the
first alluring global composite image of a female
face. In a special issue cover, Fall 1993, they used
Figure 7. An attractive composite image has been
created for artistic purposes by merging photographic
images of 1000 females from the town of Haverhill.
(Reprinted with permission. © Christian Dorley-
Brown and Haverhill Town Council.) (Color version
of figure is available online.)
a computer software to create a female image of
a multiethnic face of America. She had the facial
features of a woman who was 15% Anglo-Saxon,
17.5% Middle Eastern, 17.5% African, 7.5%
Asian, 35% Southern European, and 7.5% His-
panic. This was hailed as the face of melting pot
America. This magazine argued that with global-
ization, Eastern and Western perceptions of
beauty are merging to produce a global stan-
dard of beauty.55 Newsweek matched this,
coming up with their own version of the new
global face of beauty. Saira Mohan, who fea-
tured on their cover in 2003 was of mixed
ancestry, French-Irish-Canadian on her moth-
er’s side and North Indian, Punjab on her
father’s side; her instant appeal was said to be
because she represented a type of global
mean51 (Fig. 8).
To complicate matters further, we are increas-
ingly exposed to standards of beauty set by cos-
metically enhanced and digitally altered facial
images. Digital technology is also creating virtual
models, such as the virtual model Maya56 who
looks similar to the artistically created sculpture
of Nefertiti described earlier (Fig. 9). This preoc-
cupation with artificial beauty has been ex-
tended to Miss Digital World, which was set up
226 Collins

Figure 8. Left: Computer software has created an averaged face from the American melting pot, which is 35%
Southern European, 17.5% African, 17.5% Middle Eastern, 15% Anglo-Saxon, 7.5% Asian, and 7.5% Hispanic.
(Reprinted with permission from Time, special issue, Fall:cover, 1993.) Right: Saira Mohan was considered by
Newsweek to be symbolic of a global beauty because of her mixed ancestry, which was French-Irish-Canadian on her
mother’s side and North Indian, Punjab on her father’s side. (Reprinted with permission from Newsweek, November:
cover, 2003, www.newsweek.com. ©2003 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission
and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the
Material without express written permission is prohibited.) (Color version of figure is available online.)

by Franz Cerami in 2001.57 Boundaries are being pansion,60 or one bracket system in favor of an-
blurred between the real and virtual face. The other. Treatment philosophies are advocated by
airbrushed and digitally enhanced media images individual orthodontists whose internal average
of celebrities add to the problem. When the
media raise beauty standards too high, unreal
expectations emerge. If the mean is more beau-
tiful than reality, no mate selection can occur,
and this leads to a greater percentage of sin-
gles.20
With increasing globalization and digital im-
agery, the ever-changing average is difficult to
determine.

Conclusions
The appeal of averageness or as it has been coined,
Koinophilia, the preference for mates with pre-
dominantly common traits, is now an accepted
finding.58 Thus, should we strictly adhere to or
move away from the average, defined by cephalo-
metric norms, in planning orthodontic and or-
thognathic movements? Some advocate moving
away from average, toward a broader more protru-
sive smile, although defining the latter is not clear.
Moreover, there is no agreement on the merits
of extraction/nonextraction,59 expansion/nonex-
Figure 9. Left: Virtual model. Maya. (Reprinted with per-
mission from Rene Morel. © Rene Morel.) Right: Bust
Sculpture of Queen Nefertiti. c. 1348-1336/5 BC. Painted Lime-
stone. Height 48.3 cm. Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin. (Re-
printed with permission from bpk, Berlin/Aegyptisches
Museum, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany/Marga-
rete Büsing/Art Resource, NY.) Digital technology is
used to create virtual models, such as Maya who has
similar features to those seen in the sculpture of Nefertiti.
(Color version of figure is available online.)
 Attractiveness of the Average Face
face may/may not comply with others and may/
may not be influenced by other aesthetic goals,
such as youth and sexual dimorphism. Further-
more, our patients, influenced by images por-
trayed in the media, may request treatment, which
does not comply with the average.
The use of cephalometric norms is tempting, as
it is clear that the average face is attractive. How-
ever, this does not mean that all attractive faces are
average or that average faces are optimally attrac-
tive. Nevertheless, average facial configurations are
more attractive than most faces.37 But, as cephalo-
metric norms are merely the average of the faces
from which they were sourced, they may not accu-
rately represent the patient we are treating, even if
matched for ethnicity because “No one knows
what a pure race is.”61 Substantial overlap can occur
between populations, invalidating the concept of
races as discrete groupings. Populations have only
been partially isolated and seldom demarcated by
precise genetic boundaries; race is socially, not
scientifically, constructed.62 The paradigms of hu-
man identity based on “races,” as biological con-
structs are being questioned in light of the find-
ings from the Human Genome Project; “race” is
poorly correlated with genes.63
In conclusion, the average face is attractive
and reflects good genetic heterozygosity. But, it
is not optimally attractive, being neither distinc-
tive nor memorable. With globalization and dig-
ital imagery, the ever-changing average is diffi-
cult to determine.
I hold that the perfection of form and beauty is contained in
the sum of all men.
-Albrecht Dürer19
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