Sequential effects in facial attractiveness judgements: No evidence of stable individual differences

When items are judged in a sequence, evaluation of the current item is biased by the one preceding it. These sequential effects have been found for judgements of facial attractiveness, where studies have often shown an assimilation effect - ratings of the current face are pulled towards the attractiveness of the preceding face. However, the focus has been on the average bias across participants in general, with little consideration of individual differences. Here, we investigated an important first question - are individual differences in how sequential effects bias our judgements stable? Establishing this stability is crucial before considering potential associations between these individual differences in bias and other observer-level traits. To this end, we asked participants to provide attractiveness ratings for two different sequences of faces. In Experiment 1, one sequence comprised neutral, passport-style photos, while the other showed more unconstrained, naturalistic images. In Experiment 2, both sequences were composed of images taken from the same (constrained) photoset. Our results were identical for both experiments, with participants in general showing assimilation in their attractiveness judgements. However, for a given individual, we found no evidence that the strength of this bias was stable across the two sequences that they rated. These findings may be the result of within-person inconsistencies in perceiving facial attractiveness more broadly, and should serve to motivate further investigation of individual differences as applied to the domain of sequential effects.