Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition
by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
110 MAFA Effect
The average face of a local population is more attractive than any individual face.
People tend to find the most average facial appearance (MAFA) of their population group more attractive than faces that deviate from the average. Population group refers to the group in which a person lives or was raised. For example, when pictures of many faces within a population group are combined to create a composite image, the composite image is more attractive than the individual source images and similar in appearance to professional models in that population.1
The MAFA effect is likely due to some combination of evolution and cognitive prototypes. Average faces tend to be more symmetrical, and symmetry has long been viewed as an indicator ...
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