The shape of things to come: Miss America versus the golden rectangle.

With today's emphasis on Metrecal, dietary cola, and artificial sweeteners, one can only conclude that America is slenderness conscious. The low silhouettes of modern houses and factories, the soaring skyscrapers puncturing the horizon, reinforce the notion that sheer bulk is considered ugly nowadays. Our original aim in this study was to try to relate preferences for rectangle shapes to pleasing height/width architectural proportions. The golden rectangle has exercised a mystical mathematical appeal; the longer side is to the shorter as the shorter is to the difference between the sides. Cards were prepared showing a black rectangle, with the long side oriented vertically, on a white background. Two such packs were used, one having rectangles of equal width, the other rectangles of equal area. The 12 selected length/width ratios were identical for each pack ranging from 1/1 to 2.85/1, and the ratios included the golden rectangle. Subjects were given a pack of cards stacked in a random order and asked to spread them out, and then to choose the most pleasing shape. The main conclusion is that preferred height/width ratios for buildings are exceedingly variable. Second, there is a definite preference in favor of the tall and slender, much more so than for rectangles. In general it may be said that heights of Miss America pageant winners have been rather variable, waistlines have tended to become slimmer over the past 46 years, leading to an increasing height/waistline ratio. It is obvious that the height/waistline ratio cannot be a linear function of time; women were not wider than they were tall several hundred years ago. Yet one can look forward to slimmer waisted and perhaps slightly taller Miss America winners in the years to come. We therefore wish to affirm the notion that modern Americans are slenderness conscious. It can be stated that the golden rectangle is not now, and perhaps never was, a sure preference standard. But with each passing year it seems, to us at least, that the newest Miss America proves to be more shapely than ever. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)