Thread by @datepsych

Textbook chapter on sex differences in physical attractiveness:

intechopen.com/online-first/8…

Sexual Selection Theory:

Men and women should be sensitive to physical cues that signal good reproductive ability.

Subsequent research-based dating advice: grow big antlers and up your bright coloration game.

Parental Investment Theory:

Women are more selective because mating is more costly for women, riskier and because women invest more in their offspring.

Physical traits that predict attractiveness explained by Parental Investment Theory:

Traits that facilitate care and protection of offspring.

(Many behavioral and personality traits may be explained in this context as well)

A word on dual mating and Sexual Strategies Theory:

Testosterone and the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis:

Worth adding and I have mentioned it here that recent research has brought the immunocompetence handicap theory into question. We don't tend to see physical attractiveness in men as closely associated with "good genes" as once believed.

This may be a better explanation for the role of testosterone and dimorphic male features:

Rather than being consistently preferred by women (as they don't seem to be), highly dimorphic features may better predict men's ancestral ability to outcompete other men for mates.

Mixed results for attractiveness and male sexual dimorphism:

My article on that topic that covers a lot of these mixed findings, if the topic of male facial masculinity and attractiveness is interesting to you:

datepsychology.com/women-dont-fin…

Preferences for upper body strength actually seem to be more consistent:

Effect sizes seem to actually be pretty generous for muscularity as well:

Section on height. Taller people are preferred by both men and women, although female preferences are stronger. Tall men are also preferred for both short and long term mating.

Mixed results on preferences for body and facial hair:

The ecoparasite avoidance hypothesis, a potential explanation for why less hairy men might be more attractive:

Short term mating, Strategic Pluralism and sociosexuality:

Facial femininity seems to be a much more consistent predictor of attractiveness for women than facial masculinity is for men.

Potentially a signal of hormone levels and fertility:

Different cross-cultural results for breast size preferences:

How resource-scarce, safe and unsafe environments can shape mate selection preferences:

Resource scarcity may also shape male preferences for greater adiposity, larger breasts.

This is imo a better explanation than breasts as a direct fertility cue.

Reason being that breast size and WHR don't seem to have actually been shown to predict greater fertility. This has been very under-researched for the prevalence of the belief.

Your own mate value may shape your mate preferences as well:

Men who are more attractive may also be more selective, as may be men seeking long term mates:

This is related to male promiscuity (and the Dark Triad) as well. Men with very high sexual histories may just be less discriminating in who they have sex with.

A few of the hypotheses or models here have been brought into some question recently. You'll also notice a lot of things that have mixed results or seem to perhaps be at ends with one another.

It's important not to interpret any one element as a sort of grand macro theory of mate selection, as people have kind of done with Strategic Pluralism, short/long term mating, alphas vs betas, etc.

Absent from this chapter seems to be the more recent mate switching hypothesis, which I think begins to kind of link the overlap between short and long term preferences.

aeon.co/essays/does-th…

No mention of the ovulatory shift hypothesis either, although it's kind of wrapped up in Stategic Pluralism Theory as well. That short vs long term preferences may be shaped by hormonal shifts. New replication attempts have called this into some question as well.

The editor of this textbook has done a bunch of interesting research on attractiveness btw:

faridpazhoohi.com/publications/