Growing evidence shows that features we find attractive in members of the opposite sex signal important underlying dimensions of health and reproductive viability.
It has been discovered that men with attractive faces have higher quality sperm, women with attractive bodies are more fertile, men and women with attractive voices lose their virginity sooner.
Men who spend more money than they earn have more sex partners, and lap dancers make more tips when they are in the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle.
across cultures and history, men and women have devised a wide variety of techniques to enhance their attractiveness. Corsets give women the appearance of narrower waists relative to their hips and modern gyms allow men to enhance their muscularity and shoulder width.
Cosmetic surgery enables women to create the appearance of youthful faces, large shapely symmetrical breasts, narrow waists larger buttocks, and more symmetrical faces.
Human growth hormone and steroids enable people to grow taller and stronger. Cosmetics, such as make-up, enable people to cover blotches, wrinkles, and imperfections in the skin.
In biological terms, traits that are more typical of women are consid- ered “feminine” whereas traits that are more typical of males are consid- ered “masculine.”
For example, testosterone “masculinizes” men’s faces by making their jaws squarer, and estrogen “feminizes” women’s faces by making their jaws more rounded.
Attractive Faces
Our perception of faces often prevails in spite of our experience. Growing evidence shows that how people rate faces is largely independent of their gender, culture, ethnic group status, sexual orientation and age
Our perception of faces often prevails in spite of our experience. Growing evidence shows that how people rate faces is largely independent of their gender, culture, ethnic group status, sexual orientation and age
Faces also contain cues to fertility. In 2003 a study was conducted where they took facial photos and semen samples from male college students. The semen samples were assayed for sperm count, sperm motility, and sperm morphology to generate a composite index of sperm quality.
A number of women who did not know these men were asked to rate the photos for attractiveness. The researchers discovered that how the women rated the men’s faces were correlated with the semen assay results.
Men with faces that women found attractive tended to have significantly more fertile, higher quality sperm. There are several intriguing explanations for this pattern.
Attractive men may garner more interest from women, which may boost their testosterone and sperm production, or men who are generally more robust and healthy overall may have more attractive faces and enhanced ability to produce sperm.
The way men rate facial attractiveness in women predicts estrogen levels and female reproductive health (Law-Smith et al., 2006). Faces can contain cues to underlying genetic resistance to disease.
Both men and women with at- tractive faces also show fewer subtle morphological deviations from bilateral symmetry, which is a ubiquitous measure of health and fitness.
A person’s face even conveys information about their body and their behavior. Given the potential dangers of failing to detect a physically powerful rival.
This research extends the findings of Shoup and Gallup (2008) who found that men’s faces were cues to their body morphology, grip strength, and sexual history.
Using facial photos of male college students that were cropped at the neck, those with faces that women rated as attractive had more pronounced wedge shaped torsos (broad shoulders and narrow hips), a masculine feature many women prefer.
women with attractive faces tend to have more accentuated hour glass figures (narrow waists and broad hips), a feminine feature men prefer.
As a consequence, the human nervous system has been shaped by natural selection in ways that prompt us to experience the faces of reproductively viable people as more attractive. Why? Evolution is not about survival, it is about the perpetuation of genes.
People who mated preferentially with individuals with attractive faces had a better chance of leaving healthier and more reproductively viable descendants.
As a consequence, their genes became better represented in subsequent generations. Attractiveness is not an inherent feature of a person’s face. Just like foods that taste good, attractive faces are an evolved property of the human nervous system.
Faces also vary in other domains. Some people have mature faces others have likable faces, trustworthy faces, or faces that convey a sense of power and leadership.
