Does sexual dimorphism -- that is, men looking masculine and women looking feminine -- contribute to cross-cultural standards of beauty? The jury may still be out on this question. Rennels et al (2008) suggests that previous studies have shown inconsistent results in evaluating the attractiveness of "feminine male faces" because of the technique used to create the stimuli - averaging male and female faces. Averaging feminine male faces and masculine male faces seems to show that masculinity is preferred. In Behavioral Ecology, Little et al (2008) found that women seemed to give more priority to sexual differentiation in facial attractiveness than men for both sexes.
On the other hand, a debate wages about whether sexual dimorphism can be considered separately from other attractiveness factors. A meta-analysis by Rhodes (2006) suggests that sexual dimorphism, symmetry, and averageness are considered more attractive in both male and female faces across cultures. However, Little et al (2008) (in PLoS ONE) argue that symmetry is linked to sexual dimorphism - symmetric faces tend to show more masculine or feminine proportions. Rhodes appears to disagree with this link: Koehler et al (2004) (with Rhodes) argues that there is no link between facial symmetry and masculinity.
I really have to wonder how relevant a forced-choice study on facial attractiveness is to mate choice, when faced with the amount of evidence that men are more likely than women to choose mates on the basis of attractiveness. That is: women can rate who is more attractive but they don't generally choose dates on that criteria. Speaking for myself, I feel like I'm more attracted to androgynous people, but I can't really tell how much of that is in facial structure, and how much of that is in attitude.
Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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2 comments:
I have a tendancy to comment on old posts, but anyway, here it goes.
First of all, to the broad point that men are more likely to focus on attractiveness than women, what you see depends on how you look. Much of the research that finds men place more emphasis on attractiveness comes out of questionaires and personal ad studies.
If you look at Feingold's 1990 meta-analysis, men did focus on attractiveness more than women, but the effect was more pronounced in self-reported paradigms than behavioral paradigms.
This can also be seen in specific papers.
Sprecher, S. (1989). The importance to males and females of physical attractiveness, earning potential and expressiveness in initial attraction. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,
21, 591-607.
Eastwick, P. W. & Finkel, E. J. (2008). Sex differences in mate preferences revisited: Do people know what they initially desire in a romantic partner? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 245-264.
Also, Julie Carmault's recent paper:
Carmalt, J.H., Cawley, J., Joyner, K., & Sobal, J. (2008). Body Weight and Matching with a
Physically Attractive Romantic Partner. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70(5), 1287-1296
Studies show that male attractiveness contributes to being with an attractive parnter:
Carmalt, J.H., Cawley, J., Joyner, K., & Sobal, J. (2008). Body Weight and Matching with a
Physically Attractive Romantic Partner. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70(5), 1287-1296
Moreover, you note the work of Rhodes explicitly. She did a study on sexual behavior, and the components of attractiveness influences mating success in both genders.
Rhodes, G. Simmons, L., & Peters, M. (2005). Attractiveness and sexual behavior: Does attractiveness enhance mating success? Evolution & Human Behavior, 26, 186-201.
Moreover, these effects are not solely isolated results. If you remember the testosterone papers, two showed that attractiveness enhanced success.
Peters et. al 2008 Animal Behavior and Honekopp et. al 2007 Evolution and Human Behavior found correlations between sexual partners and facial and body attractiveness. Hughes and Gallup found in two papers that male Shoulder-to-hip ratios are associated with higher mating success.
Another study found attractiveness was linked to higher sexual activity, and didn't note sex effects :
Weeden and Sabini Subjective and Objective measures of attractiveness and sexual behavior and sexual attitudes in University Students
Additionally, Marcus Jokela recently found that attractiveness was related to higher reproductive success in both genders. Evolution and Human Behavior in press.
Physical attractiveness and reproductive success in humans: evidence from the late 20th century United States
In the 1980s, Feingold found women who had more attractive partners than themselves were funnier and less neurotic.
Finally, in Barry Harper's 2000 paper, unattractive men were less likely to marry.
It's a reasonable question of how sex differences in the emphasis on
physical attractiveness, but the notion that studies of physical attractiveness have limited utility in mate choice because men focus on good looks more than women is clearly contradicted by a fair amount of data.
I also object to the notion that "women generally don't choose dates on that criterea". Sex differences imply a difference in the extent of focus on a quality, but they are not so easily reduced to (1) this quality is most important to men and not women or (2) one sex uses this criterea and the other does not.
That's not to suggest they're not important in mate selection, but differences do not imply that a quality is not used altogether.
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