1. Are masculine males attractive
Are masculine males attractive? The influence of sexually dimorphic colour and shape in attractiveness judgments
M. L. Carrito1,2,3, I. M. Santos 1,2, D. I. Perrett 3, C.E Lefevre 3, R. Whitehead 3
1 Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal, 2 IBILI, Portugal, 3 University of St Andrews, Scotland
State of the art
Evolutionary approaches to human attractiveness have documented several facial traits that are proposed to be attractive across individuals and cultures, potentially reflecting species-wide “universal‟ preferences [1].
Sexual dimorphism is characterized by the presence of secondary sexual features and signals maturity and reproductive potential [2].
Women who regard themselves as attractive [3] and women who are rated as more attractive by others [4] prefer more masculine and symmetrical faces than less attractive women for long-term relationships. However, preferences for masculinity are not clear.
Mixed results regarding masculinity and male attractiveness may have been due to differences in the effects of shape and reflectance dimensions [5].
Aims
Understand which dimension of sexual dimorphism, colour or shape, is determinant to the judgments of attractiveness in female participants.
Understand how sexually dimorphic shape and colour variables interact with each other.
Explore which individual differences may determine women’s attractiveness preferences.
Hypotheses
We expect to find a preference for masculine colour and feminine shape as predicted by the latest models of face preferences.
Women that rate themselves as more attractive will probably show a greater preference for masculinity comparing to women who rate themselves as less attractive.
More masculine traits will probably be preferred when considering short-term relationships.
Methods
Participants
52 undergraduate female students from the University of Aveiro (mean age =20.21 years, SD = 3.28).
All participants were Caucasian and exclusively or predominantly heterosexual.
Stimuli
12 female faces and 12 male faces - each face was an average of 3 photographed faces of different individuals.
The skin portions were manipulated according to the shape difference between the two endpoint shape masks.
The outcome pictures of the shape transformation were then manipulated according to the colour difference between the two endpoint colour masks.
Procedure
Participants were asked to “manipulate” face images along colour and shape masculinity continua, and adjust those parameters to maximize the attractiveness of the faces, from the range available.
During 24 trials, participants were presented with 12 male faces that represented potentials mates for a short-term or a long-term relationship and 12 female faces that represented potentials friends.
Results
Correlation with self-attractiveness:
No correlation between self-attractiveness and sexually dimorphic preferences.
Preferences for sexual dimorphism in different relationship contexts (for male faces):
No effect of relationship context, F (1, 50) = .329, p>.05.
Significant effect of type of transformation , F (1, 50) = , p <.001, with colour being more masculinised (mean=15.44, sd= .40) then shape (mean=2.97, sd=.019).
No effect of interaction between relationship context and transformation, F (1, 50)=.58, p>.05.
Preferences for sexual dimorphism in male and female faces:
Significant effect of the sex of the face F(1, 51) = 5.09, p =.028 with man being more masculinised regardless the type of transformation (mean=9.20, sd=.021) than women (mean=8.62, sd=.019).
Significant effect of transformation, F (1, 51)= , p <.001, with colour being more masculinised (mean=15.04, sd= .29) then shape (mean=2.78, sd=.015).
No interaction between sex of the face and transformation, F (1, 51)=.35 p>.05.
Fig 1: Mean masculinity level preferred (in colour and shape) according to 2 different relationship contexts.
Fig 2: Mean masculinity level preferred (in colour and shape) according to the gender of the presented stimuli.
Conclusions
These results show that female participants tend to prefer a more masculine colour and shape for male faces comparing to female faces, as expected.
There was no effect of relationship context in women’s face preferences which can be explained by the fact that participants may have been using contraceptive pills. Some studies indicate that only women who do not use hormonal contraceptives show stronger preferences for femininity in men’s faces when assessing men as long-term partners than when assessing men as short-term partners [6].
Considering only the masculine stimuli, female participants seem to increase masculinity in colour and femininity in shape as predicted by previous face processing models [1].
References
Little, A. C. & Mannion, H. (2006). Viewing attractive or unattractive same-sex individuals changes self-rated attractiveness and face preferences in women. Animal Behaviour, 72, 981–87.
Rhodes, G. (2006). The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 199–226.
Little, A. C., Burt, D. M., Penton-Voak, I. S., Perrett, D. I. (2001). Self-perceived attractiveness influences human female preferences for sexual dimorphism and symmetry in male faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 268, 39– 44.
Penton-Voak, I. S., Little, A. C., Jones, B. C., Burt, D. M., Tiddeman, B. P., Perrett, D. I. (2003). Female condition influences preferences for sexual dimorphism in faces of male humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 117, 264–71
Said, C. P., & Todorov, A. (2011). A statistical model of facial attractiveness. Psychological Science, 22(9), 1183 – 1190.
Smith, F. G., Jones, B. C., Little, A. C., DeBruine, L. M., Welling, L. L. M. Vukovic, J., et al. (2009). Hormonal contraceptive use and perceptions of trust modulate the effect of relationship context on women’s preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 7, 195–210.