Finlay G. Smith

Men report stronger attraction to femininity in women's faces when their testosterone levels are high

Many studies have shown that womens judgments of mens attractiveness are affected by changes in levels of sex hormones. However, no studies have tested for associations between changes in levels of sex hormones and mens judgments of womens attractiveness. To investigate this issue, we compared mens attractiveness judgments of feminized and masculinized womens and mens faces in test sessions where salivary testosterone was high and test sessions where salivary testosterone was relatively low. Men reported stronger attraction to femininity in womens faces in test sessions where salivary testosterone was high than in test sessions where salivary testosterone was low. This effect was found to be specific to judgments of opposite-sex faces. The strength of mens reported attraction to femininity in mens faces did not differ between high and low testosterone test sessions, suggesting that the effect of testosterone that we observed for judgments of womens faces was not due to a general response bias. Collectively, these findings suggest that changes in testosterone levels contribute to the strength of mens reported attraction to femininity in womens faces and complement previous findings showing that testosterone modulates mens interest in sexual stimuli.

Are Attractive Men's Faces Masculine or Feminine? The Importance of Controlling Confounds in Face Stimuli

Womens preferences for male masculinity are highly variable. Although many researchers explain this variability as reflecting systematic individual differences in how women resolve the tradeoff between the costs and benefits of choosing a masculine partner, others suggest that methodological differences between studies are responsible. A recent study found general femininity preferences for judgments of faces that were manipulated in sexual dimorphism of shape but general masculinity preferences for judgments of faces that were based on perceived masculinity. Using the original stimuli, we replicated these previous results but found equivalent general femininity preferences for both types of faces when nonface confounds in the stimuli (e.g. hairstyle) were eliminated through masking. We conclude that care must be taken to control potential confounds in stimuli and that the influence of nonface cues on preferences for facial masculinity deserves further study.

Kin recognition signals in adult faces.

Maloney and Dal Martello [Maloney, L.T., Dal Martello, M.F. (2006). Kin recognition and the perceived facial similarity of children. Journal of Vision, 6(10), 1047-1056. http://www.journalofvision.org/6/10/4/] reported that similarity ratings of pairs of related and unrelated children were almost perfect predictors of the probability that those children were judged as being siblings by a second group of observers. Surprisingly, similarity ratings were poor predictors of whether a pair was same-sex or opposite-sex, suggesting that people ignore cues that are uninformative about kinship when making similarity judgments of faces. Using adult sibling faces, we find that similarity ratings for same-sex pairs were significantly higher than for opposite-sex pairs, suggesting that similarity judgments of adult faces are not entirely synonymous with kinship judgments.

Experimental evidence that women speak in a higher voice pitch to men they find attractive

Abstract Although humans can raise and lower their voice pitch, it is not known whether such alterations can function to increase the likelihood of attracting preferred mates. Because men find higher-pitched womens voices more attractive, the voice pitch with which women speak to men may depend on the strength of their attraction to those men. Here, we measured voice pitch when women left voicemail messages for masculinized and feminized versions of a prototypical male face. We found that the difference in womens voice pitch between these two conditions positively correlated with the strength of their preference for masculinized versus feminized male faces, whereby women tended to speak with a higher voice pitch to the type of face they found more attractive (masculine or feminine). Speaking with a higher voice pitch when talking to the type of man they find most attractive may function to reduce the amount of mating effort that women expend in order to attract and retain preferred mates.

Variation in perceptions of physical dominance and trustworthiness predicts individual differences in the effect of relationship context on women's preferences for masculine pitch in men's voices.

Several studies have found that women tend to demonstrate stronger preferences for masculine men as short-term partners than as long-term partners, though there is considerable variation among women in the magnitude of this effect. One possible source of this variation is individual differences in the extent to which women perceive masculine men to possess antisocial traits that are less costly in short-term relationships than in long-term relationships. Consistent with this proposal, here we show that the extent to which women report stronger preferences for men with low (i.e., masculine) voice pitch as short-term partners than as long-term partners is associated with the extent to which they attribute physical dominance and low trustworthiness to these masculine voices. Thus, our findings suggest that variation in the extent to which women attribute negative personality characteristics to masculine men predicts individual differences in the magnitude of the effect of relationship context on womens masculinity preferences, highlighting the importance of perceived personality attributions for individual differences in womens judgments of mens vocal attractiveness and, potentially, their mate preferences.

Opposite-sex siblings decrease attraction, but not prosocial attributions, to self-resembling opposite-sex faces

Contextual cues of genetic relatedness to familiar individuals, such as cosocialization and maternal–perinatal association, modulate prosocial and inbreeding-avoidance behaviors toward specific potential siblings. These findings have been interpreted as evidence that contextual cues of kinship indirectly influence social behavior by affecting the perceived probability of genetic relatedness to familiar individuals. Here, we test a more general alternative model in which contextual cues of kinship can influence the kin-recognition system more directly, changing how the mechanisms that regulate social behavior respond to cues of kinship, even in unfamiliar individuals for whom contextual cues of kinship are absent. We show that having opposite-sex siblings influences inbreeding-relevant perceptions of facial resemblance but not prosocial perceptions. Women with brothers were less attracted to self-resembling, unfamiliar male faces than were women without brothers, and both groups found self-resemblance to be equally trustworthy for the same faces. Further analyses suggest that this effect is driven by younger, rather than older, brothers, consistent with the proposal that only younger siblings exhibit the strong kinship cue of maternal–perinatal association. Our findings provide evidence that experience with opposite-sex siblings can directly influence inbreeding-avoidance mechanisms and demonstrate a striking functional dissociation between the mechanisms that regulate inbreeding and the mechanisms that regulate prosocial behavior toward kin.

Sociosexuality Predicts Women’s Preferences for Symmetry in Men’s Faces

Although men displaying cues of good physical condition possess traits that are desirable in a mate (e.g., good health), these men are also more likely to possess antisocial characteristics that are undesirable in a long-term partner (e.g., aggression and tendency to infidelity). How women resolve this trade-off between the costs and benefits associated with choosing a mate in good physical condition may lead to strategic variation in women’s mate preferences. Because the costs of choosing a mate with antisocial personality characteristics are greater in long- than short-term relationships, women’s sociosexuality (i.e., the extent to which they are interested in uncommitted sexual relationships) may predict individual differences in their mate preferences. Here we investigated variation in 99 heterosexual women’s preferences for facial symmetry, a characteristic that is thought to be an important cue of physical condition. Symmetry preferences were assessed using pairs of symmetrized and original (i.e., relatively asymmetric) versions of 10 male and 10 female faces. Analyses showed that women’s sociosexuality, and their sociosexual attitude in particular, predicted their preferences for symmetry in men’s, but not women’s, faces; women who reported being more interested in short-term, uncommitted relationships demonstrated stronger attraction to symmetric men. Our findings present new evidence for potentially adaptive variation in women’s symmetry preferences that is consistent with trade-off theories of attraction.

HORMONAL CONTRACEPTIVE USE AND PERCEPTIONS OF TRUST MODULATE THE EFFECT OF RELATIONSHIP CONTEXT ON WOMEN'S PREFERENCES FOR SEXUAL DIMORPHISM IN MALE FACE SHAPE

Women demonstrate stronger preferences for femininity when assessing mens attrac- tiveness for long-term rather than short-term relationships. One explanation of this effect is that the pro-social traits associated with femininity are particularly important for long-term relation- ships. This explanation has recently been challenged, however, following null findings for effects of pro-social attributions on womens preferences for feminine long-term partners. A limitation of these latter analyses is that they did not consider hormonal contraceptive use, which is a factor that previous studies suggest affects mate preferences. In our study, we found that women not using hormonal contraceptives demonstrated stronger preferences for femininity in mens faces when assessing men as long-term partners than when assessing men as short-term partners. More- over, this effect was most pronounced among women who perceived feminine men as particularly trustworthy. No equivalent effects were observed among women using hormonal contraceptives. These findings support the proposal that the effect of relationship context on womens face pref- erences occurs, at least in part, because women value pro-social traits more in long-term than short-term partners. Additionally, our findings suggest that both hormonal contraceptive use and individual differences in perceptions of pro-social traits modulate the effect of relationship con- text on womens face preferences.

Viewers base estimates of face matching accuracy on their own familiarity: Explaining the photo-ID paradox

Matching two different images of a face is a very easy task for familiar viewers, but much harder for unfamiliar viewers. Despite this, use of photo-ID is widespread, and people appear not to know how unreliable it is. We present a series of experiments investigating bias both when performing a matching task and when predicting other peoples performance. Participants saw pairs of faces and were asked to make a same/different judgement, after which they were asked to predict how well other people, unfamiliar with these faces, would perform. In four experiments we show different groups of participants familiar and unfamiliar faces, manipulating this in different ways: celebrities in experiments 1-3 and personally familiar faces in experiment 4. The results consistently show that people match images of familiar faces more accurately than unfamiliar faces. However, people also reliably predict that the faces they themselves know will be more accurately matched by different viewers. This bias is discussed in the context of current theoretical debates about face recognition, and we suggest that it may underlie the continued use of photo-ID, despite the availability of evidence about its unreliability.

Individual differences in women's perceptions of other women's dominance

Recent research on mens dominance perception suggests that the extent to which men perceive masculine men to be more dominant than relatively feminine men is negatively correlated with measures of their own dominance. In the current studies, we investigated the relationship between indices of womens own dominance and their perceptions of other womens facial dominance. Womens own height and scores on a dominance questionnaire were negatively correlated with the extent to which they perceived masculine women to be more dominant than relatively feminine women. In follow–up studies, we observed similar individual differences when (i) women separately judged other womens social and physical dominance, suggesting that individual differences in womens dominance perceptions generalize across two different types of dominance judgment and (ii) we assessed the perceivers’ dominance indirectly by using a questionnaire that measures the extent to which women view interactions with other women in competitive terms. These findings present new evidence that the extent to which people perceive masculine individuals to be more dominant than relatively feminine individuals is negatively correlated with measures of their own dominance and suggest that competition and conflict among women may have shaped individual differences in womens dominance perception. Copyright