British Study Says Women Prefer "Girly Men"

[MrsSpringsteen]

Everyone makes assumptions (and has stereotypes) about personality traits based upon looks, I can't imagine any human who doesn't. Men do it about women too, and both genders do it about members of their own gender. Maybe a "softer" looking face just creates the assumption of a kinder, gentler person. Of course assumptions can always make an ass out of you and me. There can be "rough" looking men who are very kind and gentle and softer looking ones who aren't. Once you get past the physical, well that's what defines true masculinity as I define it. People define it differently.

[yolland]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar
I'm having a hard time understanding this last part:

And faces that also appeared healthier — like those with better complexion — were also seen as more desirable in all personality traits. This helps to counter claims that masculinity is best viewed as an indicator of genetic fitness and immunity to disease, Boothroyd said.

“Here what I’m showing is healthiness is really positive and masculinity isn’t,” Boothroyd said. “We shouldn’t be thinking about masculinity in terms of health, which is a totally different thing in women’s minds, but in terms of social dominance.”

Seems to be somewhat contradictory, maybe I'm reading it wrong.

I'm not sure I get it either, but I *think* the idea is that a 'healthy'-looking complexion trumps whatever other qualities a given face might seem to 'cue' for on the desirability front. So, for example, a 'healthily'-complected and more-'dominant'-looking face would seem more desirable than a 'less healthily'-complected and less-'dominant'-looking one--even though the clear trend otherwise was for women to prefer less-'dominant'- (read: less-'masculine'-) looking men. Therefore, you can't say 'masculinity' is simply a proxy for 'genetic fitness and immunity to disease' (and therefore always desirable), but rather more of a proxy for 'social dominance,' the desirability of which is evaluated separately from perceived 'healthiness.' What makes it confusing is that the comment appears in a context of challenging the theory that women prefer 'masculine' men--a theory which we in turn associate with the equation of 'masculine' = healthy. That tends to make the reader assume that some perceived inverse association between masculinity and health is being implied...or, even more improbably, that feminine=unhealthy=desirable. But I think it's more that they're rejecting any link between the two evaluations altogether.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.comThu Aug 23, 12:35 PM ET

Guys with bulldog-like faces have been chick magnets throughout human evolutionary history.

A recent study of the skulls of human ancestors and modern humans finds that women, and thereby, evolution, selected for males with relatively short upper faces. The region between the brow and the upper-lip is scrunched proportionately to the overall size of their heads.

Among the men who fit the bill: Will Smith and Brad Pitt.

In a past study, researchers found a similar facial pattern in chimpanzees, with males having relatively shorter and broader faces compared with females, controlling for body size.

Men with "mini mugs" might have been most attractive to the opposite sex and thus most likely to attract mates for reproduction, passing along the striking features to the next generation and so forth, said lead study author Eleanor Weston, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.

"The evolution of facial appearance is central to understanding what makes men and women attractive to each other," Weston said. "We have found the distance between the lip and brow was probably immensely important to what made us attractive in the past, as it does now."

Whereas past studies have suggested facial symmetry and facial masculinity play roles in this game of desire, none have provided evidence of an evolutionary shaping of male and female faces.

"I think it's a very nice approach," said Randy Thornhill, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, referring to the study. Though not involved in it, Thornhill agrees with the finding that certain facial features evolved due to sexual selection.

Facial coordinates

The researchers calculated certain facial coordinates on 68 males and 53 female skulls from a contemporary native southern Africa population ranging in age from infant to 30 years old. Measurements included distances between the point between the eye brows and upper lip and from cheekbone to cheekbone.

Weston and her colleagues also examined facial data from fossil hominin skulls dating back to 2.6 million years ago, unearthed in Kenyan deposits as part of the Koobi Fora Research Project IV. These skulls represented five species: Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Paranthropus boisei, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus. These facial coordinates were then compared with the contemporary coordinates.

In spite of their bulkier bodies (about 15 percent more massive than women's bodies), and similarly broader faces, men have upper faces similar in height to women's faces, the scientists found. But compared with the rest of the head, a guy's mid-face is compressed. The differences held throughout human history.

A simple ratio of upper face length to broadness could serve as a proxy for facial attractiveness, the scientists say in a report on their research published in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Masculine appeal

The scientists are not certain why today's distinctive male face and its proportions evolved.

"A shorter upper face does serve to exaggerate the size of other face features such as the flare of the cheeks and the size of the jaw, but this might not be why it developed," Weston told LiveScience. "Rather the shorter [and] broader the male face the more ‘masculine’ and the less ‘feminine'—based on biological face changes that take place during growth and development—the individual becomes," she said.

Also, this facial development was accompanied by a shrinking of guys' canine teeth, so men appeared less threatening to competitors, yet attractive to mates.

While the scientists who authored the current study examined skulls and did not specifically study how modern faces fit the findings, the Natural History Museum press officers applied Weston's findings to a "quick and dirty" survey of photos of celebrities.

They came up with a list of stars with masculine faces, listing them from most to least masculine according to facial dimensions: Will Smith, Peter Andre, Justin Timberlake, Thierry Henry, Brad Pitt, David Beckham, Johnny Depp and Kanye West.

[unico]

an article about facial attractiveness that doesn't mention bono?

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Originally posted by anitram


Quite frankly I've seen a lot of men who could use it.

[sweetie]

Originally posted by lynnok


Thinner curved eyebrows? Will men be plucking their eyebrows now? Creepy.

I can't stand men with shaped eyebrows! Give me a nice hairy caterpillar brow.

[Vincent Vega]

^ ?
Minister of Finances in the 90's.



Not easy.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Originally posted by Vincent Vega
^ ?
Minister of Finances in the 90's.

Oh my God, what animals are nesting in those?

[sweetie]

Originally posted by Vincent Vega
^ ?
Minister of Finances in the 90's.



Not easy.

sexy!

[MrsSpringsteen]

Originally posted by sweetie


sexy!

There's help available for you

[sweetie]