Does Masculinity Matter? The Contribution of Masculine Face Shape to Male Attractiveness in Humans

Abstract

BackgroundIn many animals, exaggerated sex-typical male traits are preferred by females, and may be a signal of both past and current disease resistance. The proposal that the same is true in humans – i.e., that masculine men are immunocompetent and attractive – underpins a large literature on facial masculinity preferences. Recently, theoretical models have suggested that current condition may be a better index of mate value than past immunocompetence. This is particularly likely in populations where pathogenic fluctuation is fast relative to host life history. As life history is slow in humans, there is reason to expect that, among humans, condition-dependent traits might contribute more to attractiveness than relatively stable traits such as masculinity. To date, however, there has been little rigorous assessment of whether, in the presence of variation in other cues, masculinity predicts attractiveness or not.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe relationship between masculinity and attractiveness was assessed in two samples of male faces. Most previous research has assessed masculinity either with subjective ratings or with simple anatomical measures. Here, we used geometric morphometric techniques to assess facial masculinity, generating a morphological masculinity measure based on a discriminant function that correctly classified >96% faces as male or female. When assessed using this measure, there was no relationship between morphological masculinity and rated attractiveness. In contrast, skin colour – a fluctuating, condition-dependent cue – was a significant predictor of attractiveness.Conclusions/SignificanceThese findings suggest that facial morphological masculinity may contribute less to men's attractiveness than previously assumed. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that current condition is more relevant to male mate value than past disease resistance, and hence that temporally fluctuating traits (such as colour) contribute more to male attractiveness than stable cues of sexual dimorphism.

Women’s Preferences for Men’s Facial Masculinity: Trade-Off Accounts Revisited

“…clearly above zero. This is in line with findings from previous studies that have reported a general preference for masculinity/masculine traits (Cunningham et al 1990;Gillen 1981;Grammer and Thornhill 1994;Koehler et al 2004;Neave et al 2003;Rhodes et al 2003Rhodes et al , 2007Saxton et al 2009;Scheib et al 1999), but in contrast to other studies which reported that overall, women prefer a close to average or slightly feminine male face shape (Little et al 2001;Penton-Voak et al 2004, 2003Perrett et al 1998;Rhodes et al 2000;Scott et al 2010). Our results might differ from these latter findings because we used an asymmetric range of masculinity (−100% to +200%).…”

Women's pathogen disgust predicting preference for facial masculinity may be specific to age and study design

“…Some evidence to suggested perceived masculinity from subjective ratings might measure a different construct to objective structural masculinity (Scott, Pound, Stephen, Clark, & Penton-Voak, 2010). To address this we ran an additional analysis using objectively derived facial masculinity scores from landmark coordinates.…”

Perception of health from facial cues

“…For this reason, it has been argued that such cues should provide more relevant information to current health than shape information such as facial masculinity or symmetry [34].…”