Men’s Preference for Women’s Facial Features: Testing Homogamy and the Paternity Uncertainty Hypothesis

Abstract

Male mate choice might be based on both absolute and relative strategies. Cues of female attractiveness are thus likely to reflect both fitness and reproductive potential, as well as compatibility with particular male phenotypes. In humans, absolute clues of fertility and indices of favorable developmental stability are generally associated with increased women’s attractiveness. However, why men exhibit variable preferences remains less studied. Male mate choice might be influenced by uncertainty of paternity, a selective factor in species where the survival of the offspring depends on postnatal paternal care. For instance, in humans, a man might prefer a woman with recessive traits, thereby increasing the probability that his paternal traits will be visible in the child and ensuring paternity. Alternatively, attractiveness is hypothesized to be driven by self-resembling features (homogamy), which would reduce outbreeding depression. These hypotheses have been simultaneously evaluated for various facial traits using both real and artificial facial stimuli. The predicted preferences were then compared to realized mate choices using facial pictures from couples with at least 1 child. No evidence was found to support the paternity uncertainty hypothesis, as recessive features were not preferred by male raters. Conversely, preferences for self-resembling mates were found for several facial traits (hair and eye color, chin dimple, and thickness of lips and eyebrows). Moreover, realized homogamy for facial traits was also found in a sample of long-term mates. The advantages of homogamy in evolutionary terms are discussed.

Patterns ofMHC‐dependent mate selection in humans and nonhuman primates: a meta‐analysis

“…Because actual choice of partners is influenced by many socio‐economic conditions including ethnicity, nationality, family relatedness, phenotypic similarity and spatial segregation (reviewed in Kalmijn ; Bovet et al . ; Nojo et al . ) that can result in genetically assortative pairings, the apparent preference for MHC similarity in pairs may be coincidental.…”

The self prefers itself? Self-referential versus parental standards in face attractiveness

“…Given that phenotypic facial characteristics are known to be highly heritable in humans (Baydas et al, 2007; Weinberg et al, 2013), faces may be one of the best visual clues to genetic similarity (Kazem & Widdig, 2013; Holmes, 2004; Bovet et al, 2012). Indeed, for both sexes, ratings of facial attractiveness have been found to be a better predictor of general physical attractiveness than ratings on body images (Currie & Little, 2009; Peters, Rhodes & Simmons, 2007).…”

Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder?

“…A template-based hypothesis of facial attractiveness would be that a particular individual (or Self hereafter) will show attraction towards individuals showing moderate degrees of facial resemblance to Self [11], [12], [13] [14]. Several studies on actual couples have shown the presence of similar characteristics among spouses e.g., [11], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24].…”

“…[28]). There are strong reasons to believe that the use of kin or ‘genetic’ similarity cues in sexual choice may be strategic in evolutionary terms.…”

“…Indeed, extreme assortative mating among humans should be limited by mechanisms of inbreeding avoidance [32], [33] as well as an opposing preference for some genetic diversity (e.g., for increased allelic diversity at the major histocompatibility complex; [34]) and a tendency to reduce outbreeding depression [12]. Therefore, humans may seek an optimal but delicate balance between outbreeding and inbreeding and we should expect sexual choice to be expressed towards face stimuli whose similarities to oneself are not too obvious (e.g., a face resembling too explicitly a sibling or a closely-related individual may trigger avoidance mechanisms of primary incest).…”