No Compelling Evidence that Preferences for Facial Masculinity Track Changes in Women’s Hormonal Status

Abstract

Although widely cited as strong evidence that sexual selection has shaped human facial-attractiveness judgments, findings suggesting that women’s preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s faces are related to women’s hormonal status are equivocal and controversial. Consequently, we conducted the largest-ever longitudinal study of the hormonal correlates of women’s preferences for facial masculinity (N = 584). Analyses showed no compelling evidence that preferences for facial masculinity were related to changes in women’s salivary steroid hormone levels. Furthermore, both within-subjects and between-subjects comparisons showed no evidence that oral contraceptive use decreased masculinity preferences. However, women generally preferred masculinized over feminized versions of men’s faces, particularly when assessing men’s attractiveness for short-term, rather than long-term, relationships. Our results do not support the hypothesized link between women’s preferences for facial masculinity and their hormonal status.

Probing Ovulatory-Cycle Shifts in Women’s Preferences for Men’s Behaviors

“…Results did not differ considerably between sexual and long-term attractiveness ratings. Thus, the current study's results do not provide evidence for the GGOSH, contradicting previous findings for ovulatory cycle shifts for men's behaviors (Gangestad et al, 2004;Lukaszewski & Roney, 2009), but are in line with recent non-replications of cycle shifts in mate preferences for masculine faces, voices, and bodies (Jones et al, 2018a;Jünger et al, 2018a;Marcinkowska et al, 2018). Although the effect sizes for preference shifts might be small, our study had enough power to detect even rather small effects, employing the largest sample size so far, a within-subject design with four testing sessions, and high cycle phase validity due to LH tests.…”

“…However, changes in preferences for masculine faces, bodies and voices did not replicate in more recent studies (e.g. Jones et al, 2018a;Jünger, Kordsmeyer, Gerlach, & Penke, 2018a;Jünger et al, 2018b;Marcinkowska, Galbarczyk, & Jasienska, 2018;Muñoz-Reyes et al, 2014). Moreover, two meta-analyses have come to strikingly diverging conclusions on whether cycle effects exist or not (Gildersleeve et al, 2014;Wood, Kressel, Joshi, & Louie, 2014).…”

“…divided them by a constant), so that the majority of the distribution for each hormone varied from -0.5 to 0.5, to facilitate calculations in linear mixed models (e.g. Jones et al, 2018a;. This is a common procedure to isolate effects of within-subject changes in hormones, avoiding the influence of outliers on results and dealing with the non-normal distribution of hormone levels.…”

A multivariate analysis of women's mating strategies and sexual selection on men's facial morphology

“…For example, initial research reported that facial masculinity was preferred among women at the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle compared to other points of the cycle, particularly when making judgements of sexual attractiveness and shortterm attractiveness [62]. However, recent research employing endocrine measures to characterize fertility have not reported stronger preferences for facial masculinity when fertility is highest [65][66][67]. Instead, preferences may shift owing to changes in endocrine status as women transition to motherhood or as a function of social expectations in partners changing over the life course [39].…”

Relational insecurity heightens sensitivity to limbal rings in partnered women

“…For example, symmetrical faces are especially attractive, as facial symmetry is perceived as healthy (Rhodes et al, ) and may veridically connote immunological function (Thornhill & Gangestad, ; but see Pound et al, ). Women additionally prefer male faces with dominant structures (e.g., broader jawlines), particularly in short‐term mating contexts (Brown & Sacco, ; Jones et al, ), as such facial structures connote testosteronization (Whitehouse et al, ). Conversely, men prefer feminine female features (e.g., narrower, smaller noses), given their association with developmentally appropriate levels of estrogen (Smith et al, ).…”