No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are cues to susceptibility to infectious illnesses in a university sample of young adult women

Abstract

No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are cues to susceptibility to infectious illnesses in a university sample of young adult women. Evolution and Human Behavior, 40(2), pp. 156-159.

Biological Bases of Beauty Revisited: The Effect of Symmetry, Averageness, and Sexual Dimorphism on Female Facial Attractiveness

“…The study of human attractiveness with an evolutionary approach has borrowed heavily from animal models [16,92] and focused on the explanatory power of these factors in human judgments of attractiveness. The current research and recent findings [13][14][15] indicate that these effects are not as relevant to attractiveness in an absolute sense as previously thought.…”

“…For example, testosterone does not seem to suppress immune function in human males [37], and masculinity does not seem particularly attractive to females [38,39]. Facial femininity shows no relationship with actual health [15] or immune function [13], and more attractive women do not have higher levels of progesterone or estradiol [40].…”

“…However, some evidence suggests that this is due to faces with significant deviations from average being rated as far less attractive, rather than faces with greater averageness being rated as more attractive-that is, distinctiveness is unattractive rather than averageness itself being attractive [30]. However, much like symmetry, recent findings have called into question the relationship between averageness and health, with no relationship emerging between facial averageness and oxidative stress, immune function [14], or salivary immunoglobulin [13]. In spite of this, facial averageness is heritable; a vital element of any evolutionary argument [31].…”

“…The link to psychological perceptions of attractiveness is clear: selecting a mate with these qualities improves the health of offspring by avoiding partners who may have a high parasite load or low genetic heterozygosity [8]. However, these findings have recently been called into question, with numerous putative links between these traits and relevant life outcomes failing to replicate in larger samples [13][14][15]. The current evidence for each is reviewed below.…”

Attractiveness of Human Faces: Norms by Sex, Sexual Orientation, Age, Relationship Stability, and Own Attractiveness Judgements

“…In the domain of mate choice, FA has been linked to genetic fitness thus suggesting that a preference for attractive faces may represent an adaptive mechanism that ultimately promotes fitness (e.g., Jokela, 2009;Pflüger et al, 2012). Accordingly, several studies have found a positive relation between men's FA and overall genetic quality (e.g., Roberts et al, 2005), and an enhanced and more efficient immune functioning (Rantala et al, 2012); in women, FA relates to features of long-term health and fertility (e.g., Rantala et al, 2013; but see Cai et al, 2019).…”