The effects of age and gender on perceived facial attractiveness: A reply to McLellan and McKelvie.

Abstract

McLellan and McKelvie (1993), in a study investigating the effects of age and gender on attractiveness of photographs of faces, sought to establish whether men favoured faces of greater physical attractiveness in younger women, and women chose slightly older men (consistent with a proposed sociobiological interpretation) or whether people selected faces of the same age. We suggest the authors may wish to reconsider their results in view of our suggestion that their methodological procedure is in error. We also argue in the context of sociobiological theory the following: (1) the implicit assumption that facial attractiveness can be used as an indicator of human mate choice is questionable; (2) age categories of subjects choosing photographs of faces are too broad to test the validity of a sociobiological hypothesis; (3) results are not accurately interpreted. ResumeDans une etude concernant les effets de I'Sge et du sexe des sujets sur l'attrait de photos de visages, McLellan and McKelvie (1993) ont cherche a determiner si les homines jugeaient plus attrayante les visages de jeunes femmes et si les femmes choisissaient des hommes legerement plus ages (conformement a une interpretation sociobiologique proposee) ou bien si les gens choisissaient les visages de personnes du meme age qu'eux. Nous croyons que les auteurs devraient revoir les resultats qu'ils ont obtenus, car nous pensons que leur methode est incorrecte. Dans le contexte de la fh£orie sociobiologique, nous soutenons que: 1) l'hypothese implicite selon laquelle 1'attrait facial peut servir d'indicateur du choix d'un partenaire est contestable; 2) les groupes d'Sge des sujets qui ont choisi des photos de visages sont trop vastes pour qu'il soit possible de verifier la validite de l'hypothese sociobiologique; 3) les resultats ne sont pas interpretes avec exactitude. McLellan and McKelvie (1993) present data on the perceived attractiveness of human faces. They asked three age groups (17 -29; 30 -49; over 50) of men and women to rate the facial attractiveness of photographs of faces of three distinct ages (17 -low 30's; low 30's -high 40's; over 50). Data

The Etiology of Anomalous Sexual Preferences in Men

“…Men prefer features that are associated with fertility and health, including symmetrical faces with particular neotenous features (Johnston, 1999) and average weight figures with hip to waist ratios typical of young adult women (Singh, 1993). There is very strong agreement among observers' ratings of the beauty of female faces (Johnston, 1999) and as far as known, these preferences occur across cultures (Bradshaw, Bubier & Sullivan, 1994; Cunningham, Roberts, Barbee, Druen & Wu, 1995; Johnston, 1999; Korthase & Trenholme, 1982; Singh & Luis, 1995). Preferred partner age remains constant over age among adult men (Bradshaw, Bubier & Sullivan, 1994; Korthase & Trenholme, 1982; Silverthorne & Quinsey, 2000).…”