Waist-to-hip ratio and attractiveness. Replication and extension

Effects of exogenous testosterone and mating context on men's preferences for female facial femininity

“…Some of the specific bodily features shown to be important for judgments of attractiveness include the waist-to-hip ratio (Henss, 1995;Singh, 1993;Streeter & McBurney, 2003), body mass index (Tovée, Maisey, Emery, & Cornelissen, 1999), and breast size (Furnham, Swami, & Shah, 2006;Furnham & Swami, 2007). Indeed, although there are correlated preferences between facial and bodily attractiveness, some studies have shown that the face and body still make independent contributions to ratings of overall attractiveness (e.g., Currie & Little, 2009;Peters, Rhodes, & Simmons, 2007).…”

Mate preferences among the Shuar of Ecuador: trait rankings and peer evaluations

“…Based on multiple studies conducted in industrialized nations (e.g., Furnham, Tan, & McManus, 1997;Henss, 1995;Singh, 1993), it was argued that the preference for a small WHR might be a human universal. However, studies among the Matsigenka of Peru (Yu & Shepard, 1998), the Hadza of Tanzania (Marlowe & Wetsman, 2001), the Shiwiar of Ecuador (Sugiyama, 2004), the Zulu of South Africa (Tovée, Swami, Furnham, & Mangalparsad, 2006), and the Sámi of Scandinavia (Swami & Tovée, 2007) have all documented cultural differences suggesting that overall body mass may be more important than WHR in determining attractiveness among foraging peoples.…”

Shifts in Postdiscrimination Gradients Within a Stimulus Dimension Based on Female Waist-to-Hip Ratios

“…Ghirlanda & Enquist, 1998, 2003. As for WHR, it's possible that men's preference for relatively small WHRs (Furnham et al, 2005;Henss, 1995;Singh, 1993;Streeter & McBurney, 2003;Weeden & Sabini, 2005) is the result of a shiftlike process, given that larger WHRs correlate with poorer health and reproductive fitness (e.g., Bray, 1992;Price et al, 2006;Rexrode et al, 1998;Wass et al, 1997). However, experimental demonstrations of this effect are as of yet absent from the research literature.…”

“…Evolutionary theories of mate selection claim that the attractiveness of human females is determined to a large extent by physical cues such as WHR (e.g., Buss, 1987Buss, , 1989Symons, 1995). A woman's WHR is negatively correlated with measures of health and reproductive fitness (e.g., Bray, 1992;Price, Uauy, Breeze, Bulpitt, & Fletcher, 2006;Rexrode et al, 1998;Wass, Waldenström, Rössner, & Hellberg, 1997) and ratings of physical attractiveness by both women and men (e.g., Furnham, Petrides, & Constantinides, 2005;Henss, 1995;Singh, 1993;Streeter & McBurney, 2003). Although some have questioned the universality of these findings (Marlowe & Wetsman, 2001;yu & Shepard, 1998), at least in westernized societies, women with relatively small WHRs tend to be more desired as mates (see Weeden & Sabini, 2005, for a recent review).…”

“…in this regard, we used a stimulus dimension based on two values reported in WHRrelated research. One endpoint of the dimension was a WHR of 0.700, the value that men report as finding most attractive (Furnham et al, 2005;Henss, 1995;Singh, 1993;Streeter & McBurney, 2003). The other endpoint was a WHR of 0.800, a value that approximates the mean WHR of healthy adult women (e.g., Dobbelsteyn, Joffres, MacLean, & Flowerdew, 2001;Lahti-Koski, Pietinen, Männistö, & Vartiainen, 2000;Lissner et al, 1998;Seidell, Pérusse, Després, & Bouchard, 2001).…”