Women’s short-term mating goals elicit avoidance of faces whose eyes lack limbal rings.

Abstract

Limbal rings are dark rings around the eye's iris and their presence represents a good genes cue, which augments facial attractiveness. This communicative function implicates limbal rings as especially desirable in short-term mating contexts, suggesting a stronger motivation to approach prospective mates with limbal rings relative to those without. To assess approach and avoidance tendencies more directly, the current study adopted a line bisection task capable of assessing cortical activity. Whereas a right visual-field bias is associated with approach motivation, a left visual-field (LVF) bias is associated with avoidance motivation. In this study, we activated women's short-term mating motives (vs. a general positive affect control state) and presented a series of male and female faces with and without limbal rings over centrally bisected lines. Participants indicated which side of each line was longer to determine potential activation of consonant cortical areas. Mating-primed women demonstrated LVF bias when presented with targets lacking limbal rings, suggesting an avoidance response, relative to targets with limbal rings. No differences in behavioral tendencies between targets with and without limbal rings emerged for control-primed women. Results indicate the importance of limbal rings in short-term mating decisions by demonstrating a behavioral aversion to prospective mates lacking this health cue. Public Significance StatementWhen thinking about acquiring a short-term mate (e.g., a partner for a single sexual experience), women were motivated to avoid faces without limbal rings, whereas women did not appear motivated to approach faces with limbal rings. These results suggest women's preference for limbal rings may reflect an aversion to individuals who appear unhealthy.

Relational insecurity heightens sensitivity to limbal rings in partnered women

“…These findings are additionally consonant with previous work indicating that anxiously attached individuals experience difficulty in disengaging from relationship threats (Mikulincer, Gillath, & Shaver, ) and engage in frequent mate‐guarding (Barbaro, Pham, Shackelford, & Zeigler‐Hill, ), suggesting this response could have a relationship maintenance function. Much like with previous findings demonstrating the signal value of limbal rings, perceptual acuity for women's limbal rings emerged primarily as derogation toward women without limbal rings following a prime that activated mating‐relevant motives (Brown et al, ; Brown & Sacco, ). This derogation could facilitate women's focus on healthy rivals who could poach their mates.…”

“…This result is consonant with previous findings indicating heightened aversion to the potential costs of unhealthy mates, particularly among women who could have had an interest in extradyadic mating had been activated (Allen & Baucom, ; Fish et al, ; Zebrowitz et al, ). The preference for limbal rings demonstrated in previous findings appears largely rooted in the derogation of faces not possessing heritable fitness cues as unhealthy rather than recognition of the health benefits of faces possessing fitness cues (Brown et al, ). This effect was apparent in the current study, as evidenced by partnered women whose relationship needs were temporally thwarted being especially derogative toward faces without limbal rings.…”

“…The absence of limbal rings, dark rings around the iris that augment attractiveness (Peshek, Semmaknejad, Hoffman, & Foley, ), for example, has also recently garnered attention in this discussion because their absence elicits similar aversion. Specifically, women become avoidant of faces without limbal rings when mating motives are salient (Brown, Sacco, & Medlin, ) and perceive such faces as particularly unhealthy (Brown & Sacco, ).…”

“…The perceptions of faces with limbal rings as healthy may be guided less by preferences for apparent good genes and more by an aversion to inferred bad genes. In a line‐bisection task, a task that assesses activation of behavioral approach and avoidance systems (e.g., Nash, McGregor, & Inzlicht, ; although see Leggett, Thomas, & Nicholls, ), mating‐primed women demonstrated a left‐visual field bias toward faces without limbal rings, a response indicating activation of avoidance systems, but no biases toward faces with limbal rings (Brown et al, ). Such aversion suggests women's inferences are rooted in vigilance to bad genes in prospective mates, eliciting derogation toward those appearing unhealthy.…”

“…However, when pursuing healthy partners, insecurity‐primed women should additionally elicit a concomitant acuity toward cues to poor health. This acuity should emerge in the service of mitigating costly mating mistakes with an unfit partner (Brown et al, ; Zebrowitz et al, ). We thus predicted insecurity‐primed partnered women would view male faces without limbal rings more negatively than security‐primed partnered women.…”