Agreement and Individual Differences in Men’s Preferences for Women’s Facial Characteristics

Abstract

Judgments of facial attractiveness are thought to play a critical role in social interaction in general and may play an important role in human mate choices (Little, Jones, & DeBruine, 2011; Rhodes, 2006). Consistent with this claim, recent work has revealed assortative mating for facial appearance in romantic couples (Burriss, Roberts, Welling, Puts, & Little, 2011; Little, Burt, & Perrett, 2006) and suggests that individual differences in face preferences predict individual differences in actual romantic partner characteristics (Burriss, Welling, & Puts, 2011; DeBruine, 2013; DeBruine et al., 2006). These findings potentially link face preferences to actual partner choice. Identifying healthy, fertile mates is key to male reproductive success in many species. Consequently, many researchers have suggested that heterosexual men's judgments of women's facial attractiveness may reflect psychological adaptations that evolved, at least in part, to identify healthy women (i.e., high-quality potential mates; Fink & Penton-Voak, 2002; Little, Jones, et al., 2011; Miller & Todd, 1998; Thomhill & Gangestad, 1999). Consistent with this proposal, several studies have demonstrated that women's faces contain cues to aspects of their underlying health, such as longevity (Henderson & Anglin, 2003; Reither, Hauser, & Swallen, 2009), fertility (Law Smith et al., 2006; Roberts et al., 2004), and past health problems (Kalick, Zebrowitz, Langlois, & Johnson, 1998; Thomhill & Gangestad, 2006). Moreover, these traits are often ones that men, on average, consider attractive (Fink & Penton-Voak, 2002; Little, Jones, et al., 2011; Miller & Todd, 1998; Thomhill & Gangestad, 1999) and that are positively correlated with measures of women's reproductive potential (e.g., Rhodes, Simmons, & Peters, 2005). The first part of this chapter will discuss some of the evidence for the suggestion that men, on average, consider women's faces displaying cues of health and/or fertility to be relatively attractive. By contrast with this focus on what men on average consider attractive in women's faces, the second part of the chapter will then discuss evidence that variation in men's preferences for health cues in women's faces is systematic, rather than arbitrary, and may also be adaptive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)