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So take this little test: if you were interested in pursuing a partner for a short-term relationship which would you be most interested in…their face or their body? And for a long-term relationship, face or body? That is, if you were forced to choose, of course.
Well two PhD students and their advisor, David Buss professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, did force people to make this very choice. They asked 375 college students to pick whether to date someone based on either seeing just their face or their body.
Nearly all participants chose to see the face. Except for one of the sexes in one situation.
Can you guess which one?
Here’s Jaime Confer, one of the student researchers:
"Everyone was more interested in the opposite sex person’s face than their body—except for men in the short-term mating condition."
Which implies?
"When men were evaluating a short-term mate for a one-night stand they showed equal interest in her face and body instead of the face winning by a blowout."
For long-term 75 percent of male participants wanted to see the face, but for short-term flings 50 percent of men chose face and 50 percent chose the body.
And why would this be?
"Because cues of immediate fertility which are more important to a man pursuing short-term relationships are more densely concentrated in her body than in her face. Where as her face may have more cues of reproductive value like age and health."
Such as?
"Skin and wrinkling gives a cue to her age and her reproductive value. So if I'm going to secure this woman for many years, I want to make sure she’s not at the tail end of the fertility window."
Presumably you could tell that by looking at her body, as well?
"You could but it might be relatively more concentrated in her face than in her body."
And this is not the case in men?
"There is not this huge discrepancy in cues that women are interested in, like his good genes cues and good dad cues, health and symmetry. Those are present in face and body equally."
Freud famously asked, what do women want. I guess it was clear to him what men wanted.
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19 Comments
Add CommentI think there's a simpler and more logical explanation: A pretty face will stay pretty, even in to old age. A 'hot body' will deteriorate. Much more quickly than a pretty face. Men take that into account for relationships with long-term potential, while it isn't as important for one night stands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this finding published anywhere or is it just a conference paper? Sounds very similar to the paper from August this year by Tom Currie and Tony Little: http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(09)00058-0/abstract
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a psychological patois is this?! Even the old Freud was called for give his questionings!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI too wish they would give you a reference for the study. Or at least the names of the researchers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to know how the ideas of wrinkles = infertility = unattractive came to be decided.
I think its more likely that we have a culture that devalues wrinkles and old age. So men choose women who are younger.
In todays world men are thinking only about the pleasure of sex and not the fertility of it. It may be a correlation that the avoidance of wrinkled women means more fertile women are chosen, but I don't think fertility it is part of the choice.
And if you step back 100,000 years, we really have no way of knowing that men were thinking in terms of reproduction even then. I can assume that they got the same level of pleasure from sex and that immediate pleasure was probably more motivating than fertility. Nor do we know that they avoided wrinkled women. They may have chosen based on proximity.
I think we should do a study to make men choose which women to sleep with by giving them information on both fertility and looks. If men consistently choose fertile women, then we might have some evidence that it is part of their motivation.
@sjd0218
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are attributing all this to conscious factors. These kinds of choices were being made all the time without any conscious knowledge that having sex led to pregnancy or children. You need to read up on evolutionary psychology. The cues have to work even when we had no idea what we were doing or why. You've got the arrow of causality mostly backwards. A more popular, but insightful/interesting book to get going with is something like Sex, Time and Power by Dr. Schlain.
I will read the book. I realize the suppose the fertility question is unconscious, but how do they make the link that it is even in the unconscious. That is my question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't dispute that it seems logical and fits nicely with evolutionary theory. But it seems to me that a great deal of evolution is a lucky chance that worked to advantage so it flourished. Evolution doesn't think, it happens. The concept that we subconsciously choose fertile women is still a thinking choice, not a random genetic mutation that flourishes because it works. Sex organs that cause pleasure was a random accident that flourished for obvious reasons.
Even if you say that men have a genetic pre-disposition toward younger women - in the manner that birds always know where to migrate and that information appears to etched into them at birth - how do you prove that? Perhaps presenting conscious decisions about fertility won't prove it. But saying they generally choose younger women doesn't prove it either. Or at least I don't think so.
I'm a breast man..at least with my Thanksgiving turkey!! I like the proposition that face is beauty and body is fertility. But I am a strong believer that mind is most important for a lasting relationship. When I used to look for a one night shag, it really didn't matter much!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I understand the story and previous comments, fertility in a mate is desirable within the setting of a one-night stand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think so.
The book should prove to be an interesting read. Myself, I would prefer a fairly pretty face coupled with a venus of willendorf figure. Someone with obvious fleshy contours. A real fertility figure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks also for the book reference. But I have one doubt with the "conclusions": it is Ok to test who male/females prefer depending on the situation (the general result didn't surprised me, but the male 50/50 in the one night situation surprised me like low: I would say that it should be 75/25 body/face for one night), but I'm not sure if the experiment was designed to study the cause: that you are looking for clues of fertility. I think that this is like choosing one very accepted explanation in EvoPsi, but not the lab test designed to prove that. I understand that a lot of our behaviour should be under control of process beyond the control of our conciousness process ('I'), but I doubt much more that this "under cover" processes are rating "fertility" directly, but rather is a "interpretation" of our high level semantic processes of an indirect cause (I understand that this is what evolutionary psi's claims although)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't want to say this, but men in a short term relationship do not look for a healthy body to carry a pregnancy. Probably just petting is more pleasant with a hot body. With a fertility rate going down and down in western countries, reproduction is not a dayly goal for most people. Salud +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA good body is the sign of good health as well as a pretty face. There is ambiguity in the process of perception about beauty. So, the attractive mate for one may not the attractive for another. So, this is an incomplete result of the research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the fact that, in a long-term relationship, most of your time will be spent looking at your mate's face? Think about your deepest relationships -- where do you look when you're engaged in conversation? We search facial expressions for cues to one another's words, emotional state, and unspoken thoughts. That face better be one with at least some appeal, because you'll see an awful lot of it, more than you will a leg or an arm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it's a bit obtusive to consider that attraction is surrounded by the issue of fertility. If you really parsed the issue of which body types of a woman are most likely to be capable of multiple pregnancies without complication, you would have to settle on a strongly built woman with large hips who in today's society would be considered 'fat' and therefore unnattractive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo their whole premise on this study is flawed imo. It all boils down to BEAUTY, pure & simple. I always think of the Biblical story from Genesis 6 that tells of angels who kept looking at women "because they were good looking", then with materialized bodies took them for wives "all whom they chose". This lead to their hybrid violent children being killed off in the Noachian Flood and the angels losing favor with God, the ability to materialize and eventually, access to Heaven (these 'demons' being the source of ghosts & UFO's today). Halloween, or Day of the Dead, is in reality in honor of and the mourning of these fallen Nephalim...or children of demons if you will. (I would have spared the added details but in view of today being Halloween, I indulged myself).
The connection to this article is the fact that angels have no hormones or even sexual function and yet they were immensely attracted to beautiful women...my point being that whether it's a painting, sculpture, archetecture or even a woman well put together, BEAUTY IS BEAUTY and universely appealing.
The premise of this study is stuck in the tar pit of evolutionary 'survival of the fittest' thinking and might as well be written in 856 A.D. (a similar Dark Age).
And are we talking about a really ugly face/hot body? I mean, a lot of guys would gladly put up with a so-so face with a hot body or a great looking face and a so-so body. I think the distinction is vital....and another reason this study is flawed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, women can't even consider getting another woman pregnant and yet look at how many lesbians there are.
This article is based on:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConfer, J. C., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2009). More than just a pretty face: Mens priority shifts toward bodily attractiveness in short-term mating contexts. 47th Annual Meeting of Council for the Advancement of Science Writing's New Horizons in Science, University of Texas, Austin, TX.
Confer, J. C., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2009). More than just a pretty face: Mens priority shifts toward bodily attractiveness in short-term mating contexts. 21st Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior
It might have been more interesting if the subjects were shown videos instead of still pictures. While males might take a fling based on a quick glance at a photo, I'm willing to bet that women will prefer to see body language and the male interacting with his environment. While males might be hitting based on fertility, females will probably hit based on perceived status. It would also be interesting to do similar tests with subjects in their mid reproductive years, and post reproductive as well. Sexual, and partner preferences do change over the years. It is weak evidence to base a study on only college students.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wanted to add... There are many different kinds of sexual activity, and not all sexual activity in human primates is driven by reproductive motivation. Humans are also intensely social animals, and intimate activity is as much driven by recreational social attractors. Gaining social status, food, gifts, protection from a powerful male, these are all just as powerful, and critical to survival as is sexual fitness for reproduction. What good is fertility if you can't keep a mate or feed yourself or your children? You must be able to rear your offspring to be reproductive socially functioning members of the tribe as well. Humans cannot survive in isolation. Our closest relatives, the Bonobos, are constantly active sexually, with both sexes. It is a social activity with them as well as with humans. Also note that pregnant women are often intensely sexual, as are post reproductive individuals. It's good exercise, cures depression, relieves stress, solidifies trust and pair bonding, and fills your brain with feel good chemicals. Reproduction? Never enters my mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswere the subjects shown actual people or images? I don't think you can equate the two at all. This is a highly mediated society, and images of "attractiveness" may be processed very differently than the sight of actual people. Besides, self-report findings are always suspect. "Unconsiously" most people are influenced by what they think researchers want to hear, what is "right" or notions of who they want to be/wish they were. A lot of studies show that sexual selection gets based in many cases (like the peahen's) on immune system strength, not "fertility," the idea being that merely producing progeny is of no reproductive value to one's genes unless offspring survive to reproduce in turn. In a society like ours where wealth is accumulated later in life by women, and leads to greater survival, wrinkles should be a plus. Even in prehistoric society, a few wrinkles, although indicating lower fertility, might indicate better survival skills. This kind of stuff is all so bogus, not because all the evolutionary premise is necessarily wrong but because the experimental set-ups are unreliable and the explanations considered way too restricted (and in this case, clearly predetermined by what researchers expect/desire of males).
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