Abstract
Although widely cited as strong evidence that sexual selection has shaped human facial-attractiveness judgments, findings suggesting that women’s preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s faces are related to women’s hormonal status are equivocal and controversial. Consequently, we conducted the largest-ever longitudinal study of the hormonal correlates of women’s preferences for facial masculinity (N = 584). Analyses showed no compelling evidence that preferences for facial masculinity were related to changes in women’s salivary steroid hormone levels. Furthermore, both within-subjects and between-subjects comparisons showed no evidence that oral contraceptive use decreased masculinity preferences. However, women generally preferred masculinized over feminized versions of men’s faces, particularly when assessing men’s attractiveness for short-term, rather than long-term, relationships. Our results do not support the hypothesized link between women’s preferences for facial masculinity and their hormonal status.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 996-1005 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Psychological Science |
Volume | 29 |
Issue number | 6 |
Early online date | 30 Apr 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2018 |
Keywords
- attractiveness
- mate preferences
- menstrual cycle
- open data
- open materials
- oral contraceptives
- sexual selection