Transcription
Why do some men prefer this phase over this one? Or why do some women prefer this one over this one? Do men and women have different standards for facial attractiveness?
Facial attractiveness is crucial for human social interactions. For example, attractive individuals have a higher chance of being hired for a job; they also obtain more prestigious occupations. In addition, attractiveness plays an essential role in the ability to engage with potential mates, of perhaps the opposite sex. But what exactly do men and women perceive as being attractive? In this video, we're going to talk a bit about whether men and women have the same standards for facial attractiveness, and if they don't, how much do they differ?
The most important factor that influences facial attractiveness is called sexual dimorphism. After puberty, men and women start to develop unique facial characteristics due to different levels of hormones, namely testosterone and estrogen. For example, males have larger jawlines and more prominent facial features, whereas women tend to present fuller cheeks, lips, and perhaps even more developed cheekbones. This means that there are distinctive features which are considered to be either masculine or feminine. These traits can be observed both in men and women. Both men and women tend to prefer symmetry and youthfulness in faces, but how are the gender-specific features perceived in terms of attractiveness?
We can assume that distinctive masculine features in men and feminine features in women are considered more attractive because it pushes the scale of sexual dimorphism. And as studies such as Gillian Rhodes have shown in evolutionary papers, sexual dimorphism is a key indicator of making a face attractive. Basically, the men look like men; the women look like women. Generally, men tend to prefer feminine women, as femininity provides cues to desirable characteristics such as fertility and health. On the other hand, women's preferences for masculinity are more complex, and studies on the impact of masculinity on male attractiveness have produced quite mixed results.
One possible explanation for the inconsistency that we see with this sex is that studies of masculinity are often associated with dominance and aggressiveness, which can be desirable in certain contexts but undesirable in others. We also have to consider that male hormones are on a daily basis, whereas female hormones and cycles are on a monthly basis, and so there are very big shifts that we have seen in other studies where women prefer more masculine-looking men at one point of the cycle and more feminine-looking men at another point of the cycle. This means that men have a rather straightforward decision to make, as femininity only has positive connotations. Women, on the other hand, have a far greater potential trade-off between positive and negative aspects of masculinity, which may indicate different costs and benefits in a potential partner under different circumstances.
One influencing factor, for example, is the type of relationship that people are looking for—short-term versus long-term—and this influences the perceived attractiveness of a potential partner. Who studied this? Little and colleagues used photographs of both male and female faces and digitally manipulated them to either appear more masculine or feminine than the original. Then they asked heterosexual men and women to identify which of the two versions they found the most attractive and which one they would be more inclined to engage with in both the long-term and short-term relationship. In other words, the authors wanted to find out whether the perceived attractiveness was influenced by the expected type of relationship. The results showed that women's preferences for more masculine traits were greater for short-term than for long-term relationships. The same trend was observed for men, where they preferred more feminine features for short-term than for long-term relationships. In other words, both genders preferred distinctive feminine or masculine traits for short-term relationships, and the author suggests that masculinity and femininity as a facial feature unconsciously provide information about the quality, in terms of genetic individuals.
An additional interesting difference in men and women's preferences arises when considering the importance they place on facial or bodily beauty. According to one study by Confer and colleagues, men tend to prioritize bodily over facial attractiveness in short-term dating contexts, whereas women do not exhibit the same difference. In other words, when it comes to short-term dating, only men tend to emphasize bodily features over facial attributes. A possible interpretation of this could be that bodily features in women provide even stronger cues for fertility than facial features do.
Another influencing factor is the environment. So the severity of the environment and the availability of resources have a role in how a person's spatial preferences change. In other words, since facial attractiveness provides cues to the quality (in air quotes) of an individual, contextual factors like your environment, your socioeconomic status, how much money you have, have an impact on your preferences. For example, men with facial hair might be considered more desirable under vulnerable circumstances, like when money is scarce or we're in a recession (maybe like now), as beards are associated with masculinity and therefore they can indicate dominance and aggressiveness compared to other men. Because when times get tough, people start fighting; things get scary; you want mean-looking men. In theory, this is what Little and colleagues studied in their paper, "Human preferences for facial masculinity change with relationship type and environmental harshness," where women and men who participated in the study were asked to choose between a feminized and a masculinized version of a face under hypothetical harsh and safe scenarios. For example, the safe scenario could be having a supportive family and a stable financial situation, while the harsh scenario could be being in a doomsday apocalypse, and what—who are you going to choose to be on your team out of the five guys? Interestingly enough, the authors found that when seeking long-term relationships, women who imagine themselves in a harsh environment preferred less masculine traits compared to when they were in a safe environment. Similar results were found for men, who preferred less feminine women in a harsh environment than in a safe environment.
The idea behind these results is that high-quality partners (in air quotes here), so things like attractive, high genetic quality, health indicators, those kinds of things, tend to invest in long-term relationships less because they have a higher market value, meaning that everybody wants them, and so they're more likely to find other partners easily. Consequently, they're more likely to abandon the relationship during challenging circumstances, and hence they may not make the best long-term partners. In addition, a lot of people see less attractive partners as being expected to demand less mating effort since they tend to be more available in the long term. Therefore, many psychologists have noted on what both men and women face, which is a trade-off between partner quality and the availableness of that partner itself in terms of physical investment. Who explained this with an example? There may be somebody you see that's very attractive, very desirable socially speaking, but they would make a horrible mother or father because they don't have the right skill set to be taken care of, you know, family life. That would be, in theory, a partner trade-off because evolutionarily speaking, they have all of the ticks that we're looking for as humans, but in evolutionary, social, domesticated life, they're just not good parents. So that's one example.
Self-perceived attractiveness is another factor that influences the preference of masculine or feminine traits and overall physical attractiveness between men and women. According to Bureaux and colleagues in their paper, "Man's attractiveness predicts the preference for female facial beauty when judging for short-term but not long-term partners," both men and women who rate themselves as attractive prefer enhanced features on their potential partners. On the other hand, those who consider themselves less attractive are less inclined to prefer enhanced features. And what does an enhanced feature mean? Basically, think sharper cheekbones, sharper jaw, bigger eyes—everything that separates a face from the average face. This means that attractive men prefer more feminine features in women, and unattractive men and attractive women prefer more masculine features in men than unattractive women. When people judge faces of the same sex, there was no effect of self-perceived attractiveness on the preferences for masculinity or femininity. Since this study was carried on heterosexual subjects, this suggests that the market value effect only applies to potential mates. What that means in simplest terms is that people who consider themselves more valuable partners tend to seek out more enhanced facial traits in their potential mates—you know, their dates, their people, their crushes, people they're pursuing—they tend to look for the sharper, crazier-looking features that make a face attractive. In other words, they have higher beauty standards. What's not obvious, however, is that they don't seem to place as much importance on attractiveness in contexts other than mating. What that means is people who are already attractive will not give you a pass simply for being attractive yourself.
This is significant because, as we've seen in a lot of our videos on the channel, facial attractiveness has many aspects of life being covered, such as job seeking, communication, the likelihood of not getting embarrassed in a social situation. But when it comes to attractiveness and dating, it doesn't really work for other attractive people; they don't give you a pass just for being attractive.
Another contextual factor affecting women's preferences, in this case, over more masculine faces for men, is the fluctuation of hormone levels hinted at earlier. In his review, "Facial Attractiveness," Anthony Little states that women are more attracted to masculine male faces at their peak fertility. This may be related to selecting higher-quality (quote unquote) men, commonly associated with masculine cues at the time because they're more likely to become pregnant from these men. And in this case, contextual factors such as the type of relationship (you know, long-term versus short-term), your socioeconomic status, how much money you have, your own self-esteem and self-attractiveness, and even hormones have an important role in the perception of facial attractiveness for both men and women, meaning that your beauty standards will change to a degree based on other factors.
So what can we take from this? Well, there are certain features that both men and women find attractive—no doubt about that—such as asymmetry, youthful appearance, clear skin. However, other important traits, particularly masculinity and femininity (androgenicity, which is what these terms are called), or sexual dimorphism, are more complex and depend on various external factors. As a consequence, scientific literature on these traits is inconsistent and does change a lot, especially with masculinity for men. One possible reason for this inconsistency is that masculinity is often associated with aggression, which may be perceived as threatening by some women and not threatening or comforting by others. For example, aggressive individuals are more likely to experience injury or death as a result. Women's evaluations of masculinity may involve weighing its potential costs and benefits: Is this man a risk to me and my family? On the other hand, studies on men's preferences for femininity are more consistent because feminine traits are generally associated with fertility and good health, not with aggressive risk or danger, which can be sometimes good for keeping men alive, but in family life that's not really a benefit. So men see a direct benefit by choosing more feminine-looking women, but women don't necessarily see a direct benefit from choosing a more masculine-looking man. That's why there's also a preference for pretty boys and also drill sergeant, hyper-masculine-looking men; it just depends on the woman herself.
Many contextual factors do influence how men and women see other people's facial attractiveness, such as your own self-esteem, your interest regarding the type of relationship, and in addition, most studies have been conducted with heterosexual participants, so keep that in mind when we're talking about homosexual or same-sex relations; the things do change, and we—this is something we'll talk about in another video. As a result, the impact of sexual preferences as well as other contextual factors are still viewed from a very heteronormative perspective. Anyway, that's all for this video. If you'd like to get your face analyzed, learn about your androgenicity, how masculine or feminine your face is using scientific literature, and what you can do to improve it—talk about symmetry, dimorphism, and all the other fun things that make a face attractive—then you can order a facial analysis over at the website, performed by a team of doctors and dentists, and you can learn how to look your best self. As always, I'll catch you in the next one.