Adaptive significance of female physical attractiveness: Role of waist-to-hip ratio.

Singh, Devendrá

doi:10.1037/0022-3514.65.2.293

Cited by 1,058 publications

(906 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Some of the specific bodily features shown to be important for judgments of attractiveness include the waist-to-hip ratio (Henss, 1995;Singh, 1993;Streeter & McBurney, 2003), body mass index (Tovée, Maisey, Emery, & Cornelissen, 1999), and breast size (Furnham, Swami, & Shah, 2006;Furnham & Swami, 2007). Indeed, although there are correlated preferences between facial and bodily attractiveness, some studies have shown that the face and body still make independent contributions to ratings of overall attractiveness (e.g., Currie & Little, 2009;Peters, Rhodes, & Simmons, 2007).…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of exogenous testosterone and mating context on men's preferences for female facial femininity

Bird

Welling

Ortiz

et al. 2016

Hormones and Behavior

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Correlational research suggests that men show greater attraction to feminine female faces when their testosterone (T) levels are high. Men's preferences for feminine faces also seem to vary as a function of relationship context (short versus long-term).However, the relationship between T and preferences for female facial femininity has yet to be tested experimentally. This thesis examined the causal role of T in modulating preferences for facial femininity across both short and long-term mating contexts, using two separate experiments. Results of Experiment 1 (within-subject design, n = 24)showed that participants significantly preferred feminized versus masculinized versions of women's faces. Further, participants showed a stronger preference for feminine female faces in the short-versus the long-term context after they received T, but not after they received placebo. Post-hoc analyses suggest that this effect was driven by a lower preference for feminine faces in the long-term context when on T relative to placebo.Results from Experiment 2 (between-subject design, n = 93) were highly consistent with those of Experiment 1: men demonstrated a significant preference for feminized female faces in the short-versus the long-term context after T, but not after placebo administration, and this effect was driven by lower preferences for feminine faces in the long-term context when on T relative to placebo. Collectively, these findings provide the first causal evidence that T modulates men's preferences for facial femininity as a function of mating context.

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Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of exogenous testosterone and mating context on men's preferences for female facial femininity

Bird

Welling

Ortiz

et al. 2016

Hormones and Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Indeed, factors such as body mass index (BMI), body fat and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) have been shown to correlate with attractiveness judgements (Singh, 1993;Tovée, Reinhardt, Emery, & Cornelissen, 1998;Weeden & Sabini, 2005), and are predictive of both health and fertility (Singh & Singh, 2011). For instance, slender figures with a low WHR and large breasts are often rated as more attractive and considered for relationships (Singh & Young, 1995), furthermore these features have been shown to correlate with high fecundity as measured by levels of sex hormones (Jasieńska, Ziomkiewicz, Ellison, Lipson, & Thune, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This possibility was systematically examined in this study. As measurements of BMI, WHR and chest size are strong predictors of attractiveness (Singh, 1993;Tovée et al, 1998;Weeden & Sabini, 2005), when assessing regional body dissatisfaction we included both objective measurements and subjective ratings of body parts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women gaze behaviour in assessing female bodies: the effects of clothing, body size, own body composition and body satisfaction

Cundall

Guo

2015

Psychological Research

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Often with minimally clothed figures depicting extreme body sizes, previous studies have shown women tend to gaze at evolutionary determinants of attractiveness when viewing female bodies, possibly for self-evaluation purposes, and their gaze distribution is modulated by own body dissatisfaction level. To explore to what extent women's body-viewing gaze behaviour is affected by clothing type, dress size, subjective measurements of regional body satisfaction and objective measurements of own body composition (e.g., chest size, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio), in this self-paced body attractiveness and body size judgement experiment, we compared healthy, young women's gaze distributions when viewing female bodies in tight and loose clothing of different dress sizes. In contrast to tight clothing, loose clothing biased gaze away from the waist-hip to the leg region, and subsequently led to enhanced body attractiveness ratings and body size underestimation for larger female bodies, indicating the important role of clothing in mediating women's body perception. When viewing preferred female bodies, women's higher satisfaction of a specific body region was associated with an increased gaze towards neighbouring body areas, implying satisfaction might reduce the need for comparison of confident body parts; furthermore undesirable body composition measurements were correlated with a gaze avoidance process if the construct was less changeable (i.e. chest size) but a gaze comparison process if the region was more changeable (i.e. body mass index, dress size). Clearly, own body satisfaction and body composition measurements had an evident impact on women's body-viewing gaze allocation, possibly through different cognitive processes.3

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“…Previous research has shown that waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is an important index of female attractiveness (Dixson, Grimshaw, Linklater, & Dixson, 2011;Marlowe & Wetsman, 2001;Singh, 1993) that signals both a woman's fertility (Zaadstra et al, 1993) and her general health (Czernichow et al, 2011). WHR also changes over women's lifetimes (Kirschner & Samojlik, 1991) and so indicates residual reproductive value (Marlowe, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…WHR also changes over women's lifetimes (Kirschner & Samojlik, 1991) and so indicates residual reproductive value (Marlowe, 1998). It has therefore been proposed that WHR serves as an important ornament display (Perilloux, Webster, & Gaulin, 2010;Singh, 1993) and much is now known about the effects of this (e.g., Dixson, Sagata, Linklater, & Dixson, 2010;Karremans, Frakenhuis, & Arons, 2010;Platek & Singh, 2010;Singh, Dixson, Jessop, Morgan, & Dixson, 2010;Swami, Jones, Einon, & Furnham, 2009;Vaidya et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence to Suggest that Women’s Sexual Behavior is Influenced by Hip Width Rather than Waist-to-Hip Ratio

2014

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Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is an important ornament display that signals women's health and fertility. Its significance derives from human development as a bipedal species. This required fundamental changes to hip morphology/musculature to accommodate the demands of both reproduction and locomotion. The result has been an obstetric dilemma whereby women's hips are only just wide enough to allow the passage of an infant. Childbirth therefore poses a significant hip width related threat to maternal mortality/risk of gynecological injury. It was predicted that this would have a significant influence on women's sexual behavior. To investigate this, hip width and WHR were measured in 148 women (M age = 20.93 + .17 years) and sexual histories were recorded via questionnaire. Data revealed that hip width per se was correlated with total number of sexual partners, total number of one night stands, percentage of sexual partners that were one night stands, number of sexual partners within the context of a relationship per year sexually active, and number of one night stands per year sexually active. By contrast, WHR was not correlated with any of these measures. Further analysis indicated that women who predominantly engaged in one night stand behavior had wider hips than those who did not. WHR was again without effect in this context. Women's hip morphology has a direct impact on their risk of potentially fatal childbirth related injury. It is concluded that when they have control over this, women's sexual behavior reflects this risk and is therefore at least in part influenced by hip width.

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Adaptive significance of female physical attractiveness: Role of waist-to-hip ratio.

Cited by 1,058 publications

References 37 publications

Effects of exogenous testosterone and mating context on men's preferences for female facial femininity

Effects of exogenous testosterone and mating context on men's preferences for female facial femininity

Women gaze behaviour in assessing female bodies: the effects of clothing, body size, own body composition and body satisfaction

Evidence to Suggest that Women’s Sexual Behavior is Influenced by Hip Width Rather than Waist-to-Hip Ratio

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