Developmental Stability, Disease and Medicine

Thornhill, Randy; Møller, Anders Pape

doi:10.1017/s0006323197005082

Cited by 349 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 224 publications

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“…Sociocultural researchers contend that (1) sex differences in mate preferences are a function of a division of labor throughout human history (i.e., thousands or even hundreds of years), (2) physical attractiveness does not indicate anything meaningful about a person's genes or fecundity, and (3) often are informed by feminist, post-modernistic approaches to psychology (Eagly, 1987;Hill, 1945;Howard, Blumstein, & Schwartz, 1987;Hoyt & Hudson, 1981;Hudson & Henze, 1969). In contrast, evolutionary psychologists contend that (1) sex differences are a function of context-specific adaptations to sexual conflicts over evolutionary history (i.e., millions of years), (2) physical attractiveness is a proxy for fitness and fecundity, and (3) are informed by well-tested assumptions from evolutionary biology (Perilloux, Webster, & Gaulin, 2010;Singh, 1993Singh, , 1995Singh & Luis, 1995;Symons, 1979;Thornhill & Gangestad, 1994;Thornhill & Möller, 1997). Although we do not concern ourselves with the origin question here, we do find ourselves drawn to the evolutionary model given its a priori assumptions, cross-cultural generality, content-rich predictions, and parsimony with biology.…”

Section: Individual Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure and Content of Long-Term and Short-Term Mate Preferences

2013

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This study addresses two limitations in the mate preferences literature. First, research all-too-often relies on single-item assessments of mate preferences precluding more advanced statistical techniques like factor analysis. Second, when factor analysis could be done, it exclusively has done for long-term mate preferences, at the exclusion of short-term mate preferences. In this study (N = 401), we subjected 20 items designed to measure short-and long-term mate preferences to both principle components (n = 200) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 201). In the long-term context, we replicated previous findings that there are three different categories of preferences: physical attractiveness, interpersonal warmth, and social status. In the short-term context, physical attractiveness occupied two parts of the structure, social status dropped out, and interpersonal warmth remained. Across short-and long-term contexts, there were slight changes in what defined the shared dimensions (i.e., physical attractiveness and interpersonal warmth), suggesting prior work that applies the same inventory to each context might be flawed. We also replicated sex differences and similarities in mate preferences and correlates with sociosexuality and mate value. We adopt an evolutionary paradigm to understand our results.Keywords: mate preferences, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, personality, sex differences What men and women want in mates has consumed poets and professors alike for years. Many magazines devote much of their pages to discussing such issues and doling out advice. Movies, TV, and music content commonly focuses on themes of love and sex. The "obsession" with this topic should be of little surprise; the most important questions in life revolve around love and sex. These questions have received considerable attention from research-

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Section: Individual Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure and Content of Long-Term and Short-Term Mate Preferences

2013

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“…38. Average traits in a face are linked with greater genetic diversity which may result in greater parasitic resistance37, whereas deviation from average could signal chromosomal disorders39, at least for lower scores of face prototypicality (i.e., the “bad genes” hypothesis40). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preference for facial averageness: Evidence for a common mechanism in human and macaque infants

Damon

Méary

Quinn

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Human adults and infants show a preference for average faces, which could stem from a general processing mechanism and may be shared among primates. However, little is known about preference for facial averageness in monkeys. We used a comparative developmental approach and eye-tracking methodology to assess visual attention in human and macaque infants to faces naturally varying in their distance from a prototypical face. In Experiment 1, we examined the preference for faces relatively close to or far from the prototype in 12-month-old human infants with human adult female faces. Infants preferred faces closer to the average than faces farther from it. In Experiment 2, we measured the looking time of 3-month-old rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) viewing macaque faces varying in their distance from the prototype. Like human infants, macaque infants looked longer to faces closer to the average. In Experiments 3 and 4, both species were presented with unfamiliar categories of faces (i.e., macaque infants tested with adult macaque faces; human infants and adults tested with infant macaque faces) and showed no prototype preferences, suggesting that the prototypicality effect is experience-dependent. Overall, the findings suggest a common processing mechanism across species, leading to averageness preferences in primates.

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“…developmental stability [3]. Consequently, FA is hypothesized to reflect poor condition, particularly along axes of physiological health [4,5]. Accordingly, measures of FA have been used by researchers as a putative cue to an organism's phenotypic, and possibly underlying genotypic, quality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facial fluctuating asymmetry is not associated with childhood ill-health in a large British cohort study

et al. 2014

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The idea that symmetry in facial traits is associated with attractiveness because it reliably indicates good physiological health, particularly to potential sexual partners, has generated an extensive literature on the evolution of human mate choice. However, large-scale tests of this hypothesis using direct or longitudinal assessments of physiological health are lacking. Here, we investigate relationships between facial fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and detailed individual health histories in a sample (n = 4732) derived from a large longitudinal study (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children) in South West England. Facial FA was assessed using geometric morphometric analysis of facial landmark configurations derived from three-dimensional facial scans taken at 15 years of age. Facial FA was not associated with longitudinal measures of childhood health. However, there was a very small negative association between facial FA and IQ that remained significant after correcting for a positive allometric relationship between FA and face size. Overall, this study does not support the idea that facial symmetry acts as a reliable cue to physiological health. Consequently, if preferences for facial symmetry do represent an evolved adaptation, then they probably function not to provide marginal fitness benefits by choosing between relatively healthy individuals on the basis of small differences in FA, but rather evolved to motivate avoidance of markers of substantial developmental disturbance and significant pathology.

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Developmental Stability, Disease and Medicine

Cited by 349 publications

References 224 publications

The Structure and Content of Long-Term and Short-Term Mate Preferences

The Structure and Content of Long-Term and Short-Term Mate Preferences

Preference for facial averageness: Evidence for a common mechanism in human and macaque infants

Facial fluctuating asymmetry is not associated with childhood ill-health in a large British cohort study

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