Women's hormone levels modulate the motivational salience of facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism

Abstract

2Women's hormone levels modulate the motivational salience of facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism AbstractThe physical attractiveness of faces is positively correlated with both behavioral and neural measures of their motivational salience. Although previous work suggests that hormone levels modulate women's perceptions of others' facial attractiveness, studies have not yet investigated whether hormone levels also modulate the motivational salience of facial characteristics. To address this issue, we investigated the relationships between within-subject changes in women's salivary hormone levels (estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and estradiol-to-progesterone ratio) and within-subject changes in the motivational salience of attractiveness and sexual dimorphism in male and female faces. The motivational salience of physically attractive faces in general and feminine female faces, but not masculine male faces, was greater in test sessions where women had high testosterone levels. Additionally, the reward value of sexually dimorphic faces in general and attractive female faces, but not attractive male faces, was greater in test sessions where women had high estradiol-to-progesterone ratios. These results provide the first evidence that the motivational salience of facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism is modulated by within-woman changes in hormone levels.

Women's preferences for men's beards show no relation to their ovarian cycle phase and sex hormone levels

“…This finding contrasts with two studies that found elevated levels of estradiol at the peri-ovulatory phase were positively associated with women's preferences for facial masculinity (Ditzen et al, 2017;Roney et al, 2011), but supports another that reported no associations between salivary hormone levels and women's preferences for masculinity (Jones et al, 2017). Behavioral studies quantifying women's motivation to attend to facial stimuli using key tests found that ratios of estradiol relative to progesterone were positively associated with women's attention toward feminised and attractive female faces and masculinised, but not necessarily attractive, male faces (Wang et al, 2014). However, other studies that also used within-subject designs found positive associations between changes in testosterone but not estradiol or progesterone and preferences for facial masculinity (Bobst et al, 2014;Welling et al, 2007).…”

A longitudinal analysis of women’s salivary testosterone and intrasexual competitiveness

“…Data on 45 of these women's voice preferences are reported in Pisanski et al (2014). Data on the reward value of adult facial attractiveness and infant facial cuteness for 39 and 45 of these women are reported in Wang et al (2014) and Hahn et al (2015), respectively. Data on the facial coloration of 64 of these women are reported in Jones et al (2015).…”

“…Our analyses considered the possible effects of testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, estradiolto-progesterone ratio, and cortisol, as well as women's partnership status. This type of design has recently been used to investigate the hormonal correlates of changes in women's responses to facial and vocal cues Pisanki et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2014) and appearance .…”

Mate choice, mate preference, and biological markets: the relationship between partner choice and health preference is modulated by women's own attractiveness

“…These images were then aligned on pupil position and masked so that clothing was not visible. These images have been used in other recent face perception studies Wang, Hahn, Fisher, DeBruine, & Jones, 2014).…”