British women now prefer feminine looking men over their more rugged counterparts because they no longer need to worry about the survival of the fittest, new research suggests.
Historically women chose manly men because features such as a square jaw, low brow and thin lips were linked to superior genes which would produce stronger and healthier offspring.
But the choice came at a cost – as the more masculine the man, the less likely he was to help out nurturing his child.
Now researchers believe that improvements in health care in wealthy western countries mean women do not have to worry about so much about the quality of their offspring – and so are picking more feminine looking men.
The researchers at the University of Aberdeen came to the conclusion after studying the preferences of 4500 women from 30 different countries.
They found a direct correlation between the quality of health care and the choice of male.
In countries with better health care, the more likely women would pick a feminine looking man and visa versa.
The result was that in Sweden, which had the best health care, most women (68 per cent) preferred feminine looking men.
In contrast in Brazil, which had the worst health care, the majority of women (55 per cent) preferred masculine men.
"The results suggests that as health care improves, more masculine men fall out of favour," said the lead author and psychologist Dr Lisa DeBruine.
"That could be why feminine looking movie stars like Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom are popular now compared with the likes of Clark Gable and Sean Connery in the past."
Six out of 10 women in Britain, which lies somewhere in the middle when it comes to health care, preferred feminine men to their manly counterparts.
The findings – part of ongoing University research into facial attractiveness and how people choose a mate – are published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Dr DeBruine said: “We found that women from countries with poorer health, which have higher mortality and increased incidence of communicable disease, were more attracted to masculine faces than women living in countries with better health.
“People used to think beauty was arbitrary and that different cultures have different preferences.
“However our research shows that preferences may instead be explained by responses to different environmental factors like a low level of health in the population.”
The study involved women from Europe, America, South America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – and was conducted over the internet via the Face Research Lab website.
The women – aged between 16 and 40 and all heterosexual – gave their preference for 20 different male faces.
Women were shown two images of the same face side by side, but one picture was very subtly altered so it had more masculine traits, for example a bigger jaw and heavier and lower brow line, and the other was oppositely altered so it had more feminine traits.
Researchers then matched preferences to health statistics from the World Health Organization.
Dr DeBruine said: “We found that women in countries like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico where the health is poorer were more attracted to masculine looking faces than women in countries like Belgium and Sweden, which have lower mortality rates and higher longevity.”
Dr Ben Jones, who was also involved in the research said: “These new findings really do seem to show that preferences for different types of men in different parts of the world are linked to cross-cultural differences in health.
The effect remained even when we controlled for lots of other factors, such as cross-cultural differences in wealth.” |
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