Women who live in communities where poor health is the norm are attracted to more masculine-looking men, researchers in Aberdeen have found.
The lower the level of health in a country, the more women are likely to prefer faces with masculine traits, such as a bigger jaw, or heavier brow line.
Conversely, more feminine male faces tended to be preferred in European countries where health is better and people live longer.
The research, conducted by Aberdeen University’s Face Research Lab, is part of ongoing investigations into facial attractiveness and how women choose a mate.
“We looked at the preferences of nearly 5,000 women across 30 countries,” said researcher Dr Ben Jones, co-head of the Face Research Lab. “We found that women in areas where there are negative health consequences have a pronounced preference for people with masculine faces. But women in places which have a good healthy life expectancy – such as Scandinavian countries – like more feminine looking faces.
“A good example would be comparing Johnny Depp to Russell Crowe – the latter has a much more masculine face – and women tend to have a strong preference for one or the other.”
Although conducted on an international basis, the study throws up the intriguing possibility that women in areas of Scotland with poorer health – such as Glasgow – might prefer more masculine-looking men than those in healthier areas, such as much of Edinburgh. So is this likely to be the case? Are rugby-player types more popular with the ladies in the west and boy bands with those in Morningside?
“That’s actually a really interesting question and it’s one that we don’t know the answer to yet,” said Dr Jones. “It’s definitely something we want to look at in the future, because it does seem that women who live in environments where health is poor, are more attracted to men who have more masculine faces, because they are perceived as being healthier.”
The idea fits in with other research conducted at the lab, he said, which involved showing women pictures of potential sources of ill-health – such as rotting food or vomit – then asking them what pictures of men they preferred. Those with the image of ill-health in their minds were more likely to go for more masculine faces. This suggests that women surrounded by ill-health are more likely to put a value on signifiers of health, such as masculinity.
“People used to think beauty was arbitrary and that different cultures have different preferences,’ said the lab’s co-head, Dr Lisa DeBruine. “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.”
In the latest research, women – aged between 16 and 40 – gave their preference for 20 different male faces.
They 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 looked at where the women were from before examining health statistics from the World Health Organisation for each woman’s country.
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 Jones added: “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.”
Dr DeBruine added: “We would now like to look at how other environmental differences between countries affect mate preferences. For example, women’s equality and control of resources may also affect what type of male partner they prefer.
“We also hope to extend our research to look at countries with a greater range of health, since we were not able to include countries with very poor national health in our current research because these countries tend to have poor internet access.”
Fascinating though a comparison between different parts of Scotland would be, it’s unlikely to be seen as the most fertile ground for a national research project. “Scotland’s a relatively small country and you don’t get the same differences in health as you do between different countries,” said Dr Jones. “But I’m not saying we’d rule out looking at it.”
The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. |
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