beauty and science

I was emailed the Journal article on the 30th -- it is saved in my email... posting a "social" (read: taken from College News) review of the paper.


Men and women both go for pretty faces…

....But there are differences in short and long-term relationships and male-female attractiveness

Kate Oczypok

So, when you’re out there looking for a mate, do you tend to go for a pretty face? Or more of a hot body? The Frisky recently reported that, in point of fact, men and women actually both go for the face over the body.

A new study said that men and women go for beautiful faces when they’re going for long-term relationships, but short-term ones are another story: women are more likely to go for nice faces over bodies but guys definitely wanted hot bodies over faces. The article quips, “gives a whole new meaning to the word phrase ‘butter face.’” How many of you have heard or used that term while in school?

The study, by Dr. Thomas E. Currie at the Royal Society University in London, assessed the relative importance of the face and body in judgments of human physical attractiveness, according to the Official Journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Basically, the results of the study suggest that faces and bodies signal different information about potential mates.

Touching further on the idea of the face, an article from psychcentral.com said that new research at the University of California Santa Barbara said that women pick up cues in men’s faces that show that they’re interested in children. They then use those to figure out if they’re attracted enough to have a long-term relationship with the guy.

So ladies, maybe next time you’re with a guy long-term, see if you subconsciously pick up on cues that you may be searching for his interest in having kids. Also, the more masculine a man’s face is, the more likely a woman is going to be attracted to them for a short-term relationship, according to Psych Central.

About this: My two best friends here are males and they always insist men choose women based on whether or not they have a pretty face. I used to not buy this but the more I think about it, the more I realize that maybe it’s true. The study is honestly what sold me. Girls like Megan Fox, or cougars perhaps, are boys’ things to have fun with for a bit. But in the long-term, if a guy wants to marry you, what actually matters is whether or not he thinks your face is attractive enough to stare at for 50-something years.

So what are your thoughts on face vs. body attractiveness?

10/1/09
http://www.collegenews.com/index.php?/dating/men_and_women_both_go_for_pretty_faces_10012009122323582/