Mating preferences
Women are attracted to masculine traits greater in sexual dimorphism (e.g. strong jawline, a more muscular body, a taller height).
[3] This hypothesis suggests that secondary sexual characteristics such as a low waist-to-chest ratio or masculine facial features (e.g. strong jawline, larger brow ridge, more muscular) are reliable indicators of mate quality as the hormones that cause their development (i.e. testosterone) suppress the immune system of an individual.
Like men, who have a preference for a lower waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), a measure linked to female bodily attractiveness,[5] women tend to be more attracted to men who have broader shoulders and relatively narrow waists (the waist-to-chest ratio; WCR).
A cross-cultural study across urban and rural settings in Britain and Malaysia found that BMI and waist-to-hip ratio also play roles in rating male physical attractiveness.
Studies have consistently found that females tend to select mates that are roughly 4 years older than themselves, and this even applies cross-culturally.
[22][23] Older men are much more likely to be financially secure and further along in their career, thus able to provide greater economic resources to the female and any future offspring.
Some studies from Western countries have found that, among young women, those with a tanner skin color have higher self-perceived attractiveness.
[29] A 2009 study found that East Asian women had more facial skin contrast than white people, owing to their consistently brown eyes and darker lips.
[30] Males show a preference for neotenous or youthful looking features in women, such as a small nose, and full lips.
As a result of evolution, these features are deemed as highly attractive as they would indicate a higher chance of successful reproduction.
[24][18] The importance of chastity to males, in an evolutionary sense, has been linked to paternal certainty, as before contraception, the only way to ensure a woman had not been inseminated by another man was if she were chaste.
Men and women have developed separate sexual strategies that are used for both short-term and long-term mate gain.
[37] However, feminist anthropological research has shown that the higher parental investment by females cannot consistently explain a unidirectional gender difference of males being more willing to pursue sexual intercourse with multiple mates; the research of Sarah Hrdy has shown that female apes seek out sexual relations with many mates to accumulate more resources from those male mates who will invest resources given that the female ape's offspring may be any one of the male ape's offspring [38] Thus, if there are opposing trends in gender differences of mating strategies across various species despite similar gender differences in parental investment across species, gender differences in mating preferences in humans (such as the tendency for male humans to be more willing to engage in intercourse sooner and with more partners) cannot be attributed solely to universal, inherent, dispositional differences between males and females on the basis of the evolutionary perspective; social factors, such as social structures effecting differential power and status between men and women, must also be taken into account.
[41][42] In a study conducted by Shackleford, Schmitt, & Buss (2005),[43] four dimensions were found that seem to predict how compatible two people are in what they're looking for in a long-term relationship.
Desire for Home/Children was also rated higher, showing that similar educational background and political views are more important than home life, and a small number of cases had women rank Sociability vs.
Research has been attempted to assess as to which individual characteristics men and women usually prioritize supposing that there are economic constraints.
One such study involved the element of forced choice, in which participants were tasked to allocate funds across different categories for their ideal hypothetical partner given a limited budget.
[44] Another such study, that had examined preferences cross-culturally, found again similar patterns of prioritization in both Eastern (e.g., Malaysia, Singapore) and Western (e.g., the United Kingdom, Australia, Norway) cultures.
