Restricted access

Research article

First published online December 30, 2013

Request permissions

Genetic Factors That Increase Male Facial Masculinity Decrease Facial Attractiveness of Female Relatives

Anthony J. Lee, Dorian G. Mitchem, […], Margaret J. Wright, Nicholas G. Martin, Matthew C. Keller, and Brendan P. Zietsch+3View all authors and affiliations

Volume 25, Issue 2

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613510724

Abstract
References
Supplementary Material

Abstract

For women, choosing a facially masculine man as a mate is thought to confer genetic benefits to offspring. Crucial assumptions of this hypothesis have not been adequately tested. It has been assumed that variation in facial masculinity is due to genetic variation and that genetic factors that increase male facial masculinity do not increase facial masculinity in female relatives. We objectively quantified the facial masculinity in photos of identical (n = 411) and nonidentical (n = 782) twins and their siblings (n = 106). Using biometrical modeling, we found that much of the variation in male and female facial masculinity is genetic. However, we also found that masculinity of male faces is unrelated to their attractiveness and that facially masculine men tend to have facially masculine, less-attractive sisters. These findings challenge the idea that facially masculine men provide net genetic benefits to offspring and call into question this popular theoretical framework.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

References

Bonduriansky R., Chenoweth S. F. (2009). Intralocus sexual conflict. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24, 280–288.

Bookstein F. L. (1991). Morphometric tools for landmark data. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Cornwell R. E., Perrett D. I. (2008). Sexy sons and sexy daughters: The influence of parents’ facial characteristics on offspring. Animal Behaviour, 76, 1843–1853.

DeBruine L. M., Jones B. C., Crawford J. R., Welling L. L. M., Little A. C. (2010). The health of a nation predicts their mate preferences: Cross-cultural variation in women’s preferences for masculinized male faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 277, 2405–2410.

DeBruine L. M., Jones B. C., Smith F. G., Little A. C. (2010). Are attractive men’s faces masculine or feminine? The importance of controlling confounds in face stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36, 751–758.

Edwards C. B., Marshall S. D., Qian F., Southard K. A., Franciscus R. G., Southard T. E. (2007). Longitudinal study of facial skeletal growth completion in 3 dimensions. American Journal of Orthodontics & Dentofacial Orthopedics, 132, 762–768.

Fisher R. A. (1915). The evolution of sexual preference. Eugenics Review, 7, 184–192.

Folstad I., Karter A. J. (1992). Parasites, bright males, and the immunocompetence handicap. American Naturalist, 139, 602–622.

Gangestad S. W., Eaton M. A. (2013). Toward an integrative perspective on sexual selection and men’s masculinity. Behavioral Ecology, 24, 594–595.

Gangestad S. W., Scheyd G. J. (2005). The evolution of human physical attractiveness. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 523–548.

Gangestad S. W., Simpson J. A. (2000). The evolution of human mating: Trade-offs and strategic pluralism [Target article plus commentaries]. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 23, 573–644.

Gangestad S. W., Thornhill R., Garver-Apgar C. E. (2010). Men’s facial masculinity predicts changes in their female partners’ sexual interests across the ovulatory cycle, whereas men’s intelligence does not. Evolution & Human Behavior, 31, 412–424.

Garver-Apgar C. E., Eaton M. A., Tybur J. M., Thompson M. E. (2011). Evidence of intralocus sexual conflict: Physically and hormonally masculine individuals have more attractive brothers relative to sisters. Evolution & Human Behavior, 32, 423–432.

Huk T., Winkel W. G. (2008). Testing the sexy son hypothesis—a research framework for empirical approaches. Behavioral Ecology, 19, 456–461.

Keller M. C., Coventry W. L. (2005). Quantifying and addressing parameter indeterminacy in the classical twin design. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 8, 201–213.

Keller M. C., Medland S. E., Duncan L. E. (2010). Are extended twin family designs worth the trouble? A comparison of the bias, precision, and accuracy of parameters estimated in four twin family models. Behavior Genetics, 40, 377–393.

Lee A. J., Dubbs S. L., Kelly A. J., von Hippel W., Brooks R. C., Zietsch B. P. (2013). Human facial attributes, but not perceived intelligence, are used as cues of health and resource provision potential. Behavioral Ecology, 24, 779–787.

Little A. C. (2013). Multiple motives in women’s preferences for masculine male faces: Comment on Scott et al. Behavioral Ecology, 24, 590–591.

Little A. C., Burt D. M., Penton-Voak I. S., Perrett D. I. (2001). Self-perceived attractiveness influences human female preferences for sexual dimorphism and symmetry in male faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 268, 39–44.

Little A. C., DeBruine L. M., Jones B. C. (2011). Exposure to visual cues of pathogen contagion changes preferences for masculinity and symmetry in opposite-sex faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 278, 2032–2039.

Little A. C., DeBruine L. M., Jones B. C. (2012). Environment contingent preferences: Exposure to visual cues of direct male–male competition and wealth increase women’s preferences for masculinity in male faces. Evolution & Human Behavior, 34, 193–200.

Little A. C., Jones B. C., DeBruine L. M. (2011). Facial attractiveness: Evolutionary based research. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366, 1638–1659.

Little A. C., Jones B. C., Penton-Voak I. S., Burt D. M., Perrett D. I. (2002). Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 269, 1095–1100.

Mitchem D. G., Purkey A. M., Grebe N. M., Carey G., Garver-Apgar C. E., Bates T. C., . . . Keller M. C. (2013). Estimating the sex-specific effects of genes on facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism. Behavior Genetics. Advance online publication.

Neale M. C., Boker S. M., Xie G., Maes H. H. (2006). Mx: Statistical modeling. Richmond: Virginia Commonwealth University.

Neale M. C., Cardon L. R. (1992). Methodology for genetic studies of twins and families. Boston, MA: Kluwer.

Penton-Voak I. S., Chen J. Y. (2004). High salivary testosterone is linked to masculine male facial appearance in humans. Evolution & Human Behavior, 25, 229–241.

Penton-Voak I. S., Perrett D. I., Castles D. L., Kobayashi T., Burt D. M., Murray L. K., Minamisawa R. (1999). Menstrual cycle alters face preference. Nature, 399, 741–742.

Perrett D. I., Lee K. J., Penton-Voak I., Rowland D., Yoshikawa S., Burt D. M., . . . Akamatsu S. (1998). Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness. Nature, 394, 884–887.

Pfluger L. S., Oberzaucher E., Katina S., Holzleitner I. J., Grammer K. (2012). Cues to fertility: Perceived attractiveness and facial shape predict reproductive success. Evolution & Human Behavior, 33, 708–714.

Posthuma D., Beem A. L., de Geus E. J. C., van Baal G. C. M., von Hjelmborg J. B., Lachine I., Boomsma D. I. (2003). Theory and practice in quantitative genetics. Twin Research, 6, 361–376.

Puts D. A. (2010). Beauty and the beast: Mechanisms of sexual selection in humans. Evolution & Human Behavior, 31, 157–175.

Rantala M. J., Moore F. R., Skrinda I., Krama T., Kivleniece I., Kecko S., Krams I. (2012). Evidence for the stress-linked immunocompetence handicap hypothesis in humans. Nature Communications, 3, Article 694. Retrieved from: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n2/full/ncomms1696.html

Rhodes G. (2006). The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 199–226.

Rhodes G., Chan J., Zebrowitz L. A., Simmons L. W. (2003). Does sexual dimorphism in human faces signal health? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 270, S93–S95.

Roberts S. C., Little A. C. (2008). Good genes, complementary genes and human mate preferences. Genetica, 132, 309–321.

Scott I. M. L., Clark A. P., Boothroyd L. G., Penton-Voak I. S. (2012). Do men’s faces really signal heritable immunocompetence? Behavioral Ecology, 24, 579–589.

Scott I. M. L., Pound N., Stephen I. D., Clark A. P., Penton-Voak I. S. (2010). Does masculinity matter? The contribution of masculine face shape to male attractiveness in humans. PLoS ONE, 5(10), e13585. Retrieved from http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0013585

Thornhill R., Gangestad S. W. (2006). Facial sexual dimorphism, developmental stability, and susceptibility to disease in men and women. Evolution & Human Behavior, 27, 131–144.

Tybur J. M., Gangestad S. W. (2011). Mate preferences and infectious disease: Theoretical considerations and evidence in humans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366, 3375–3388.

Welling L. L. M., Jones B. C., DeBruine L. M. (2008). Sex drive is positively associated with women’s preferences for sexual dimorphism in men’s and women’s faces. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 161–170.

Wright M. J., Martin N. G. (2004). Brisbane adolescent twin study: Outline of study methods and research projects. Australian Journal of Psychology, 56, 65–78.

Zahavi A. (1975). Mate selection—a selection for a handicap. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 53, 205–214.

Zelditch M. L., Swiderski D. L., Sheets H. D., Fink W. L. (2004). Geometric morphometrics for biologists: A primer. New York, NY: Elsevier Academic Press.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

ds_10.1177_0956797613510724.pdf
485.82 KB

|

You currently have no access to this content. Visit the access options page to authenticate.