Circum-menopausal effects on women's judgements of facial attractiveness.
The marked change in a woman's hormonal profile that happens at menopause affects many aspects of behaviour. We investigated circum-menopausal women's preferences for femininity in the faces of young adult men and women. Post-menopausal women demonstrated stronger preferences for femininity in same-sex faces than pre-menopausal women did. This effect was independent of possible effects of participant's age and suggests that dislike of feminine (i.e. attractive) same-sex competitors decreases as fertility decreases. No significant difference between pre- and post-menopausal women was observed for men's faces, potentially because circum-menopausal women do not necessarily view young adult men as potential mates. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate circum-menopausal changes in women's face preferences.
Vukovic
Jovana
J
Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 2UB, UK.
Jones
Benedict C
BC
DeBruine
Lisa M
LM
Little
Anthony C
AC
Feinberg
David R
DR
Welling
Lisa L M
LL
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001504:Beauty; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008593:Menopause / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012737:Sex Factors