title: Male facial anthropometry and attractiveness.
abstract: The symmetry and masculinity of the face are often considered important elements of male facial attractiveness. However, facial preferences are rarely studied on natural faces. We studied the effect of these traits and facial metric parameters on facial attractiveness in Spanish and Colombian raters. In total, 13 metric and 11 asymmetry parameters from natural, unmanipulated frontal face photographs of 50 Spanish men were measured with the USIA semiautomatic anthropometric software. All raters (women and men) were asked to rank these images as potential long-term partners for females. In both sexes, facial attractiveness was negatively associated with facial masculinity, and preference was not associated with facial symmetry. In Spanish raters, both sexes preferred male traits that were larger in the right side of the face, which may reflect a human tendency to prefer a certain degree of facial asymmetry. We did not find such preference in Colombian raters, but they did show stronger preference for facial femininity than Spanish raters. Present results suggest that facial relative femininity, which is expected to signal, eg good parenting and cooperation skills, may be an important signal of mate quality when females seek long-term partners. Facial symmetry appears unimportant in such long-term mating preferences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Functional Biology and Physical Anthropology, University of Valencia, 46100 Burjassot, Spain. Carles.Soler@uv.es
authors.forename: Caries
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Soler
authors.forename: Jukka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kekäläinen
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Núñez
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sancho
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Núñez
authors.forename: Iván
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yaber
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gutiérrez
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001244:Association; D001504:Beauty; D002508:Cephalometry; D003105:Colombia; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003463:Cues; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D013030:Spain; D055815:Young Adult