Sexual selection has shaped women’s preferences for ideal physical features in men that signal good health. Facial masculinity is often used as a proxy in signaling health, viability, and disease resistance, and it is thought to be attractive because it advertises heritable benefits. Preferences for facial masculinity are also associated with individual differences in one’s sociosexuality and mate value, where women oriented toward a short-term mating orientation and are of high mate value may prefer men with masculine features. The current study examined women’s sociosexuality and mate value (i.e., self-rating of overall desirability) in rating attractiveness and visual attention to facial masculinity in men’s faces using an eye-tracking task. Overall, women (N = 72) did not show any significant preferences for men with masculinized over feminized faces. However, women who scored high on sociosexuality (i.e., unrestricted sociosexuality) and mate value demonstrated increased visual attention and looking frequency to masculinized over feminized faces. The study highlights the unique role of cognitive mechanisms in visually assessing a potential mate and how individual differences in short-term mating strategies and mate value may moderate those preferences. These findings underscore the importance of examining individual differences in mate preferences research.

性别选择塑造了女性对男性理想身体特征的偏好，这些特征标志着健康。面部阳刚之气经常被用作健康、活力和抗病能力的指标，它被认为很有吸引力，因为它宣扬了可遗传的好处。对面部男性气质的偏好也与一个人的社会性行为和择偶价值的个体差异有关，其中以短期交配为导向且具有高择偶价值的女性可能更喜欢具有阳刚特征的男性。目前的研究通过眼动追踪任务，在对男性面部男性气质的吸引力和视觉关注度进行评级时，考察了女性的社会性行为和择偶价值（即总体吸引力的自我评估）。总体而言，女性（N = 72）没有表现出对男性化面孔的男性比女性化面孔有任何显着的偏好。然而，在社会性行为（即不受限制的社会性行为）和配偶价值方面得分较高的女性表现出更高的视觉注意力和对男性化面孔的关注频率，而不是女性化面孔。该研究强调了认知机制在视觉评估潜在配偶方面的独特作用，以及短期交配策略和择偶价值的个体差异如何调节这些偏好。这些发现强调了在择偶偏好研究中检查个体差异的重要性。