Objectives:

Studies suggest that high levels of masculinity in men can be a signal of ‘better genes’ as well as low parental investment. It is the trade-off between these two qualities that has led to the hypothesis that women’s preferences for male masculinity are condition-dependent, yet, not all studies support this hypothesis. In addition, there is evidence that more average faces would be perceived as more attractive. Here we study the variation in masculinity preferences of a cohort of heterosexual women (n = 769), using manipulated 3D faces of male subjects. We used linear mixed models to test for effects of various covariates such as relationship status, use of hormonal contraception, sociosexual orientation and self-perceived attractiveness on preference for masculinity.

Results:

Our results show that women’s sociosexual orientation has a positive correlation with masculinity preference while using hormonal contraception decreases this preference. None of the other covariates displayed any significant effect on masculinity preference. The initial level of masculinity of the faces (very low, low, average, high and very high) was also shown to affect this preference, where we found a significant preference for higher masculinity in the very low and average group, while no preference was found in the other groups.

Conclusion:

Our findings support the notion that condition-dependent variables have very small effects, if any, on women’s preference for masculinity in men.

中文翻译：

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男性面部男子气概对感知吸引力的影响

目标：

研究表明，男性的阳刚之气可能是“更好的基因”以及父母投资低的信号。正是这两种品质之间的权衡导致了女性对男性阳刚之气的偏好取决于条件的假设，然而，并非所有研究都支持这一假设。此外，有证据表明，更多的普通面孔会被认为更具吸引力。在这里，我们研究了一组异性恋女性（n  = 769）的男性气质偏好的变化，使用男性受试者的操纵 3D 面孔。我们使用线性混合模型来测试各种协变量的影响，例如关系状态、激素避孕的使用、社会性取向和自我感知的吸引力对男性气质的偏好。

结果：

我们的研究结果表明，女性的社会性取向与男性气质偏好呈正相关，而使用激素避孕会降低这种偏好。其他协变量均未显示出对男性气质偏好的任何显着影响。面部男性气质的初始水平（非常低、低、平均、高和非常高）也被证明会影响这种偏好，我们发现非常低和平均组对更高的男性气质有显着偏好，而没有偏好是在其他组中发现。

结论：

我们的研究结果支持这样一种观点，即条件相关变量对女性对男性阳刚之气的偏好具有非常小的影响（如果有的话）。