Men’s friendliness to children shows in their faces

[dr. what]

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Women may be able to tell whether a man is child-friendly simply by looking at his face – and this could influence how attractive they find him as a potential long-term partner. But for a spring fling or a summer love, women seek men with high levels of testosterone who don’t care much for children.

James Roney at the University of California, Santa Barbara, US, and his colleagues asked 39 undergraduate men to look at pairs of pictures each consisting of a photo of an adult and a photo of an infant. The men were asked which photo they preferred. Researchers also took saliva samples from the male volunteers to determine their testosterone levels.

Each man was then asked to maintain a neutral expression while researchers photographed his face. Then, 29 female undergraduates rated the photographed male faces according to how much they believed the men liked children.

Researchers found that women could often correctly guess which men preferred the infant photos.

The women were also asked which men they would choose for a short fling and which for a long-term relationship. Those men perceived as child-friendly were more likely to be selected for a long-term relationship.

High testosterone
In addition, the female volunteers were told to rate the men’s faces in terms of masculinity. The men selected as most masculine by the women were confirmed by their saliva tests to be the ones with the highest testosterone levels.

The photos of men who appeared masculine in the eyes of the female volunteers were more likely to be picked by the women when they were asked who they would most want to have a short-term relationship with.

Previous work has shown that higher levels of the hormone testosterone contribute to larger jaws and more prominent brows – two features associated with the stereotypically masculine face. Around the time they ovulate, women prefer men with these faces over those with a more feminised appearance, according to recent experiments. But until now, no one had confirmed that the women’s choices correlated with testosterone levels in men.

Researchers detected no correlation between testosterone levels and child-friendliness among the men in these tests.

Dario Maestripieri at the University of Chicago, Illinois, US, says the new study is welcome news for men who do not have the masculine jawbone structure of superman actor Christopher Reeve. “For the men who don’t look like superman, the good news is that women still have an interest in them when it comes to a long-term relationship,” says Maestripieri, who is a co-author on the paper. He speculates that over the course of evolution, women have gained the ability to judge the parental promise of potential mates.

David Perrett of the University of St Andrews, UK, who researches the attractiveness of faces, agrees: "Men who may be more positive in interaction with offspring - and perhaps with others in general - are seen as attractive for marriage or long-term relationships.”

Maestripieri also hypothesises that men who have a greater interest in children have less masculine faces, though there is no direct evidence to support this idea.

In fact, men with more interest in children may simply have a happier disposition. Five female graduate students were asked to rate the photographs of faces in the study in terms of how cheerful the men appeared. Men who had preferred the infant photos to adult photos were perceived as happier.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI:10.1098/rspb.2006.3569)

[Darth Wong]

The study was based on 36 university undergrads. That's a very particular group, composed more of boys than men; at that age, a lot of guys are still caught up in the "must look like a macho tough guy all the time" phase from high school, and you can tell a guy like that to put on a neutral expression for a photograph but he won't. He will still try to look tough and cool.

[Pick]

Interesting correlation, if there were honestly enough test subjects of a wide enough age scope.

[Lagmonster]

Are the women inferring that the man will actually be able to produce healthy children (which is what you'd assume they'd be getting from looks alone) or that the man simply looks compassionate or some such?

[Surlethe]

Are the women inferring that the man will actually be able to produce healthy children (which is what you'd assume they'd be getting from looks alone) or that the man simply looks compassionate or some such?

I think the idea is the women infer which men would be better at raising children, and base long-term relationship decisions on that. It seems like a bit of a long stretch to me -- I just find it difficult to believe facial structure has any connection to how men treat infants.

[Darth Wong]

Are the women inferring that the man will actually be able to produce healthy children (which is what you'd assume they'd be getting from looks alone) or that the man simply looks compassionate or some such?

I think the idea is the women infer which men would be better at raising children, and base long-term relationship decisions on that. It seems like a bit of a long stretch to me -- I just find it difficult to believe facial structure has any connection to how men treat infants.

I suspect that young men in their teens may have a strong correlation between testosterone levels and childraising ability because a young testosterone-filled man simply lacks the maturity to raise children. It's only the somewhat more effeminate young men who are inclined that way naturally. Later, as men grow more mature, they can learn to take on a father-figure role.

That's why I think that this study's exclusive use of undergraduate students as the test subjects is a serious flaw in its methodology.