Physical attractiveness of face and body as indicators of physical fitness in men

Honekopp, Johannes, Rudolph, Udo, Beier, Lothar, Liebert, Andreas and Müller, Constanze (2007) Physical attractiveness of face and body as indicators of physical fitness in men. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28 (2). pp. 106-111. ISSN 1090-5138

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Abstract

Human physical attractiveness appears to be an important signal of mate value that is utilized in mate choice We argue that performance-related physical fitness (PF) was an important facet of ancestral male mate value and, therefore, that a positive relationship exists between PF and physical attractiveness as well as mating success. We investigated these relationships in a sample of 80 young men. In line with our predictions, we found that (i) a composite measure of PF correlated substantially with body attractiveness (r=.43, after controlling for confounds) but not with facial attractiveness; (ii) PF was positively related to various measures of self-reported mating success (rS ≈ .22); (iii) the relationship between PF and self-reported mating success was partly mediated by body attractiveness. We conclude it is a key function of men's body attractiveness to signal their PF and that men's faces and bodies signal different facets of mate value.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	C800 Psychology
Department:	Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	EPrint Services
Date Deposited:	19 Mar 2010 14:56
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2019 16:28
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/3437

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