Mating strategies of young women: role of physical attractiveness.

One of the most robust and reliable findings in the scientific literature on interpersonal attraction is the overwhelming role played by physical attractiveness in defining the ideal romantic partner (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986; Jackson, 1992). Both men and women express marked preference for an attractive partner in a noncommitted short-term (casual, one night stand) relationship (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). For committed long-term relationships, females appear to be willing to relax their demand for a partner's attractiveness, especially for males with high social status or good financial prospects (for a review see Buss, 1999). Males also look for various personality qualities (kindness, understanding, good parental skills) in their search for long-term mating partners, but unlike females, they assign disproportionately greater importance to attractiveness compared to other personal qualities (Buss, 1999). The paramount importance of attractiveness in males' mate choices has been recently demonstrated by using the distinction between necessities (i.e., essential needs, such as food and shelter) and luxuries (i.e., objects that are sought after essential needs have been satisfied, such as a yacht or expensive car) made by economists. Using this method, Li, Bailey, Kenrick, and Linsenmeier (2002) reported that males treat female attractiveness as a necessity in romantic relationships; given a limited "mating budget," males allocate the largest proportion of their budget to physical attractiveness rather than to other attributes such as an exciting personality, liveliness, and sense of humor.

Why do males assign so much importance to attractiveness that when constrained (limited mating budget), they ignore personal attributes that appear to be critical for the viability of a long-term romantic relationship? Many desirable personal qualities may be reliably linked to and covary with attractiveness. If so, attending to attractiveness would provide sufficient information, thereby rendering additional information about the personal qualities redundant. Consider the stereotype "what is beautiful is good" (Dion, Bersheid, & Walster, 1972). Social theorists propose that the belief that attractive people are socially skilled and popular (based on media portrayals and/or cultural myths) shapes the reactions and behaviors of other people towards them, inducing attractive people to internalize stereotypic qualities in their self-concept and behave accordingly (Cooley, 1990; Darley & Fazio, 1980). Indeed, the review of the literature on the stereotype reveals that attractive people are more popular with the opposite sex, less lonely, less socially anxious, and more socially skilled than less-attractive people (for a meta-analytic review, see Feingold, 1992; Langlois et al., 2000).

A major drawback of explanations based on social theories is that they do not specify why people in diverse societies assign great importance to attractiveness in the first place. What is so unique about physical attractiveness that people develop a positive impression of people possessing attractiveness? Evolution-based theories of human mating propose that physical attractiveness reliably signals genotypic and phenotypic qualities and viability of an individual (Buss, 1999; Thornhill & Gangestad, 1993). In the case of females, attractiveness can also act as a cue for fertility and reproductive potential. Therefore, female attractiveness at a glance provides a multitude of information essential for a male's reproductive success (Buss, 1999; Singh, 2000, 2002; Symons, 1979). Because attractiveness signals attributes that are crucial for reproductive success, attractive people are pursued by many as potential mates, inculcating and reinforcing their beliefs about their greater desirability compared to unattractive people. The possession of highly sought-after traits would allow attractive people to be choosy, demanding, and less compromising in relationships, as well as to seek extra-pair relationships and to readily replace mates. If attractive people exhibit such behaviors more often than unattractive people, the attractiveness stereotype would contain such characterizations.

There is, indeed, some data to support this reasoning. Consider the "darker side of beauty" that was first reported by Dermer and Thiel (1975). These investigators found that both male and female participants assigned many positive attributes such as poised, interesting, sincere, etc., to facial photographs of attractive women as would be expected on the basis of the "what is attractive is good" stereotype, but also assigned many negative attributes such as status-seeking, snobbish, likely to request divorce, and prone to extra-marital affairs. Ashmore, Solomon, and Longo (1996) reported similar findings using full body photographs: Attractive women were perceived to be vain, dishonest, less moral, to have a lack of concern for others, and to be more sexually provocative than less-attractive females. Such a cluster of negative attributes or a "darker side" of the attractiveness stereotype is difficult to explain on the basis of social theories of stereotype formation, which suggest that attractive women internalize such attributes based on other people's expectations and behave accordingly. People typically deny the existence of negative attributes in themselves to maintain a positive self-image; there is no reason to believe that attractive females would not want to do likewise.

An alternative explanation would be that attractive females do, at least occasionally, engage in behaviors that are not held in high regard, thereby giving the "darker side of beauty" some basis in truth (e.g., Alley & Hildebrandt, 1988). Attractive females, compared to unattractive females, would be pursued by a greater number of males and thus have greater opportunity for courtship with different males. They would also have a greater ability to replace a mate if he failed to live up to expectations or if their personal needs or situations changed, and if needed they would have greater opportunities to engage in extra-marital relationships. Indeed, a meta-analysis of studies in attractiveness and behavior revealed that attractive females date more frequently, have more sexually permissive attitudes, engage in a greater variety of sexual activity, and have sexual intercourse at an earlier age than do unattractive females (Feingold, 1992). Some studies have also reported a positive relationship between physical attractiveness and number of sexual partners (Mikach & Bailey, 1999; Stelzer, Desmond, & Price, 1987; Wiederman & Hurst, 1998).

All these findings, however, are based on U.S. population samples, and it could be that they merely document a culture-specific phenomenon. If the "darker side" of the attractiveness stereotype is truly reflective of attractiveness-mediated sexual attitudes and behaviors, this stereotype should be evident in other cultures as well. In this paper, I present evidence indicating that men and women from diverse societies (Azore Island, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, and the U.S.) judge attractive female figures to be interesting, intelligent, and desirable companions but not very faithful. This cross-culture stereotype consensus suggests that the "darker side" of the attractiveness stereotype may be based on a kernel of truth. It could be that attractive women in various cultures engage in some behaviors which lead to the perception of not being very faithful. To explore this possibility, I examined some mate attraction tactics used by females differing in attractiveness. Data from young U.S. females show that compared to less-attractive females, attractive females report higher frequencies of using attractiveness enhancement tactics (e.g., wearing makeup), flirting with other males to make a date jealous, and acting possessively. These findings, taken together, suggest that the "darker side" of the attractiveness stereotype may be partly due to the types of mating strategies chosen by females differing in attractiveness.

STUDY 1: CROSS-CULTURAL EVIDENCE FOR THE "DARKER SIDE" OF THE ATTRACTIVENESS STEREOTYPE

The assumption of evolution-based mate selection theories is that female attractiveness reliably signals health, reproductive age, and fertility and mandates that males, across cultures, should assign a great deal of importance to attractiveness for selecting mating partners to ensure their reproductive success. Additionally, judgments about what is beautiful should not vary substantially across cultures; bodily features that are indicators of health, reproductive age, and fertility should be judged as attractive cross-culturally. There are empirical data supporting both of these expectations. Buss (1989), based on a large cross-cultural study conducted in 37 cultures on six continents and five islands, found that female attractiveness or "good looks" was rated very high for mate choice in all the cultures. A cross-cultural study by Cunningham, Roberts, Wu, Barbee, and Druen (1995) found a highly significant consensus in attractiveness judgments for facial photographs of Asian, Hispanic, Black, and White women. A recent meta-analytic study revealed exceptionally high consensus across ethnicities and cultures for judgments of attractiveness (Langlois et al., 2000). Female facial features such as a thinner jaw, short distance between mouth and chin, and fullness of lips are reliable indicators of youthfulness and hormonal status (Fink & Penton-Voak, 2002; Johnston & Franklin, 1993). It could be that cross-cultural consensus in attractiveness judgments is due to people using these features to arrive at such judgment.

Like faces, body size and body shape affect attractiveness judgments and are reliable indicators of female hormone profile, reproductive age, fecundity, and risk for major disease (Bjorntorp, 1997; Kissebah & Krakower, 1994). Body size is typically described as thin, normal, or overweight, and in the majority of epidemiological studies, body mass index (BMI) is used for body size classification (Seidell & Flegal, 1997). BMI is calculated by dividing body weight (kg) by height (m) squared. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines people with 18.5 or below BMI as underweight, 18.5 to 24.9 as normal weight, 25 to 29.9 as overweight, and 30 or greater as obese (Seidell & Flegal, 1997). As BMI is based on overall body weight and height, knowledge that a person has a BMI of 19 cannot be used to figure out the age (prepubertal, reproductive, or postmenopausal) or even the sex of the person.

The body shape differences between the sexes are largely determined by the nature of fat distribution or the anatomical location of fat deposit. The anatomical location of body fat is regulated by sex hormone levels, and change in production in sex hormones induces sexual dimorphism in body shape as well as age-related (prepubertal, reproductive, menopausal) changes in female body shape. Simply stated, estrogen facilitates fat deposits on lower body parts (hips, buttocks, and thighs) and inhibits fat deposits on upper body parts (stomach, shoulders, nape of the neck), thus creating a "pear-shaped" body. Testosterone, on the other hand, inhibits fat deposits on lower body parts and facilitates fat deposits on upper body parts, creating an "apple-shaped" body (Bjorntorp, 1987, 1991; Rebuffe-Scrive, 1987). At puberty, an increase in sex hormones promotes differential fat deposits and gives rise to sex-specific body shapes: Females develop pear-shaped and males apple-shaped bodies.

One commonly used method for quantifying differences in body fat distribution is to measure and compute the ratio of the waist circumference to the hip circumference (WHR). WHR has a bimodal distribution with relatively little overlap between the sexes. The range of WHR for healthy premenopausal Caucasian women is .67 to .80 and in the range of .85 to .95 for healthy Caucasian men (Jones, Hunt, Brown, & Norgan, 1986; Marti et al., 1991). Women typically maintain a lower WHR than men throughout adulthood, although after menopause, WHR approaches the masculine range due to the reduction of estrogen levels (Kirschner & Samojlik, 1991). The link between the size of WHR and estrogen levels is clearly demonstrated in women undergoing treatment for polycystic ovarian disorder (PCO), which is marked by impaired estrogen production. When these women are administered an estrogen-progestagen compound, their WHRs (which are higher than nonpatients) become lower overtime in absence of any reduction of their BMIs (Pasquali et al., 1999). WHR, independent of BMI, is also negatively correlated with ease of becoming pregnant in artificial insemination (Zaadstra et al., 1993) and in-vitro fertilization-embryo transfer programs (Waas, Waldenstrom, Rossner, & Hellberg, 1997). Thus, unlike body size or BMI, WHR systematically covaries with female sex hormone profile and fertility.

It should be stressed, however, that BMI and WHR are positively correlated and BMI does affect the size of WHR, especially in instances of very low and high BMI. For example, low BMI leads to typical gynoid patterns of fat distribution (low WHR), whereas high BMI results in android patterns of fat distribution (high WHR) in women (Kirchengast et al., 1998). It is, therefore, common practice in clinical research to measure both BMI and WHR if the subject population represents a wide range of BMI. For accurately evaluating the role of WHR, BMI is divided into lower, middle, and upper terciles and the relative contribution of BMI and WHR is examined within each tercile (Lev-Ran, 2001). For drawing any valid conclusion about the role of body weight and body shape on health or fertility, interaction between WHR and BMI is critical.

The interaction between body weight and body shape is also evident in judgment of female attractiveness. In the initial study on the relationship between female attractiveness and WHR, line drawings of female figures with four sizes of WHRs (0.7, 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0) were developed and were depicted within three levels of body weight (underweight, normal, an overweight). Since all figures were drawn to show identical height, these three levels of body weight represented three levels of BMI (Singh 1993a, 1993b). As there was a significant interaction between WHR and body weight, the relationship between WHR and attractiveness ratings was computed with each of the three body weight or BMI levels. Results show that the female figure with 0.7 WHR in the normal weight range was judged to be more attractive than other figures. However, the overweight female figure with 0.7 WHR was not judged to be attractive. Thus, the inverse relationship between WHR and attractiveness was strongest for normal weight figures followed by underweight figures and absent in overweight figures. These findings were clearly stated in the original research: "Neither body weight [BMI] nor WHR alone can explain attractiveness. To be attractive, women must have a low WHR and deviate little from normal weight" (Singh, 1993b).

Recently, Tovee and his colleagues (Tovee, Maisey, Emery, & Cornelissen, 1999; Tovee, Reinhardt, Emery, & Cornelissen, 1998), ignoring this interaction between BMI and WHR, have reported that BMI explains significantly more variance of attractiveness data than WHR. If BMI is treated as an independent variable and a wide range of BMI is used (emaciated BMI of 15 to obese BMI of 30), BMI would indeed account for far greater variance than WHR or any reported indicator of attractiveness such as facial symmetry, small chin, or full lips. It is more important to identify indicators of attractiveness and their adaptive significance than to demonstrate that some variables such as age (using 10- to 80-year-old range) or obesity account for more variance than, for example, fluctuating asymmetry does.

The original finding that normal weight female figures are judged to be more attractive than figures with higher WHRs has been replicated with Australian (Connolly, Mealey, & Slaughter, 2000), British (Furnham, Tan, & McManus, 1997), German (Henss, 1995), Indonesian (Singh & Luis, 1995), and Kenyan (Furnham, Moutafi, & Baguma, 2002) participants. Similar findings have been reported when digitally altered photographs of attractive women instead of line drawings are used (Henss, 2000; Singh, 1994; Streeter & McBurney, 2003). (1) On the basis of these cross-cultural findings, I hypothesized that people from non-Western societies will also judge normal weight figures with low WHR as most attractive and share attractiveness stereotypes as reported for U.S. participants.

Method

Participants. Participants came from two cultural groups with minimal exposure to commercial television. The first group of participants (males n = 46; females n = 32; age range 19-60 years) was from the Azore Islands. The Azore Islands, located in the North Atlantic Ocean (30[degrees] longitude, 40[degrees] latitude), are inhabited by Caucasian people of European descent who originally came to these islands to provide provisions to ships sailing from Europe to American colonies. After the introduction of the steamship, the Azore Islands became isolated and had very limited contact with Western societies until recently. Television was introduced by the government in 1986, and currently only one channel is available for public viewing and it does not air commercials (M. H. de Azevedo, personal communication, January 8, 1996). Azore Islanders are the only known Caucasian people without any sociocultural pressure to diet and lose body weight for cosmetic reasons (de Azevedo & Ferreira, 1992).

The second group of participants (males n = 72; females n = 37; age range 20-55 years) was from Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony in West Africa. Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world (average monthly income is estimated to be less than 10 U.S. dollars) with a minimum degree of urbanization. An experimental television service was started in 1989, which operates for about 6 hours a day without any commercials (M. H. de Azevedo, personal communication, January 8, 1996).

Materials and procedure. Participants from the Azore Islands and Guinea-Bissau individually rated the 12 female figures that have been used in past research (Figure 1). Each rater was given a sheet showing 12 female figures, each with an assigned identifying letter so the rater could examine all 12 figures simultaneously. All instructions for rating figures for various attributes were in Portuguese and raters were told to indicate their highest three and lowest three rankings for each of the following attributes in order: good health, youthfulness, attractiveness, sexiness, desire for children, capability for having children, interesting to talk to, good companion, intelligence, ambition, aggressiveness, sense of humor, kindness and understanding, faithfulness, and desirability for long-term romantic (marriage) relationship. Raters were not allowed to give tied rankings. (2) Methodological justifications for obtaining only top three and bottom three rankings, instead of ranking for each figure, have been previously reported (Singh, 1993a).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Results

To examine which attribute(s) raters associated with each stimulus figure, the ranking data for males and females from both societies were separately subjected to multidimensional unfolding (MDU) analysis. MDU is a multidimensional scaling analysis in which two separate sets of stimuli (in the current analysis, figures and personal attributes) may be scaled simultaneously into the same dimensional solution space (Davison, 1983). This technique enables one to examine (a) whether raters perceive various attributes as interrelated and (b) whether they assign these attributes, such as attractiveness, youthfulness, etc., to particular figures. The strength of the relationship among attributes or between an attribute and a figure is inferred by how close or how far apart they are located from each other in the solution space. If raters perceive a figure to possess certain attributes, then those attributes would be located close to that figure in the solution space; conversely, if raters perceive that a figure does not possess certain attributes, then those attributes would be located away from that figure in the solution space. (3)

MDU analysis revealed two dimensions (Dimension I representing WHR and Dimension II representing body weight) for figures and attributes for both Azore Islanders and Guinea-Bissau raters. Results from MDU analysis are as follows: male Azore Island raters, stress = 0.151, [R.sup.2] (squared multiple correlation indicating the proportion of variance of ranking data accounted for by the MDS solution space) = 0.978; Female Azore Island raters, stress = 0.162, [R.sup.2] = 0.958; Male Guinea-Bissau raters, stress = 0.180, [R.sup.2] = 0.970; Female Guinea-Bissau raters, stress = 0.162, [R.sup.2] = 0.994. As reported in previous studies, there was no significant sex difference in ranking of various personal attributes assigned to stimulus figures. Figure 2 shows the MDU analysis results for male raters from Azore Island and Guinea-Bissau. To allow a better cross-cultural perspective, Figure 2 also depicts previously reported data for male raters from Indonesia (Singh & Luis, 1995) and Caucasian males from the U.S. (Singh, 1994).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

First, it should be pointed out that there was significant consensus among groups for attractive judgments (Kendall concordance coefficient W; for males across four groups, W = 0.89 and for females across four groups, W = 0.89). These findings suggest that the cross-cultural consensus based on facial beauty (Cunningham et al., 1995) is also evident for body shape, as defined by WHR and body weight. Both body weight and WHR influenced the location of attractiveness within solution space as evident from Figure 2. Normal weight figures with low WHR (0.7 and 0.8) were located close to attractiveness except for within the Azore Island group (who perceived the normal weight figure with 0.9 WHR as more attractive than the normal weight figure with 0.8 WHR), whereas the normal weight figure with 1.0 WHR was located far away from attractiveness. A similar interaction between WHR and body weight was evident for underweight figures. Underweight figures with low WHR (0.7 and 0.8) were located close to attractiveness but underweight figures with high WHR (0.9 and 1.0) were not. This was true for youthfulness also, as underweight figures with low WHRs were perceived as youthful but underweight figures with high WHRs were located farther away from youthfulness.

It should, however, be stressed that the location of attributes associated with a stimulus figure in the solution space is affected by the number of stimulus figures that significantly differ on many attributes. For example, youthfulness is primarily associated with adolescence, and thus a youthful adult woman would be located away from the attribute of youthfulness and located close to an adolescent girl. If youthfulness is important for a long-term relationship but is also the hallmark of adolescent girls, then youthfulness would be located slightly away from the woman desired for a long-term relationship. Ideally, only one stimulus figure should be used to determine the location of multiple attributes perceived to be associated with the figure. In this study, however, 12 figures differing in body weight and WHR were ranked to ascertain cross-cultural consensus for judgments of attractiveness and the attributes associated with female attractiveness. When 12 figures that differ significantly in their attractiveness are examined (Figure 2), it appears that neither youthfulness nor capacity to have children are highly desirable attributes for long-term relationships. Another way to determine what males seek in a long-term relationship is to examine the relationship of various personal attributes desired in a long-term mate. Table 1 presents correlations (Spearman rho) between desirability for long-term relationship and personal attributes.

As is evident, males in all the groups associate healthiness, attractiveness, youthfulness, and intelligence with desirability for long-term relationships. The relationship between capacity to have children is positive, but not very strong. One of the reasons for this finding is that even a slight reduction in attractiveness impacts the evaluation of female reproductive capability. For example, the highest mean rankings for attractiveness and for capacity to have children were assigned to the normal weight figure with 0.7 WHR by Indonesian males and females. However, in MDU analysis, based on 12 figures, the capacity to have children was located away from attractiveness (Singh & Luis, 1995). In the present study, highest mean rankings for attractiveness and desirability for long-term relationships were also assigned to the normal weight figure with 0.7 WHR, and the mean rankings for capacity to have children were high (mean rank of 1 by Indonesian and U.S. groups; mean rank of 2 by Azore Island group; mean rank of 3 by Guinea-Bissau group).

More central to the present investigation was the relationship between attractiveness and faithfulness. All groups located faithfulness farther away from attractiveness, which is suggestive of the belief that attractive females are not faithful; still, they preferred attractive figures for a long-term relationship and companionship. This "darker side" of attractiveness was not dependent on the sex of the rater, as the negative link between female attractiveness and faithfulness was evident in all female groups. Spearman correlations (rho) were significantly negative between the ranking of attractiveness and faithfulness (Azore Island, r = -0.61; Guinea-Bissau, r = -0.59; Indonesia, r = -0.84; U.S., r = -0.87) for all four female groups. It is remarkable that the "darker side" of attractiveness stereotype initially discovered in U.S. undergraduate students (Dermer & Theil, 1975) is evident in adult males and females from diverse cultures.

Discussion

It is quite impressive that participants from such diverse cultures judged normal weight figures much more attractive and desirable for a long-term relationship rather than underweight and overweight figures. It is commonly assumed that people in poor countries prefer overweight women whereas in Western countries underweight figures are preferred. The present data, however, show a high degree of consensus across cultures for normal weight figures. The preference for normal weight women with female-typical WHR would be expected from an evolutionary perspective. In an ancestral hunter-gatherer population, an extremely thin woman (low BMI) would signal malnutrition or sickness; such a woman would have been excluded as a potential mate without any further examination of her WHR. Similarly, an obese woman (high BMI) would arguably be uncommon (due to unpredictable food supply and physical work) and hence obesity would be a sign of a pathological condition; such a woman would have also been excluded as a potential mate without any further examination of her WHR. From an evolutionary perspective, attractiveness indicators should be examined within the context of an evolutionarily relevant range of occurrence. If the majority of women were within the range of normal weight and if the occurrence of extreme thinness or obesity was rare, attending to WHR would have allowed our male ancestors to reliably infer the health and fertility of their potential mates.

The stereotypical belief that attractive women are not very faithful, although consistent with the findings of the darker side of attractiveness, creates a puzzle as attractive women are also rated as most desirable for a long-term relationship. This finding is at odds with the reported importance that U.S. males assign to faithfulness in their long-term partners (Buss, 1999). One reason for such a discrepancy could be the different methods used. Previous studies have used surveys requiring participants to indicate the importance of or to rank desired traits one at a time, without any information about how different traits are related to each other. Many traits come in clusters (Li et al., 2002), and in the present study, participants saw attractive figures and ranked various personal attributes in relation to attractiveness. Such a technique allows us to infer clusters of personal attributes--a stereotype--that contain some negative and some positive attributes. For instance, an extremely attractive woman such as Jennifer Lopez could be judged as arrogant, conceited, and unkind and yet as a desirable mate by many men. It is also quite possible that some of the negative attributes may be based on reactions of the others towards the evaluated individual rather than possession of the attribute by the individual. For example, the reason for locking and guarding an expensive car is not based on "unfaithfulness" of the car, but rather on the possibility that others may steal the car because of its high desirability. A similar phenomenon could explain perceived unfaithfulness of attractive females.

Of course, another possibility for such a cross-culturally persistent "darker side" of the attractiveness stereotype is that it is based on a kernel of truth. Some researchers have proposed that, on average, many stereotypes are accurate (e.g., Japanese are industrious, scientists are absent-minded, the American Republican party favors big business) but lose their accuracy when over-generalized or applied to particular cases (Lee, Jussim, & McCauley, 1995). Thus, it could be that some of the attractive females in many societies are less faithful than their less-attractive counterparts. Because males assign such great importance to attractiveness, attractive females are exposed to greater opportunity for using "trial liaisons" in selecting long-term mates, and in many instances, replacing mates (the Elizabeth Taylor or Jennifer Lopez effect).

This, however, does not directly explain why unattractive females are perceived as faithful. Unattractive females may be perceived as more faithful simply by default in comparison to more attractive women, or they may, in actuality, be more faithful. Faithfulness alone is not enough to be judged attractive; the female must offer some other qualities as well. One way to evaluate these alternatives would be to examine mate attraction tactics of less-attractive females. Some evolutionary theorists have proposed that when personal attributes desired by potential mates, such as one's own attractiveness with respect to potential competitors, are low, such individuals engage in alternate strategies to attract mates (for theoretical details, see Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). Unattractive females can demonstrate that they offer qualities (such as cooperativeness, devotion, similarity in interest, and social values) that males desire in long-term romantic relationships in addition to physical attractiveness. Such trade-offs can provide opportunities for mate attraction for less-attractive females. If so, then mate attraction tactics should be different for attractive and less-attractive females.

STUDY 2: NATURE OF BEHAVIORAL TACTICS USED IN MATE ATTRACTION

One of the essential conditions for human mate selection is that both males and females should know what mate attributes are sought by the other sex. If males seek attractive mates then females must be aware of such preference and share the knowledge about what morphological features males find attractive. There is ample evidence for consensus between the sexes for female facial attractiveness (Cunningham et al., 1995) as well as for attractive female bodies as defined by the size of WHR (Furnham, Tan, & McManus, 1997; Henss, 1995; Singh, 1993b). Such shared knowledge allows a female to evaluate her potential competitors, to assess her own attractiveness relative to theirs, and in many instances to use deceptions (e.g., corsets, padded bras, facial makeup) to enhance her attractiveness to males. Self-assessed attractiveness of a female would depend on the reaction of males to her and the history of her ability to entice males who are desirable to and pursued by other females. Females with such a history would assess their attractiveness higher than females who are unable to attract high quality males.

The self-assessed attractiveness would determine the mate attraction tactics available to the female. If self-assessed attractiveness is comparable to potential competitors, a female may opt to engage in attractiveness-enhancing tactics to gain an edge on her competitors. Research shows that females frequently enhance their physical attractiveness with the help of makeup or cosmetics and by dressing seductively, acting nice, flirting, and using various postures (such as leaning into someone, brushing against someone, and parading) to attract men (Greer & Buss, 1994; for other sources, see Mealey, 2000). The success of such tactics would be greater for attractive females than for less-attractive females. Those females who assess themselves as less attractive than potential competitors may use attractiveness-enhancing tactics less often than more attractive females. (4)

Method

To test this hypothesis, I examined attractiveness-enhancing tactics used for mate attraction by young Caucasian females (n = 144; age range 18-22 years). Physical measurements of each participant (weight, height, WHR) were obtained and each participant was asked to rate her own attractiveness on a 10-point scale (0 = extremely unattractive; 9 = extremely attractive). Each participant completed a questionnaire dealing with dating history, participation in social organizations, and hobbies. Embedded in this questionnaire were 10 questions dealing with tactics used in dating. These questions were selected from the questionnaire used by Tooke and Camire (1991) to explore inter-sexual and intrasexual mating strategies. The selected questions dealt with attempts to look and behave more attractively to potential dates (wearing revealing clothes or facial makeup, walking with a greater swing or bounce than usual); behaviors that could increase the interest of the romantic partner (acting more friendly and social than usual, complimenting the date on his appearance, intentionally appearing vulnerable, pretending to be interested in starting a relationship); tactics to ward off potential competitors (putting arms around date more often in front of others); and attempts to make the date jealous (flirting with other guys).

It should be stressed that for this investigation, female attractiveness was defined by WHR, whereas nearly all previous studies concerning female attractiveness have focused on facial features (Cunningham, 1986; Johnston & Franklin, 1993; Jones, 1995; Langlois et al., 1987; Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa, 1994). Furthermore, in those studies that did address the body in defining attractiveness, only a thin-fat dimension was explored, and typical findings show that in Western industrialized society, thinness is equated with attractiveness (Fallon & Rozin, 1985; for a review see Jackson, 1992). However, as I have stated, thinness alone does not provide enough information about the dimension of body shape that also determines female attractiveness. A thin woman may be dissatisfied with her body image if she is not shapely. For example, Davis and Cerullo (1996) reported that very slim women (BMI = 15) are preoccupied with losing weight if they have a high WHR (0.89), but slim women (BMI = 15) with a low WHR (0.64) are satisfied with their body image and do not attempt to lose weight. When U.S. men and women are presented female figure line drawings differing on both body size and body shape (as defined by WHR), both males and females judge normal weight figures with low WHR as more attractive than thin figures (Singh, 1993b). The data presented on the "darker side" of the attractiveness stereotype in this paper replicate these findings (Figure 2, panel D). What is more, a female's own WHR affects her self-assessment of attractiveness.

Results and Discussion

There was a significant negative correlation (Pearson r = -0.39, p < .01) between WHR and self-rated attractiveness. This finding is consistent with the reported observation of Mikash and Bailey (1999) that people judge women with low WHR as more attractive than women with high WHR. Penton-Voak & Perrett (2001) also found a negative correlation between WHR and women's self-assessed attractiveness. These findings taken together validate the inverse relationship reported for female attractiveness and WHR based on line-drawing figures. Body weight was also negatively correlated (Pearson r = -0.26, p < .01) with self-rated attractiveness. Thus, both body weight and WHR affect self-assessed attractiveness of females.

For data analysis, participants were divided into low WHR (0.72 or below; n = 74) and high WHR (0.73 or above; n = 70) groups using a median split. A similar median split was used for creating low body weight (126 lbs. or below; n = 70) and high body weight (127 lbs. or above; n = 73) groups to investigate if females use different mating tactics that were as a function of WHR or body weight. Table 2 shows the mean frequency of tactics used by females in the low WHR group statistically significantly more often than by females in the high WHR group. Attractive females (low WHR group) attempt to look more attractive, compliment the looks of their dates, act possessively (putting arms around the date), and flirt more often than less-attractive (high WHR group) females. When females with low and high body weight groups were compared, no significant differences in the use of these mating tactics were found.

It appears that use of attractiveness-based mating tactics by females with low WHR is effective in mate attraction. Women with low WHR report having greater numbers of sexual partners over their lifetimes than women of comparable age and body weight but higher WHR (Mikach & Bailey, 1999; Singh, Dijkstra, & Buunk, 1996). The history of being able to attract males or being pursued romantically by males would allow such attractive females to aspire to and more frequently succeed in acquiring highly desirable mates.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The findings that people from highly diverse cultures judge normal weight female figures with low WHR as more attractive demonstrates that WHR is a universal rather than Western-culture-specific indicator of female attractiveness. Additionally, the fact that overweight figures in spite of low WHR are not judged to be attractive by participants in any examined culture confirm the original assertion that to be judged attractive, women should not greatly deviate from normal weight (Singh, 1993b).

The most intriguing finding is that participants from these diverse cultures associate unfaithfulness with attractiveness and yet find attractive females desirable for long-term relationships. Why are attractive females cross-culturally perceived to be unfaithful? The findings of the second study suggest that such perception is probably based on differences in mating strategies used by females differing in physical attractiveness. Mating or sexual strategies are typically defined as genetically based programs or decision rules (which are not necessarily consciously formulated or under deliberate control) for selecting mates and allocating efforts to mating, reproduction, and parental care. The choice of strategy and associated behavioral tactics depend both on individuals' personal qualities (status, health, age, physical attractiveness) and specific features or cues in the environment (see Gangestad & Simpson, 2000, for detailed theoretical formulation and evidence). In other words, while sex-specific mating strategies and behavioral tactics in a given species are inherited by all the members, the choice of a given strategy depends on situational and personal variables.

One of the most convincing confirmations of this logic is the mating behavior of zebra finches that have had their attractiveness either enhanced or reduced by attaching leg bands of different colors. Burley (1986) discovered that female zebra finches preferred males with black leg bands to males with "unattractive" blue leg bands. Zebra finches mate monogamously, and both males and females share equally in parental care. After attractiveness manipulation, however, preferred males started engaging in polygamous mating (nonpreferred males continued to attempt speciestypical monogamous mating). Preferred females (black leg band) devoted less time to carrying out parental functions than is typical of their species, but still had higher reproductive success than unattractive (blue leg band) females, because the mates of attractive females devoted more time to carrying out parental functions.

These finding cannot be dismissed by arguing that such effects were obtained because these finches were bred and raised in captivity. The use of different mating strategies based on preferred personal qualities of the opposite sex has been reported for wild barnacle geese. Barnacle geese pair monogamously, and males prefer larger and heavier females. In their field studies, Choudhurry and Black (1993) found that preferred females engage in more "trial liaisons" prior to monogamous pairing than do less-preferred females. The findings concerning zebra finches suggest that an accidental increase in attractiveness enabled the newly enhanced members to activate alternative strategies that were not previously available.

A fundamental assumption of all evolution-based human mating theories is that mate preference and mating strategies evolved to solve either the specific adaptive problems encountered by the ancestral population or the specific selection pressures that occurred in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (Buss, 1994; Symons, 1979; Thornhill, 1997; Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). The reproductive success of ancestral human females depended on their ability to evaluate potential mates' willingness to invest in their offspring as well as their phenotipic and genetic qualities. Human females invest heavily in reproduction and in feeding, caring for, and raising their children. The reproductive success of the female, therefore, would be greatly enhanced if she could accurately assess the ability of her mate to acquire resources and his willingness to divert those resources to her and her children and to protect her children. Mortality rates for father-absent children are reported to be significantly higher than those for two-parent children (Geary, 1998).

In addition, the reproductive success of females would depend on their ability to evaluate genetic quality of their potential mates. Mates with higher genetic quality would give the gift of good health and attributes desired by others. There are some facial and bodily features that are reliable indicators of genetic quality of males. One such indicator is the degree of deviation from bilateral symmetry of faces and bodies. Males with greater facial and body symmetry are healthier and cope with emotional and physical stress more effectively than less-symmetrical males (Shackleford & Larson, 1997; Thornhill & Moeller, 1997). Thus, ideally, females should mate with males who control resources, direct such resources to their children, and possess morphological features indicative of high genetic quality.

Such males, however, are limited in number. Furthermore, given paternal uncertainty (fertilization being concealed) and risk for cuckoldry and the fact that paternal care is beneficial but not essential for offspring survival, high-genetic-quality males are able to seek out short-term mating with many females instead of investing in a long-term committed relationship. Symmetrical men report greater numbers of sex partners and are reported to invest less in relationships than nonsymmetrical men (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1997). Attractive males with optimal WHR are also perceived to be less faithful (Singh, 1995). As a result, females frequently encounter the problem of trading off between male provisioning and their genetic quality (Bellis & Baker, 1990; Cashdan, 1996; Emlen, 1995). Females have evolved mechanisms to deal with trade-offs, as is evident from the findings that ovulating women (when the probability for conception is high) more often than nonovulating women seek out extrapair copulation (Baker, 1996) and prefer mates who exhibit highly masculine facial features indicative of testosterone for short-term relationships (Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammer 2001). When the possibility of conception is low (nonovulatory period), women prefer mates with relatively feminine faces indicative of prosociability, low aggression, and willingness to invest in offspring (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000).

The probability of success in a trade-off strategy would greatly depend on the degree of female physical attractiveness, as males rank this the most desirable trait for both short- and long-term relationships. Highly attractive females may be able to obtain both higher genetic benefits and material benefits from males. Failing that, attractive females would have the option to obtain material benefits from a long-term mate and genetic benefits from short-term liaisons. Such options would be rarely available to less-attractive females. Less-attractive females should be willing to sacrifice some genetic benefit in exchange for superior material benefits provided by the mate. There is evidence to suggest that less-attractive human females seek less-masculine males for relationships. Unlike women who consider themselves attractive, less-attractive women prefer men with slightly feminized faces for relationships (Little, B urt, Penton-Voak, & Perrett, 2001). These findings have been replicated when WHR rather than self-rated attractiveness is used; women with high WHR prefer slightly less-masculine male faces than women with low WHR (Penton-Voak & Perrett, 2001). This physical-condition-dependent mate preference has also been observed in fish. Female stickleback fish that are in poor physical condition court less-attractive males than do females in better condition (Bakker, Kunzlera, & Mazzi, 1999).

Less-attractive females would have enhanced reproductive success by seeking males who are caring and willing to invest resources in their offspring rather than by competing for high genetic quality males. Men with less competitive ability may actually perceive attractiveness differently and may find female physical attractiveness less important for sexual arousal than do males with greater competitive abilities (Symons, 1995). Males mating with less-attractive women (high WHR) would have high reproductive success, as females with higher WHRs give birth to heavier and taller babies (Brown, Potter, & Jacobs, 1996), more sons (Manning, Anderton, & Washington, 1996; Singh & Zambarano, 1997), and sons with high levels of testosterone (Manning, Trivers, Singh, & Thornhill, 1999). More importantly, mating with less-attractive females would require less need for mate guarding and higher paternal certainty as the opportunities for extra-pair copulation would be fewer than for attractive females.

There are still a number of issues that need to be investigated to gain a better understanding of the nature of human mate selection. First, the conditions in which people are willing to accept mates who are desirable in some respect but still possess some negative qualities needs to be explored (Regan, 1988). In real life, most people possess many positive and negative qualities; however, researchers so far have explored primarily the positive qualities desired in a mate. Thus, the personal qualities for which people are willing to compromise, when forced to choose, are not known. For example, would men ever choose an attractive woman who is unkind and not very faithful, or would they prefer a less-attractive woman who is very kind and faithful as a mate?

Second, the conditions that govern the rules of tradeoffs should be systematically explored. It is not known how the sex ratio of the local population, environmental conditions (pathogen prevalence, harsh economic conditions), or social customs (polygyny, bride price) affect the nature of trade-offs in mating decisions. Likewise, cost-benefit analysis of trade-offs in mating decisions, particularly as it applies to sex differences, is essential. Information about such issues is needed to help develop an accurate understanding of human mating decisions.

Table 1. Spearman Correlations (Rho) Between Desirability
for Long-Term Relationship and Various Attributes

                            U.S.          Azore
                          Caucasian      Islands

Healthy                     0.96           0.97
Attractive                  0.93           0.87
Youthful                    0.84           0.53
Intelligent                 0.66           0.70
Capacity for
  having children           0.39           0.43
Interesting                 0.79           0.89
Sense of humor              0.24 (a)       0.71
Good companion              0.81           0.94
Ambitious                   0.82           0.21
Aggressive                  0.80          -0.19 (a)
Kind and
  understanding            -0.36           0.80
Faithful                   -0.69          -0.59

                                         Guinea-
                         Indonesian       Bissau

Healthy                     0.79           0.88
Attractive                  0.59           0.81
Youthful                    0.73           0.68
Intelligent                 0.73           0.88
Capacity for
  having children           0.07 (a)       0.55
Interesting                 0.70           0.64
Sense of humor                --           0.76
Good companion                --           0.69
Ambitious                     --           0.79
Aggressive                    --          -0.46
Kind and
  understanding            -0.23 (a)       0.87
Faithful                   -0.67          -0.53

(a) Nonsignificant.

Table 2. Behavioral Tactics Used by Women With Low
WHR and Higher WHR in Mate Attraction

Behavioral                 Low WHR         High WHR
tactics                   Mean (SD)        Mean (SD)

Wearing tighter
  clothing to
  appear thinner         2.01 (1.1)       1.37 (0.87)
Using facial
  makeup to
  look nice              2.16 (1.23)      1.72 (1.12)
Complimenting
  date on his
  appearance             2.21 (1.31)      1.60 (1.04)
Acting shy and
  letting date have
  dominant role          1.39 (1.10)      0.70 (0.97)
Flirting with other
  guys to make
  date jealous           1.32 (1.01)      0.59 (0.77)
Putting arms
  around date in
  front of others        1.86 (1.10)      1.72 (1.18)

Behavioral                                Effect size
tactics                     t test         Cohen's d

Wearing tighter
  clothing to
  appear thinner           3.07 **           0.65
Using facial
  makeup to
  look nice                2.14 *            0.37
Complimenting
  date on his
  appearance               3.25 **           0.52
Acting shy and
  letting date have
  dominant role            4.32 **           0.67
Flirting with other
  guys to make
  date jealous             3.93 **           0.81
Putting arms
  around date in
  front of others          2.16 *            0.12

* p < .05. ** p < .01.

I am grateful to Courtney Hinton for collecting data for the second study and to Jennifer Currah, Hillary Procknow, Peter Renn, and Scott Strong for their invaluable help in various ways in finalizing this research paper.

(1) Two studies conducted in non-Western societies have failed to replicate the negative relationship between the size of WHR and female attractiveness. Yu and Shepard (1998) tested 18 males 13 to 60 years old using only six female figure line drawings (0.7 and 0.9 in each of the three body weight categories) and found that Gombato (a tribal group in Peru) did not judge figures with low WHR as more attractive than figures with high WHR. Wetsman and Marlowe (1999), using the same six figures with men from the Hadza tribe of Tanzania, also failed to replicate the finding that figures with low WHR are judged more attractive than figures with high WHR. The use of only 6 figures representing only two levels of WHR rather than 12 figures with four levels of WHR makes comparison with cross-cultural findings of other investigators difficult.

(2) I am grateful to Mafia Helena Pinto de Azevedo, M.D., Professor of Medical Psychology, Coimbra University, Portugal, for organizing research teams for data collection in the Azore Islands and Guinea-Bissau. Dr. Carlos Ferreira arranged data collection of people from the Azores and Leonice Furtado collected data from Guinea-Bissau.

(3) An illustrative example of MDU would be using a U.S. map to determine the location of national parks relative to a given city. One would be able to accurately use this information from the map without needing to compute whether a given national park is significantly closer to or farther from a given city.

(4) The decision for attractiveness-enhancement tactics would be affected by a woman's standing in intrasexual competition. For example, if an attractive female were competing for a man who was being chased by women less attractive than she, she would have little reason to engage in attractiveness-enhancing tactics. Similarly, if an unattractive woman were competing with women of comparable attractiveness, she may benefit by engaging in attractiveness-enhancing tactics. In essence, various factors (e.g., age, sociosexual skills, and comparative attractiveness) should enter into selection of the type and frequency of tactics of mate attraction.

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Address correspondence to Devendra Singh, Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712; e-mail: [e-mail].

Manuscript accepted June 23, 2003