In humans, only attractive females fulfil their sexually imprinted preferences for eye colour

Paola Bressan

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-62781-7

Abstract

Early exposure to parental features shapes later sexual preferences in fish, birds, and mammals. Here I report that human males’ preferences for a conspicuous trait, colourful eyes, are affected by the eye colour of mothers. Female faces with light (blue or green) eyes were liked better by men whose mother had light eyes; the effect broke down in those who had felt rejected by her as children. These results, garnered on over one thousand men, complete those of a symmetrical study on one thousand women, painting a fuller picture of human sexual imprinting. Both men and women appear to have imprinted on their opposite-sex parents unless these were perceived as cold and unjustly punitive. Birds require strong attachment to sexually imprint—a constraint in place to reduce the perils of acquiring the wrong sort of information. Parents who form no bond with their offspring may fail to be recognised as appropriate parental imprinting objects. Consistent with human females being, as in most of the animal kingdom, the choosier sex, imprinted preferences were displayed by both sexes but translated into real-life partner choices solely in women—attractive women. Apparently, not all of us can afford to follow our own inclinations.

Highlights

Exposure to parental features shapes later sexual preferences in fish, birds, and mammals
There was no significant correlation between the eye colours of the men and of their current partners, whether colour was measured on the 5-point darkness scale from blue to dark brown, Spearman’s r = −0.017, p = 0.661, N = 651, or coded as light vs dark, r = −0.048, p = 0.272, N = 527
No positive assortative mating for eye colour was found in this sample.)

Summary

Introduction

Exposure to parental features shapes later sexual preferences in fish, birds, and mammals. Female faces with light (blue or green) eyes were liked better by men whose mother had light eyes; the effect broke down in those who had felt rejected by her as children These results, garnered on over one thousand men, complete those of a symmetrical study on one thousand women, painting a fuller picture of human sexual imprinting. Across a wide range of species, young animals form a template of what their future sexual partners ought to look like by “imprinting on” their father, their mother, or a random individual of their parents’ generation; or more precisely, on some trait carried by them Such a trait turns into a signal that, at some future time, will indicate which potential mates are better than others. By imprinting on a paternal feature, daughters are likelier to end up picking a mate whose offspring will survive and be sexually successfully, too This argument contrasts fathers with both mothers and random individuals. They may have no other option than imprinting on a chivalrous mature male (not right after hatching but as “teenagers”5) since they receive no care whatsoever from parents; the same goes for fruit flies[12]

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