Women's Attractiveness Research Articles

Revisiting Female Pilgrimage in Medieval Oxford: Evidence from the Miracula Sancte Frideswide*

The most common form of female pilgrimage in medieval England was local pilgrimage to a saint's shrine. One English pilgrimage destination which is especially associated with women is St Frideswide's shrine in Oxford, owing to a collection of miracle stories compiled in the 1180s in which women are particularly prevalent. Drawing on a new edition and translation of the Miracula sancte Frideswide, this article revisits the cult of Frideswide in the late twelfth century and takes a fresh look at the experiences of women visiting Oxford on pilgrimage. The article reassesses previous speculations about women's attraction to the cult, brings to light some little‐appreciated aspects of female pilgrimage, and finds that many of the accounts challenge assumptions made about female behaviour and expectations in the Middle Ages.

Scholars, Secrets, and Sultans: Clerical Authority in West Africa, 1450–1650

AbstractAvailable historical sources for West Africa's Middle Niger c. 1450–1650 reveal that the ‘indigenous’ (non-Arab) Islamic scholarly class was already a self-conscious, independent social entity long before the clerical revolutions of later centuries. The influence of Muslim scholars was not limited to urban environments like Timbuktu, and clerical elites claimed a number of mostly independent communities throughout West Africa by the end of the sixteenth century. Mostly based on a reading of Arabic texts such as Muḥammad al-Kābarī's Bustān al-fawāʾid (‘Garden of Beneficial Prayers’) in dialogue with the Tārīkh Ibn al-Mukhtār and Tārīkh al-Sūdān (‘Timbuktu Chronicles’), this article argues that Muslim scholars were engaged in a spiritual war for independence clearly on display since the beginning of the Songhay empire. Scholarly texts display deep concern for tempering unjust political power and the protection and attraction of women, discourses that reveal a perilous clerical struggle to assert community independence. Later armed jihads were thus not so much a break from earlier traditions of clerical pacificism, they were the natural evolution from this earlier spiritual jihad.

Mirror, mirror—A gendered lens on female entrepreneurs’ facial attractiveness in reward-based crowdfunding

Scholars investigating women's attractiveness have documented its disadvantages (the “beauty is beastly” effect), especially in male-typed domains, including entrepreneurship. However, reward-based crowdfunding research demonstrates that these platforms reverse gender biases typically found in traditional entrepreneurial finance. Thus, in reward-based crowdfunding, the adverse effect of women's attractiveness needs to be re-examined. In a sample of 7447 Kickstarter projects, we find that facial attractiveness increases funding success for women more than for men and that sex differences in attractiveness effects are greater in male-typed categories like technology. A post-hoc reveals a surprising attractiveness penalty for men in the technology sector and offers insights for future research.

Biomechanical strategies to maximize gait attractiveness among women.

Physical attractiveness is a key factor in social communication, and through this communication process, we attractively brand and express ourselves. Thus, this study investigated the biomechanical strategies used by women to express gait attractiveness. Our aim was to extend the current literature by examining this aspect of dynamic motion from the perspective of expressed, rather than perceived attractiveness. In this regard, we obtained motion capture data from 17 women, including seven professional fashion models. The participants walked on a treadmill under two conditions: 1) a normal condition in which they were instructed to walk as casually as possible; and 2) an attractive-conscious condition where they were asked to walk as attractively as possible. Then, we used whole-body kinematic data to represent motion energy at each joint, flexibility of the upper body, and the up-down/forward-backward silhouettes of the limbs, and compared these parameters between the two conditions by using statistical parametric mapping. During the attractive-conscious condition, the non-model women increased the energy of the hip and thoracolumbar joints, which emphasized the motions of their bosoms and buttocks. They also increased their upper body flexibility (possibly reflecting fertility) and continued to face front and downward. Conversely, although the fashion models partially shared the same strategy with the non-models (e.g., hip energy, upper body flexibility, and head bending downward), the strategy of the former was prominent in the stretching of the knee during the push-off phase and pulling the upper arm back, allowing them to showcase their youth and emphasize their chests. In addition, the fashion models used a wider variety of strategies to express their gait attractiveness. The findings indicate that the biomechanical strategy used to express gait attractiveness in women involves showcasing femininity, fertility, and youth. Our results not only deepen the understanding of human movement for self-expression through gait attractiveness, but they also help us comprehend self-branding behavior in human social life.

Sperm Competition Risk: The Connections That Partner Attractiveness and Infidelity Risk Have with Mate Retention Behaviors and Semen-Displacing Behaviors.

The present studies investigated the relationships between men's perceived risk of experiencing sperm competition (i.e., when the ejaculates of two or more men simultaneously occupy the reproductive tract of a single woman), and their use of strategies to detect, prevent, and correct their partner's sexual infidelity. We investigated these associations using self-reports provided by men (Study 1, n = 113), partner-reports provided by women (Study 2, n = 136), and dyadic reports (Study 3, n = 103 couples). The results of these studies indicated that the attractiveness of women was consistently associated with men's use of benefit-provisioning mate retention behaviors (e.g., buying expensive gifts for one's partner, showing signs of physical affection) and semen-displacing behaviors (e.g., deeper copulatory thrusting, more thrusts during copulation), whereas the infidelity risk of women was often associated with men's use of cost-inflicting mate retention behaviors (e.g., threatening to end the relationship, monopolization of partner's free time). Discussion addresses the evolutionary implications of these results, including the possibility that men use both benefit-provisioning mate retention behaviors and semen-displacing behaviors when they perceive their partner to be more attractive, ostensibly as a way to mitigate their risk of sperm competition. Discussion also explores the extent to which these results extend those of previous studies concerning sperm competition risk.

When he smiles: Attractiveness preferences for male faces expressing emotions.

The impact of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness has been controversial owing to contradictory results, particularly in studies on female preferences. Given that sexually dimorphic facial features, especially more masculine ones, have been previously related to the perception of anger, we investigated the bi-directional influence of emotional expressions and facial masculinity and explored their impact on women's preferences for facial masculinity. We confirmed the effect of facial sexual dimorphism on the perception of emotional cues (happiness and anger) and explored whether smiling or angry expressions influence women's perception of masculinity in male faces. Additionally, we examined women's preferences for emotionally expressive male faces altered along a continuum of masculinity. The results showed that masculinised faces are perceived as angrier, while feminised faces are perceived as happier (Experiment 1), and that angry faces are perceived as more masculine when compared with happy faces (Experiment 2). It is noteworthy that our Experiment 3 uncovered a pivotal finding: women prefer reduced feminisation in happy faces compared with neutral/angry faces. This suggests that the avoidance response observed towards masculinity is attenuated by a smiling expression. The current study introduces a new perspective to be considered when exploring the role of facial masculinity in women's attractiveness preferences.

Statement of Retraction: Color and Women Attractiveness: When Red Clothed Women Are Perceived to Have More Intense Sexual Intent

This article refers to:RETRACTED ARTICLE: Color and Women Attractiveness: When Red Clothed Women Are Perceived to Have More Intense Sexual Intent

The picky men: Men's preference for women's body differed among attractiveness, health, and fertility conditions

The health and fertility hypothesis suggests that low body weight young women are healthy and fertile, thereby judged as attractive to men. Although it has been widely accepted, few studies have tested the health and fertility hypothesis on a perceptual level, that is whether the most attractive female body is also perceived as the healthiest and most fertile. In the current study, we investigated young and older men's preferences women's body weight, using 3D human body models. With an interactive body preference task, men chose the BMI and body fat of women's body shapes perceived as most attractive, healthiest and most fertile. The results showed that both young and older men had similar patterns of preferences for women's bodies. For BMI, the most attractive body weight was not seen as the healthiest or the most fertile. Compared to the most attractive BMI, higher BMI was required to be seen as the healthiest and this figure was even higher for fertility judgements. Body fat generally showed similar patterns of results as BMI. Our findings challenge the health and fertility hypothesis and point to the alternative explanation that the judgement of women's attractiveness tracks cues indicating youth and low parity.

Demonstrate values: Behavioral displays of moral outrage as a cue to long-term mate potential.

Recent findings suggest that moral outrage signals trustworthiness to others, and such perceptions play a uniquely important role in identifying social opportunities. We conducted four studies (N = 870) investigating how displays of moral outrage are perceived in the specific context of mating. Results indicated participants, particularly women, found prospective mates describing outrage-signaling activism to be more desirable for long-term mating (Study 1), and this perception of desirability was similarly inferred among same-sex raters (Study 2). We further replicated findings in Study 1, while additionally considering the basis of women's attraction toward outraged behavior through candidate mediators (Studies 3). Although we found consistent evidence for the desirability of an ostensibly outraged target, Study 4 finally identified a boundary condition on the desirability of outrage, wherein mere expression of outrage (without activism) was insufficient to bolster attraction. We frame results from complementary perspectives of trust signaling and sexual strategies theory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Gender Inclusion and Fit in STEM.

Despite progress made toward increasing women's interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), women continue to be underrepresented and experience less equity and inclusion in some STEM fields. In this article, I review the psychological literature relevant to understanding and mitigating women's lower fit and inclusion in STEM. Person-level explanations concerning women's abilities, interests, and self-efficacy are insufficient for explaining these persistent gaps. Rather, women's relatively lower interest in male-dominated STEM careers such as computer science and engineering is likely to be constrained by gender stereotypes. These gender stereotypes erode women's ability to experience self-concept fit, goal fit, and/or social fit. Such effects occur independently of intentional interpersonal biases and discrimination, and yet they create systemic barriers to women's attraction to, integration in, and advancement in STEM. Dismantling these systemic barriers requires a multifaceted approach to changing organizational and educational cultures at the institutional, interpersonal, and individual level.

Men are not aware of and do not respond to their female partner's fertility status: Evidence from a dyadic diary study of 384 couples

Understanding how human mating psychology is affected by changes in female cyclic fertility is informative for comprehending the evolution of human reproductive behavior. Based on differential selection pressures between the sexes, men are assumed to have evolved adaptations to notice women's within-cycle cues to fertility and show corresponding mate retention tactics to secure access to their female partners when fertile. However, previous studies suffered from methodological shortcomings and yielded inconsistent results. In a large, preregistered online dyadic diary study (384 heterosexual couples), we found no compelling evidence that men notice women's fertility status (as potentially reflected in women's attractiveness, sexual desire, or wish for contact with others) or display mid-cycle increases in mate retention tactics (jealousy, attention, wish for contact or sexual desire towards female partners). These results extend our current understanding of the evolution of women's concealed ovulation and oestrus, and suggest that both might have evolved independently.

The Good, the Bad and the Hijab: A Study of Implicit Associations Made by Practicing Muslims in Their Native Muslim Country.

Recent research indicates that wearing the hijab reduces the attractiveness of female faces perceived by practicing Muslim men and women in their native Muslim country (the United Arab Emirates). The purpose of the current research was to develop this finding to investigate whether other aspects of person perception are also affected when women wear the hijab in this Muslim country. Of particular relevance is that changes in physical attractiveness often affect the personal qualities assigned to individuals. Accordingly, we sought to determine whether such effects occur when the physical attractiveness of women is altered by wearing the hijab. To do this, we used an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to investigate how native Muslim participants in the UAE associated pleasant and unpleasant connotations with images of women either wearing the hijab or with their heads uncovered. As in previous research with native Muslim participants, female faces were again perceived as significantly less attractive when the hijab was worn. However, the accompanying IAT findings showed that these less attractive hijab-wearing images were associated more with pleasant connotations than were the matched uncovered images. These findings provide fresh insight into the effects of the hijab on perceptions of Muslim women in a Muslim country and provide support for the view that cultural clothing can influence person perception beyond physical attractiveness alone.

Relatively rapid effects of testosterone on men's ratings of female attractiveness depend on relationship status and the attractiveness of stimulus faces

Attractiveness judgements influence desires to initiate and maintain romantic relationships. Testosterone also predicts relationship initiation and maintenance; such effects may be driven by the hormone's modulation of attractiveness judgements, but no studies have investigated causal (and situation-dependent) effects of the hormone on these judgements. Using a placebo-controlled cross-over design, our preregistered analyses revealed order- and relationship- dependent effects: single heterosexual men judged the women as more appealing when testosterone was administered first (and placebo second), but marginally less appealing when placebo was administered first (and testosterone second). In a more complex model incorporating the women's attractiveness (as rated by an independent set of observers), however, we show that testosterone increases the appeal of women —but this effect depends upon the men's relationship status and the women's attractiveness. In partnered men (n = 53) who tend to derogate attractive alternatives (by rating them as less appealing), testosterone countered this effect, boosting the appeal of these attractive alternatives. In single men (n = 53), conversely, testosterone increased the appeal of low-attractive women. These differential effects highlight the possibility of a newly discovered mechanism whereby testosterone promotes male sexual reproduction through different routes depending on relationship status, promoting partner up- rather than down-grading when partnered and reducing choosiness when single. Further, such effects were relatively rapid [within 85 (±5) minutes], suggesting a potential non-genomic mechanism of action.

Error Management Theory and biased first impressions: How do people perceive potential mates under conditions of uncertainty?

People must make inferences about a potential mate's desirability based on incomplete information. Under such uncertainty, there are two possible errors: people could overperceive a mate’s desirability, which might lead to regrettable mating behavior, or they could underperceive the mate’s desirability, which might lead to missing a valuable opportunity. How do people balance the risks of these errors, and do men and women respond differently? Based on an analysis of the relative costs of these two types of error, we generated two new hypotheses about biases in initial person perception: the Male Overperception of Attractiveness Bias (MOAB) and the Female Underperception of Attractive Bias (FUAB). Participants (N = 398), who were recruited via social media, an email distribution list, and snowball sampling, rated the attractiveness of unfamiliar opposite-sex targets twice: once from a blurred image, and once from a clear image. By randomizing order of presentation (blurred first vs. clear first), we isolated the unique effects of uncertainty—which was only present when the participant saw the blurred image first. As predicted, men overperceived women's attractiveness, on average. By contrast, as predicted, women underperceived men's attractiveness, on average. Because multiple possible decision rules could produce these effects, the effects do not reveal the algorithm responsible for them. We explicitly addressed this level of analysis by identifying multiple candidate algorithms and testing the divergent predictions they yield. This suggested the existence of more nuanced biases: men overperceived the attractiveness of unattractive (but not attractive) women, whereas women underperceived the attractiveness of attractive (but not unattractive) men. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating algorithm in analyses of cognitive biases.

Applicant Attraction towards the Organization with the Moderation Effect of Gender: A Perception of Business Students

Talent attraction is contemporarily subject to extensive research due to prevalent gaps which hold significance in the field of human resource management. This article describes how students graduating from a business school in Karachi, Pakistan perceive various organizational factors in terms of their impact on the attractiveness of the firm as a place to work. The framework used in the study included exogenous constructs depicting compensation, both direct and indirect, along with Corporate social responsibility, both internal and external in organizations. The influences of both compensation and CSR on organizational attractiveness were examined in the study. The segregation of respondents in terms of gender was used as a moderator. The moderating influence of gender segregation on the relationship between exogenous and endogenous constructs was also examined in this paper. In the study 130 responses were received and 112 were found suitable for the analysis. The results were analyzed on SMART PLS software by using latest techniques. The findings of the study demonstrated that compensation is the significant factor attracting business school talent, while gender moderated the impact of both compensation and CSR activities on workplace attractiveness. Specifically, males prefer extrinsic direct and indirect compensation and no impact of CSR found to attract them. Extrinsic indirect compensation and internal CSR activities were positively related to workplace attractiveness for women than for men. Implementing these practices appropriately given the context is likely to benefit the firm by attracting talented employees. The study is limited to only business institutes of Karachi which can be extended to other cities and institutes in future for the better results and generalizability.

Infertility and same-sex attraction in women.

A polygyny hypothesis of female sexual fluidity proposes that women may have been evolutionarily selected to be sexually fluid, in order to have occasional sex with their cowives in polygynous marriage to reduce tension and conflict inherent in such marriage, while at the same time reproducing children with their husbands. Among others, the hypothesis predicts that women who are biologically (but not surgically) infertile would experience greater same-sex attraction. Biological infertility stems from natural, evolutionarily familiar causes such as menopause, whereas surgical infertility stems from artificial, evolutionarily novel causes such as tubal ligation or hysterectomy. Consistent with the prediction, the analyses of the National Survey of Family Growth data showed that biological infertility, but not surgical infertility, was significantly associated with same-sex self-identified labels, behavior and sexual attraction in women. Biological infertility nearly doubled the odds of women having engaged in same-sex behavior and the number of same-sex partners in the last 12months and nearly tripled the number of same-sex partners in life. In sharp contrast, biological infertility was not associated (and surgical infertility was significantly negatively associated) with same-sex attraction in men.

Transforming the Party Identity of German Radical Right: In Search of Female Support

The crises of the beginning of the 21st century changed the political landscape of modern Germany, which was manifested in increasing right-wing radicalism. As the party identity of the far-right transforms, they shift from being marginal nationalist anti-migrant forces, contradicting the democratic culture of Germany, to movements which defend identity and rights, including womens rights. Thus, the far-right in Germany claim to become a part of the civic culture that includes the right to criticize and disagree with the governments policies. The article examines how far-right parties interact with the female electorate on the example of the Alternative for Germany party. The study highlights the main activities of the Alternative for Germany in attracting womens votes, based on the analysis of the partys political program, interviews with party members and media materials. These activities include the orientation towards the socio-economic issues, concerning women, the consideration of the migrant problem through the prism of the Muslim threat towards women, the protection of the interests of conservative women, the attraction of women as party leaders. The author pays a special attention to female right-wing activists, as independent actors in the political life of Germany. Based on the cases of Beate Zschpe, Francisca Berit and #120db movement, the following interests of female activists were determined: opposing to gender mainstreaming, which threatens the traditional family structure, and opposing to Islam as a source of violence against women. Alternative for Germany aims at strengthening its positions among all women, whose rights are an integral part of European identity, therefore, the actualization of womens involvement in the movement becomes not only instrumental, but also of value nature. More radically oriented female activists get involved in the European Identitarian movement.

Facial threat affects trust more strongly than facial attractiveness in women than it does in men

Trust is essential in initiating social relationships. Due to the differential evolution of sex hormones as well as the fitness burdens of producing offspring, evaluations of a potential mating partner’s trustworthiness likely differ across sexes. Here, we explore unknown sex-specific effects of facial attractiveness and threat on trusting other-sex individuals. Ninety-three participants (singles; 46 women) attracted by the other sex performed an incentivized trust game. They had to decide whether to trust individuals of the other sex represented by a priori-created face stimuli gradually varying in the intensities of both attractiveness and threat. Male and female participants trusted attractive and unthreatening-looking individuals more often. However, whereas male participants’ trust behavior was affected equally by attractiveness and threat, female participants’ trust behavior was more strongly affected by threat than by attractiveness. This indicates that a partner’s high facial attractiveness might compensate for high facial threat in male but not female participants. Our findings suggest that men and women prioritize attractiveness and threat differentially, with women paying relatively more attention to threat cues inversely signaling parental investment than to attractiveness cues signaling reproductive fitness. This difference might be attributable to an evolutionary, biologically sex-specific decision regarding parental investment and reproduction behavior.

A level playing field: No competitive advantage of conception risk in speed‐dating

AbstractDoes the ovulatory cycle play a role in women's allure to and receptivity towards men in a competitive dating scenario? We analyzed speed‐dates (Nobservations = 853 for men's attraction to women; Nobservations = 850 for women's attraction to men) involving 100 normally ovulating women and 132 men. We failed to document a competitive advantage of conception risk (or disadvantage of menstruation). Conception risk also did not predict women's ratings of men's desirability or attractiveness. However, women at a greater conception risk were marginally more likely to offer men second dates. We conclude that while the roles of conception risk or menstruation on women's allure are likely to be small and inconsequential in the context of intersexual selection, marginal effects on women's receptivity to men should be further explored.

Beyond categories: Perceiving sexual attraction from faces

Although people can categorize others’ sexual orientation (e.g., gay/lesbian vs. straight) from their facial appearance, not everyone defines their sexual orientation categorically. Indeed, many individuals within the same sexual orientation category experience different degrees of own‐ and other‐gender attraction. Moving beyond sexual orientation categories, we found that perceivers’ judgments of individuals’ sexual attraction correlated with those individuals’ self‐reported degrees of attraction to women and men. Similar to past work on sexual orientation categories, facial affect cued sexual attraction in men whereas gender typicality cued sexual attraction in women. Moreover, asking participants to categorize the targets as ‘not straight’ versus ‘straight’ revealed a linear pattern distinct from the discrete category thresholds typical of other social groups (e.g., race). Facial appearance thus reveals nuances in sexual attraction that support sexual orientation categorizations. These findings refine understanding of social categorization more broadly.