Geniole Shawn N, McCormick Cheryl M
Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada.
Evol Psychol. 2013 Nov 5;11(5):1027-43. doi: 10.1177/147470491301100507.
Women's preferences for masculine-looking male faces are inconsistent across studies, with some studies finding a positive relationship between masculinity and attractiveness and others finding a negative relationship or no association. One possible reason for this inconsistency is that the perception of masculinity is also associated with perceptions of aggression, which may be viewed as particularly costly to women (aggressive individuals are more likely to experience injury or death). Based on the proposal that women's preference for masculinity is in conflict with their aversion for aggression in male faces, we hypothesized that the bivariate associations between perceptions of masculinity and attractiveness would be weak or negative, but would be positive and significantly stronger after controlling statistically for perceptions of aggression. Across three studies involving three sets of faces (n = 25, 54, 24) and five sets of raters (n = 29, 30, 26, 16, 10), this hypothesis was supported with the average correlation between perceptions of masculinity and attractiveness (r = -.09) reversing in direction and substantially increasing in magnitude after perceptions of aggression were controlled statistically (r = .35). Perceived masculinity may thus involve both attractive and unattractive components, and women's preferences for masculinity may involve weighing its relative costs and benefits.
在各项研究中，女性对具有阳刚之气男性面孔的偏好并不一致，一些研究发现阳刚之气与吸引力之间存在正相关关系，而另一些研究则发现二者呈负相关关系或无关联。造成这种不一致的一个可能原因是，对阳刚之气的认知也与对攻击性的认知相关，而攻击性可能被女性视为代价高昂（好斗的个体更容易受伤或死亡）。基于女性对阳刚之气的偏好与她们对男性面孔中攻击性的厌恶相冲突这一观点，我们假设，阳刚之气认知与吸引力之间的双变量关联会很弱或呈负相关，但在对攻击性认知进行统计控制后，这种关联会呈正相关且显著增强。在涉及三组面孔（n = 25、54、24）和五组评分者（n = 29、30、26、16、10）的三项研究中，这一假设得到了支持，阳刚之气认知与吸引力之间的平均相关性（r = -0.09）在对攻击性认知进行统计控制后，方向发生逆转且幅度大幅增加（r = 0.35）。因此，感知到的阳刚之气可能既包含有吸引力的成分，也包含无吸引力的成分，而女性对阳刚之气的偏好可能涉及权衡其相对成本和收益。
