Faculty of Natural Sciences, Division of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland.
Evol Psychol. 2023 Jul-Sep;21(3):14747049231175073. doi: 10.1177/14747049231175073.
Facial femininity in men is purportedly used as a cue by women as a signal of parental quality and willingness to provide resources. Accordingly, in contexts where choosing a partner that will provide resources is more beneficial (e.g., when resources are scarce), women have shown an increase preference for facial femininity in male faces. However, domains of scarcity often covary, and it is, therefore, unclear whether these contextual shifts in facial masculinity/femininity preferences are specific to material scarcity (as implied by previous theory), or due to an unrelated domain of scarcity (e.g., time or psychological scarcity). Here, a sample of 823 women completed the Perceived Scarcity Scale, which measures three separate domains of scarcity: material scarcity, time scarcity, and psychological scarcity. Participants also rated the attractiveness of 42 male faces, which were measured on objective sexual dimorphism and perceived masculinity. Consistent with theory, material scarcity, and not time or psychological scarcity, was associated with a decreased preference for objective sexual dimorphism (i.e., an increased preference for facial femininity). This study provides evidence that women use sexual dimorphism as a cue to material resource provisioning potential when assessing men as a mate.
男性的面部女性化据称被女性用作信号，以表明其父母的素质和提供资源的意愿。因此，在选择提供资源的伴侣更有益的情况下（例如，资源稀缺时），女性对男性面部的女性化特征表现出了更高的偏好。然而，稀缺领域往往是相互关联的，因此，目前尚不清楚这些面部男性化/女性化偏好的背景变化是特定于物质稀缺（如先前理论所暗示的），还是由于无关的稀缺领域（例如，时间或心理稀缺）。在这里，一个由 823 名女性组成的样本完成了感知稀缺量表，该量表测量了三个不同的稀缺领域：物质稀缺、时间稀缺和心理稀缺。参与者还对 42 名男性面孔的吸引力进行了评分，这些男性面孔的客观性别二态性和感知的男性气概都进行了测量。与理论一致的是，物质稀缺（而不是时间或心理稀缺）与对客观性别二态性（即对女性化面部的偏好增加）的偏好降低有关。这项研究提供了证据表明，女性在评估男性作为伴侣时，会将性别二态性作为物质资源供应潜力的信号。
