Static and Dynamic Cues to Male Attractiveness

Most studies on facial attractiveness have relied on attractiveness judged from photographs rather than video clips. Only a few studies combined images and video sequences as stimuli. In order to determine static and dynamic cues to male attractiveness, we perform behavioural and computational analyses of the Mr. World 2014 contestants. We asked 365 participants to assess the attractiveness of images or video sequences (thin slices) taken from the profile videos of the Mr. World 2014 contestants. Each participant rated the attractiveness on a 7-point scale, ranging from very unattractive to very attractive. In addition, we performed computational analyses of the landmark representations of faces in images and videos to determine which types of static and dynamic facial information predict the attractiveness ratings. The behavioural study revealed that: (1) the attractiveness assessments of images and video sequences are highly correlated, and (2) the attractiveness assessment of videos was on average 0:25 point above that of images. The computational study showed (i) that for images and video sequence, three established measures of attractiveness correlate with attractiveness, and (ii) mouth movements correlate negatively with attractiveness ratings. The conclusion of the study is that thin slices of dynamical facial expressions contribute to the attractiveness of males in two ways: (i) in a positive way and (ii) in a negative way. The positive contribution is that presenting a male face in a dynamic way leads to a slight increase in attractiveness rating. The negative contribution is that mouth movements correlate negatively with attractiveness ratings.

Globalizing male attractiveness: Advertising in men’s lifestyle magazines in India

This study examines the construction of new models of masculinity in men’s lifestyle magazine advertising in India. Using textual analysis of advertisements, the study shows how certain kinds of western masculine ideals and body aesthetics are being adopted and reworked into advertising to appeal and facilitate consumption among middle and upper-class Indian men living in the urban centers of India. The contemporary construction of upper and aspirational middle-class masculinity includes size and hypermuscularity, fair skin/whiteness, and a view of self as global ethnic. These types of constructions help to globalize the male body and masculine ideal while also privileging whiteness and class in the local and global arena.

No support for intra-nor inter-locus sexual conflict over mating latency and copulation duration in a polyandrous fruit fly

The total strength of sexual selection on males depends on the relationship between various components of pre- and post-copulatory fitness. Misalignment between male and female interests creates inter-locus sexual conflict, where the fitness of one sex is increased at the expense of the other. Although rarely considered, mating behaviours can also be genetically correlated between males and females, creating intra-locus sexual conflict, where beneficial alleles in one sex are costly when expressed in the other sex. How inter- and intra-locus sexual conflicts operate on the expression of mating behaviours remains little understood. Here, we study male attractiveness, mating latency and copulation duration in two populations of the polyandrous Drosophila serrata. Univariate analyses show little genetic variance in mating latency, and that males, but not females, contribute to copulation duration genetic variance. Further, multivariate analyses revealed little covariance between the studied traits. However, analyses considering male and female contribution in a single framework supported genetic contributions from both sexes for mating behaviours and complex patterns of between sexes correlations. Finally, our study did not find any association between those mating behaviours and fitness component, specifically (i) no phenotypic covariance between male attractiveness and mating latency and, (ii) longer copulations did not result in the production of more offspring. With no detectable fitness benefits in any sexes for shorter mating latency or longer copulation duration, our results do not support the presence of inter-nor intra-locus sexual conflict for these mating traits.

Drosophila Sexual Attractiveness in Older Males Is Mediated by Their Microbiota

Age is well known to be a basis for female preference of males. However, the mechanisms underlying age-based choices are not well understood, with several competing theories and little consensus. The idea that the microbiota can affect host mate choice is gaining traction, and in this study we examine whether the male microbiota influences female preference for older individuals in the fruit fly Drosophila pseudoobscura. We find that an intact microbiota is a key component of attractiveness in older males. However, we found no evidence that this decrease in older male attractiveness was simply due to impaired microbiota generally reducing male quality. Instead, we suggest that the microbiota underlies an honest signal used by females to assess male age, and that impaired microbiota disrupt this signal. This suggests that age-based preferences may break down in environments where the microbiota is impaired, for example when individuals are exposed to naturally occurring antibiotics, extreme temperatures, or in animals reared in laboratories on antibiotic supplemented diet.

Problem-solving males become more attractive to female budgerigars

Darwin proposed that mate choice might contribute to the evolution of cognitive abilities. An open question is whether observing the cognitive skills of an individual makes it more attractive as a mate. In this study, we demonstrated that initially less-preferred budgerigar males became preferred after females observed that these males, but not the initially preferred ones, were able to solve extractive foraging problems. This preference shift did not occur in control experiments in which females observed males with free access to food or in which females observed female demonstrators solving these extractive foraging problems. Our results suggest that direct observation of problem-solving skills increases male attractiveness and that this could contribute to the evolution of the cognitive abilities underlying such skills.

The influence of leg-to-body ratio, arm-to-body ratio and intra-limb ratio on male human attractiveness

Human mate choice is influenced by limb proportions. Previous work has focused on leg-to-body ratio (LBR) as a determinant of male attractiveness and found a preference for limbs that are close to, or slightly above, the average. We investigated the influence of two other key aspects of limb morphology: arm-to-body ratio (ABR) and intra-limb ratio (IR). In three studies of heterosexual women from the USA, we tested the attractiveness of male physiques that varied in LBR, ABR and IR, using figures that ranged from −3 to +3 standard deviations from the population mean. We replicated previous work by finding that the optimally attractive LBR is approximately 0.5 standard deviations above the baseline. We also found a weak effect of IR, with evidence of a weak preference for the baseline proportions. In contrast, there was no effect of ABR on attractiveness, and no interactions between the effects of LBR, ABR and IR. Our results indicate that ABR is not an important determinant of human mate choice for this population, and that IR may exert some influence but that this is much smaller than the effects of LBR. We discuss possible reasons for these results, including the limited variability in upper limb proportions and the potentially weak fitness-signal provided by this aspect of morphology.