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Paired photographs of a male body before ( a ) and after ( b ) the removal of body hair. The photographs were presented to women in the forced-choice trial
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Humans are unique among primates due to a lack of typical thermally insulating fur. The ectoparasite avoidance mediated by the mate choice hypothesis suggests that the loss of body hair reduces the risk of infection by ectoparasites and that the movement toward nudity may have been enforced by parasite-mediated sexual selection. In this study, we i...
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... used the photographs of male participants which were used by Rantala et al. (2010) in their research on female preferences for male body hair. Briefly, 20 Finnish males with visible chests aged 20 – 32 years participated in the research. Front views of male torsos were taken under symmetrical lighting conditions from a fixed distance of 200 cm. Immediately after the photo session, the men were asked to shave their abdomen with a shaver, finishing with a razor blade and shaving cream. After shaving, a new set of pictures was taken with an identical setup (Fig. 1). More details can be found in Rantala et al. ...
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Based on the phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis, sexual selection should favour females that can accurately assess the recent mating history of available sexual partners and preferentially avoid mating with recently-mated males [who may be sperm depleted (SD)] so as to minimize the risk of their eggs not being fertilized. This hypothesis has rec...
Citations
... Relative to facial hair, research on women's preferences for men's body hair has also been mixed. Some studies have shown that women rate men with considerable body hair as more attractive [50,51], while other studies have shown that hairless men are rated higher in attractiveness [51][52][53][54][55][56][57]. The ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis proposes one reason why hairless men may be considered more attractive. ...
This chapter provides an overview of the literature on the sex differences in physical attractiveness, and how it influences mate choice. More specifically, it investigates evolutionary perspectives on men and women’s preferences for physical traits, such as ideal breast features in women, and masculine physical traits (i.e., muscularity, broad shoulders) in men. The chapter focuses on conditional (i.e., ecological/environmental) roles on mate preferences, in addition to examining possible individual differences, such as mate value. The chapter covers the following: (1) An overview of sex differences in attractiveness, including theoretical explanations, (2) A broad focus on women’s ideal preferences, (3) A broad focus on men’s ideal preferences, and (4) A discussion on conditional factors and individual differences influencing preferences for ideal traits.
... Older women across cultures also appear to prefer more body hair on men (Dixson et al., 2019). Women's preferences for hairless faces and bodies in men do not appear to be driven by ectoparasite exposure or actual pathogen prevalence, suggesting that ectoparasite avoidance and concerns over health may play less of a role in women's body hair preferences in men (Dixson et al., 2019;McIntosh et al., 2017;Prokop, Rantala, & Fančovičová, 2012). Women's attraction to men's facial hair may be guided by negative frequency-dependent selection, as cleanly shaven and bearded faces seem to become more attractive when they are a rare phenotype and less attractive when they are common (Janif et al., 2014). ...
Researchers have highlighted numerous sociocultural factors that have been shown to underpin human appearance enhancement practices, including the influence of peers, family, the media, and sexual objectification. Fewer scholars have approached appearance enhancement from an evolutionary perspective or considered how sociocultural factors interact with evolved psychology to produce appearance enhancement behavior. Following others, we argue that evidence from the field of evolutionary psychology can complement existing sociocultural models by yielding unique insight into the historical and cross-cultural ubiquity of competition over aspects of physical appearance to embody what is desired by potential mates. An evolutionary lens can help to make sense of reliable sex and individual differences that impact appearance enhancement, as well as the context-dependent nature of putative adaptations that function to increase physical attractiveness. In the current review, appearance enhancement is described as a self-promotion strategy used to enhance reproductive success by rendering oneself more attractive than rivals to mates, thereby increasing one’s mate value. The varied ways in which humans enhance their appearance are described, as well as the divergent tactics used by women and men to augment their appearance, which correspond to the preferences of opposite-sex mates in a heterosexual context. Evolutionarily relevant individual differences and contextual factors that vary predictably with appearance enhancement behavior are also discussed. The complementarity of sociocultural and evolutionary perspectives is emphasized and recommended avenues for future interdisciplinary research are provided for scholars interested in studying appearance enhancement behavior.
... The ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis suggests that sexual selection for reduced body hair may also have contributed to reduced hirsutism in humans [90]. While men's chest hair is judged to be sexually attractive among women from the UK and Cameroon, hairless chests are preferred among women from the USA, China, New Zealand, Finland, Brazil, Slovakia, Czechoslovakia and Turkey [95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104]. However, neither viewing photographic stimuli depicting diseases, illness and pathogens or responses to questionnaires measuring women's sensitivity to pathogens were linked to variation in women's attractiveness judgments of hair on the upper chest and abdomen in men [103,104]. ...
... While men's chest hair is judged to be sexually attractive among women from the UK and Cameroon, hairless chests are preferred among women from the USA, China, New Zealand, Finland, Brazil, Slovakia, Czechoslovakia and Turkey [95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104]. However, neither viewing photographic stimuli depicting diseases, illness and pathogens or responses to questionnaires measuring women's sensitivity to pathogens were linked to variation in women's attractiveness judgments of hair on the upper chest and abdomen in men [103,104]. Similarly, the attractiveness of facial hair was unchanged because of seeing images of pathogens or ectoparasites, although a positive relationship between disgust for pathogens and attractiveness ratings of beards was reported [86]. Whether or not this association between pathogen disgust and women's preferences for men's beardedness replicates remains to be determined. ...
... Alternatively, the ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis proposes that reduced body hair in humans was elaborated upon by sexual selection as mating with less hirsute individuals would have lessened the chance of intra-individual transmission of diseases carried by ectoparasites [87][88][89]. Past research did not report women's preferences for clean-shaven faces or hairless chests were higher in countries with higher pathogen levels [40,41,103] or following exposure to cues of pathogens or ectoparasites [86,104]. However, in support for hypothesis 4 in the current study, women's disgust ratings of ectoparasites were negatively associated with preferences for men's beards. ...
The strength and direction of sexual selection via female choice on masculine facial traits in men is a paradox in human mate choice research. While masculinity may communicate benefits to women and offspring directly (i.e. resources) or indirectly (i.e. health), masculine men may be costly as long-term partners owing to lower paternal investment. Mating strategy theory suggests women's preferences for masculine traits are strongest when the costs associated with masculinity are reduced. This study takes a multivariate approach to testing whether women's mate preferences are context-dependent. Women (n = 919) rated attractiveness when considering long-term and short-term relationships for male faces varying in beardedness (clean-shaven and full beards) and facial masculinity (30% and 60% feminized, unmanipulated, 30% and 60% masculinized). Participants then completed scales measuring pathogen, sexual and moral disgust, disgust towards ectoparasites, reproductive ambition, self-perceived mate value and the facial hair in partners and fathers. In contrast to past research, we found no associations between pathogen disgust, self-perceived mate value or reproductive ambition and facial masculinity preferences. However, we found a significant positive association between moral disgust and preferences for masculine faces and bearded faces. Preferences for beards were lower among women with higher ectoparasite disgust, providing evidence for ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis. However, women reporting higher pathogen disgust gave higher attractiveness ratings for bearded faces than women reporting lower pathogen disgust, providing support for parasite-stress theories of sexual selection and mate choice. Preferences for beards were also highest among single and married women with the strongest reproductive ambition. Overall, our results reflect mixed associations between individual differences in mating strategies and women's mate preferences for masculine facial traits.
... Women preferred clean-shaven men in a New Zealand and US sample where attractiveness declined as hirsuteness increased (Dixson et al. 2010). Brazilian and Czech women preferred clean-shaven and light body-haired men (Valentova et al. 2017), and similar findings for hairless chests have been found in Turkish and Slovakian women (Prokop et al. 2012(Prokop et al. , 2013. In a study investigating different categories of hirsuteness in a Hispanic sample (i.e., clean shaven, facial hair, chest hair, and facial and chest hair), Garza et al. (2017) did not find any significant differences in attractiveness ratings between hirsuteness categories. ...
Physical characteristics, such as a V-shaped torso and body hair, are visually salient information that reflect a potential mate’s immunocompetence, status, and reproductive potential (Dixson et al. 2014; Singh 1994), and are thus often desired by women. Recently, the use of eye tracking in attraction research has demonstrated that visual patterns are behavioral indices of interest in a potential mate. Two studies investigated women’s visual perception of men’s attractiveness across different phases of the menstrual cycle (i.e., low vs. high fertility) while manipulating hair distribution across waist to chest ratios. In study 1 (N = 83), men with low (0.7) waist to chest ratios were rated as more attractive, and women focused most of their visual attention to the upper region of the body (i.e., head and midriff). There were no differences in visual attention as a function of fertility status. Study 2 (N = 53) replicated the findings from study 1 and found support for visual differences across the menstrual cycle using progesterone. Women viewed the head region (i.e., face) longer and took more time viewing men in general during the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle (low progesterone) compared to the nonfertile phase (high progesterone). Study 2 also showed that visual attention to the head and chest region was influenced by short-term mating orientation. The findings add to the existing literature on visual attention and attraction, and they contribute new findings in determining differences in visual perception across the menstrual cycle and mating orientation in women.
... Pronounced chest hair was preferred among women from the UK (Dixson et al. 2003), Bakossi women of Cameroon judged moderate amounts of chest hair as most attractive (Dixson et al. 2007a), while women from Brazil and Czech Republic stated preferences for hairless and very light body hair (Valentova et al. 2017). Women judged hairless chests as most attractive in Finland, China, Turkey, New Zealand, Slovakia and the U.S (Dixson et al. 2007b(Dixson et al. , 2010Prokop et al. 2012Prokop et al. , 2013Rantala et al. 2010). Like men's facial hair, there is little evidence that women's preferences for men's chest hair are stronger at the peri-ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle Rantala 2016, 2017;Rantala et al. 2010;Prokop et al. 2013). ...
... Ectoparasite avoidance could also have shaped mate preferences for reduced hirsutism as beards and body hair may provide appropriate habitat for disease carrying ectoparasites to breed (Pagel and Bodmer 2003;Rantala 1999). However, women's preferences beards and body hair were not lower following exposure to stimuli depicting pathogens and ectoparasites (McIntosh et al. 2017;Prokop et al. 2012). Whether or not cross-cultural variation in women's preferences for men's chest and abdominal hair conform to those reported for facial hair and facial masculinity or patterns associated with parasite avoidance strategies remains to be determined. ...
... In the current study, none of the measures of pathogen prevalence (current or historic), health or lifespan were associated with women's preferences for male body hair. This finding is in keeping with past cross-cultural studies involving comparisons between two cultures (Prokop et al. 2013;Valentova et al. 2017) and experimental studies showing that exposure to pathogenic cues, including ectoparasites, does not reduce women's preferences for men's chest hair or beardedness (McIntosh et al. 2017;Prokop et al. 2012). One study comparing variation in women's pathogen disgust and preferences for men's beards reported a positive relationship between women's preferences for facial hair and their self-reported pathogen disgust, which is the opposite relationship to that predicted by the ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis (McIntosh et al. 2017). ...
Objectives
According to the ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis, natural selection has shaped human hairlessness to reduce the potential for the body to host disease carrying ectoparasites. However, men retain sexually dimorphic and conspicuous patches of facial and body hair. The ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis also proposes that sexual selection via women’s mate preferences for reduced hirsutism has further elaborated upon the reduction in body hair and could explain variation in women’s preferences for body hair in men. The current study tests this hypothesis using cross-cultural data from 30 countries on women’s preferences for chest hair.Methods
We test whether heterosexual women’s (N = 3436) preferences for reduced hirsutism are most pronounced in countries with higher disease and parasite levels or whether other social and economic factors previously shown to influence preferences for facial masculinity and beardedness predict women’s preferences for chest hair.ResultsWe found that preferences were unrelated to past or current disease rates. Instead, preferences for body hair were stronger among women who were older, had strong preferences for facial hair, and were from countries that had male-biased sex ratios, higher human development indices, and lower education indices. Women’s body hair preferences were also associated with facial masculinity preferences and gender empowerment. However, neither these terms, nor human development indices or education indices were individually significant in their contributions to the family of best-fit models and we suggest caution when interpreting their significance.Conclusions
Women’s preferences for body hair may be strongest among women from countries where male-male competition is higher and preferences for beardedness are stronger rather than where prevailing ecological conditions my impact on maternal and offspring survival.
... Women preferred clean-shaven men in a New Zealand and US sample where attractiveness declined as hirsuteness increased (Dixson et al. 2010). Brazilian and Czech women preferred clean-shaven and light body-haired men (Valentova et al. 2017), and similar findings for hairless chests have been found in Turkish and Slovakian women (Prokop et al. 2012(Prokop et al. , 2013. In a study investigating different categories of hirsuteness in a Hispanic sample (i.e., clean shaven, facial hair, chest hair, and facial and chest hair), Garza et al. (2017) did not find any significant differences in attractiveness ratings between hirsuteness categories. ...
Physical characteristics, such as a V-shaped torso and body hair, are visually salient information that reflect a potential mate’s immunocompetence, status, and reproductive potential (Dixson et al. 2014; Singh 1994), and are thus often desired by women. Recently, the use of eye tracking in attraction research has demonstrated that visual patterns are behavioral indices of interest in a potential mate. Two studies investigated women’s visual perception of men’s attractiveness across different phases of the menstrual cycle (i.e., low vs. high fertility) while manipulating hair distribution across waist to chest ratios. In study 1 (N = 83), men with low (0.7) waist to chest ratios were rated as more attractive, and women focused most of their visual attention to the upper region of the body (i.e., head and midriff). There were no differences in visual attention as a function of fertility status. Study 2 (N = 53) replicated the findings from study 1 and found support for visual differences across the menstrual cycle using progesterone. Women viewed the head region (i.e., face) longer and took more time viewing men in general during the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle (low progesterone) compared to the nonfertile phase (high progesterone). Study 2 also showed that visual attention to the head and chest region was influenced by short-term mating orientation. The findings add to the existing literature on visual attention and attraction, and they contribute new findings in determining differences in visual perception across the menstrual cycle and mating orientation in women.
... The selective advantage of hairlessness may have been accelerated by sexual selection if hairlessness was subsequently used as a cue to lower ectoparasite load. Several studies [92,93] have attempted to support the sexual selection account indirectly by showing that the contribution of body hair to attractiveness is influenced by pathogen prevalence, perceived vulnerability to disease, or disgust reactions to both cues of contaminants and cues of ectoparasites. The logic of these studies is that being hairless should be particularly attractive when pathogen or ectoparasite risk is elevated, especially among those who are most sensitive to disease threats. ...
Currently, disgust is regarded as the main adaptation for defence against pathogens and parasites in humans. Disgust's motivational and behavioural features, including withdrawal, nausea, appetite suppression and the urge to vomit, defend effectively against ingesting or touching sources of pathogens. However, ectoparasites do not attack their hosts via ingestion, but rather actively attach themselves to the body surface. Accordingly, by itself, disgust offers limited defence against ectoparasites. We propose that, like non-human animals, humans have a distinct ectoparasite defence system that includes cutaneous sensory mechanisms, itch-generation mechanisms and grooming behaviours. The existence of adaptations for ectoparasite defence is supported by abundant evidence from non-human animals, as well as more recent evidence concerning human responses to ectoparasite cues. Several clinical disorders may be dysfunctions of the ectoparasite defence system, including some that are pathologies of grooming, such as skin picking and trichotillomania, and others, such as delusory parasitosis and trypophobia, which are pathologies of ectoparasite detection. We conclude that future research should explore both distinctions between, and overlap across, ectoparasite defence systems and pathogen avoidance systems, as doing so will not only illuminate proximate motivational systems, including disgust, but may also reveal important clinical and social consequences.
This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Evolution of pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours'.
... following exposure to pathogenic stimuli. Our findings from the present study support past research showing that priming to ectoparasites and pathogens do not alter women's preferences for men's chest and trunk hair [66] and suggests that the ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis may not explain variation in women's preference for androgen dependent facial or body hair in men. ...
Women’s preferences for men’s androgen dependent secondary sexual traits are proposed to be phenotypically plastic in response to exposure to pathogens and pathogen disgust. While previous studies report that masculinity in facial shape is more attractive to women who have recently been exposed to pathogenic cues and who are high in self-reported pathogen disgust, facial hair may reduce male attractiveness under conditions of high pathogens as beards are a possible breeding ground for disease carrying ectoparasites. In the present study, we test whether women’s preferences for beardedness and facial masculinity vary due to exposure to different pathogenic cues. Participants (N = 688, mean age + 1SD = 31.94 years, SD = 6.69, range = 18–67) rated the attractiveness of facial composite stimuli of men when they were clean-shaven or fully bearded. These stimuli were also manipulated in order to vary sexual dimorphism by ±50%. Ratings were conducted before and after exposure to one of four experimental treatments in which participants were primed to either high pathogens (e.g. infected cuts), ectoparasites (e.g. body lice), a mixture of pathogens and ectoparasites, or a control condition (e.g. innocuous liquids). Participants then completed the three-domain disgust scale measuring attitudes to moral, sexual and pathogen disgust. We predicted that women would prefer facial masculinity following exposure to pathogenic cues, but would show reduced preferences for facial hair following exposure to ectoparasites. Women preferred full beards over clean-shaven faces and masculinised over feminised faces. However, none of the experimental treatments influenced the direction of preferences for facial masculinity or beardedness. We also found no association between women’s self-reported pathogen disgust and their preferences for facial masculinity. However, there was a weak positive association between moral disgust scores and preferences for facial masculinity, which might reflect conservatism and preferences for gender typicality in faces. Women’s preferences for beards were positively associated with their pathogen disgust, which runs contrary to our predictions and may reflect preferences for high quality individuals who can withstand any costs of beardedness, although further replications are necessary before firm conclusions can be made. We conclude that there is little support for pathogenic exposure being a mechanism that underpins women’s directional preferences for masculine traits.
... In some studies, women prefer beards (Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986;Pellegrini, 1973;Reed and Blunk, 1990), while in others intermediate levels of stubble (Dixson & Brooks, 2013;Janif, Brooks, & Dixson, 2014;Neave & Shields, 2008), or clean-shaven faces (Dixson & Vasey, 2012;Geniole & McCormick, 2015;Muscarella & Cunningham, 1996). Likewise, women's preferences for chest hair range from pronounced in the UK (Dixson, Halliwell, East, Wignarajah, & Anderson, 2003), to moderate in Cameroon (Dixson, Dixson, Morgan, & Anderson, 2007), and hairless chests in the USA, New Zealand, China, Finland, Turkey, and Slovakia (Dixson, Dixson, Bishop, & Parish, 2010;Dixson, Dixson, Li, & Anderson, 2007;Prokop, Rantala, & Fančovičová, 2012;Prokop, Rantala, Usak, & Senay, 2013;Rantala, Pölkki, Rantala, Polkki, & Rantala, 2010). Besides the varying methods used between studies, these mixed findings may have arisen due to the associations between facial and body hair and perceptions of dominance and aggressiveness (Puts, 2010;Saxton, Mackey, McCarty, & Neave, 2016;Sherlock, Tegg, Sullikowski, & Dixson, 2016). ...
Recent research has reported that male body and facial hair influence women's mate preferences. However, it is not clear whether such preferences are typical for women or for individuals who prefer males as sexual partners. Here we explored body and facial hair in preferred and actual partners among men and women who prefer men as sexual partners. Including homosexual individuals provides a unique opportunity to investigate whether evolved mating psychologies are specific to the sex of the individual or sex of the partner. Based on an online survey of 1577 participants from Brazil and the Czech Republic, we found that, on average, homosexual men preferred hairier stimuli than heterosexual women, supporting past findings that homosexual men have strong preferences for masculine traits. Preferences for facial and body hair appear to be influenced less by sex of the preferred partner than sex of the individual, pointing to a possible sex-specific mating psychology. Further, Brazilians preferred bigger beards than Czechs, which was positively associated with the self-reported amount of beardedness in Brazil, suggesting that familiarity effects underpin cross-cultural differences in preferences for facial hair. Moreover, homosexual men preferred a self-similar degree of beardedness, and Czech women preferred a similar degree of beardedness as their fathers had during their childhood. However, these effects were not associated with the level of facial hair in their actual partners; in general, mate preferences and actual mate choices for facial and body hair differed. Thus, individual differences in some self-reported characteristics, cultural factors and aspects of personal experience may modulate differences in preferences for masculine traits.
... Another alternative is that hair loss is linked to efficient sweating (Ruxton & Wilkinson 2011). While perception of male body hair by females has received significant attention (e.g., Dixson et al. 2010;Prokop et al. 2012;Prokop et al. 2013;Rantala et al. 2010), the way in which males perceive female hair is less known (Basow & Braman 1998). This is particularly surprising because females have less body hair than males (Darwin 1871) suggesting that evolutionary pressures favouring hairless skin in females were stronger than pressures on men. ...
... A previous study showed that female preference for chest hair in males was not linked to parasite threat (Prokop et al. 2012). This suggests that higher PD and/or preference for shaved females may not be linked to ectoparasite avoidance. ...
The ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis proposes that human hairlessness was favoured by sexual selection, because hairless individuals suffered from lower parasite loads. Females have seemingly less hairy bodies than men suggesting that the selection toward hairlessness is more intense in females than in males. This study examined male preference for hairy and shaved female genitalia. Pubic hair, although still functional in terms of dissipation of phermononal secretions, was perceived by heterosexual males recruited in the university (age range: 19-38 years, N = 96) as much less attractive as shaved female genitalia. Males who were more disgust sensitive and those who were sexually unrestricted showed a stronger preference for shaved genitalia than others. Self-reported frequency of pornography consumption was associated, contrary to expectations, with a stronger preference for hairy genitalia which suggests that this may be a result of negative frequency dependent selection. Older males also preferred hairy genitalia more than younger males. Overall, these results suggest that a preference for shaved genitalia may be explained by the superficial resemblance of pubic hair with chest hair, which is less developed as in our evolutionary past, perhaps due to the benefits associated with ectoparasite avoidance.
