How women choose men
IT is a common experience; an otherwise intelligent and sensible person falls head-over-heels for someone utterly unexpected. High school girls may lust after American actor Brad Pitt and their male counterparts swoon over singer Beyonce Knowles. What is that ‘X’ factor that makes you look at so
IT is a common experience; an otherwise intelligent and sensible person falls head-over-heels for someone utterly unexpected. High school girls may lust after American actor Brad Pitt and their male counterparts swoon over singer Beyonce Knowles. What is that ‘X’ factor that makes you look at someone and realise: this is the one?
Well, if you are a woman, part of the answer seems to be how much your prospective partner looks like your dad. This is according to researchers at Durham University led by Lynda Boothroyd, who have shown that women who have good childhood relationships with their fathers are more likely to select partners whose faces resemble those of their dads.
The researchers were looking for evidence of parental sexual imprinting, a sexual preference for individuals that have some of the characteristics of one’s parent. A group of women were shown photographs of men’s faces and asked to rate their attractiveness. The faces were measured (using callipers) and compared to the women’s fathers. The women were also asked to rate their relationships with their fathers, in terms of how much time he spent with them and how emotionally involved he was in their upbringing.
The study follows on from an earlier effort by another researcher, Tamas Bereczkei, showing that men’s wives bore a stronger resemblance to the men’s mothers if they had had a good relationship with them as children. The phenomenon of parental sexual imprinting has also been heavily studied in many animal species, like zebra finches.
No doubt there will be responses to this finding involving the words ‘Freud’ and ‘Oedipus’. But there are likely to be some advantages to this imprinting. For example, using your parents – a successful mating pair –– as a model of what to do seems like a good idea.
Well, if you are a woman, part of the answer seems to be how much your prospective partner looks like your dad. This is according to researchers at Durham University led by Lynda Boothroyd, who have shown that women who have good childhood relationships with their fathers are more likely to select partners whose faces resemble those of their dads.
The researchers were looking for evidence of parental sexual imprinting, a sexual preference for individuals that have some of the characteristics of one’s parent. A group of women were shown photographs of men’s faces and asked to rate their attractiveness. The faces were measured (using callipers) and compared to the women’s fathers. The women were also asked to rate their relationships with their fathers, in terms of how much time he spent with them and how emotionally involved he was in their upbringing.
The study follows on from an earlier effort by another researcher, Tamas Bereczkei, showing that men’s wives bore a stronger resemblance to the men’s mothers if they had had a good relationship with them as children. The phenomenon of parental sexual imprinting has also been heavily studied in many animal species, like zebra finches.
No doubt there will be responses to this finding involving the words ‘Freud’ and ‘Oedipus’. But there are likely to be some advantages to this imprinting. For example, using your parents – a successful mating pair –– as a model of what to do seems like a good idea.