This thesis describes a series of studies that investigated sources of individual differences in face preferences. Chapter 1 summarises previous work identifying the visual parameters that influence the attractiveness of faces (e.g., sexual dimorphism, symmetry, averageness, apparent health) and discusses sources of individual differences in face preferences (e.g., menstrual cycle phase, own attractiveness, visual adaptation). Chapter 2 and 3 report a series of 3 studies that investigated the role that changes in testosterone level might play in cyclic (Chapter 2) and diurnal (Chapter 3) variation in women’s preferences for masculinity in men’s faces. Chapter 4 and 5 examined the relationship between reported general (i.e., trait) sex drive and women’s masculinity preferences (Chapter 4) and current (i.e., state) sexual motivation and women’s masculinity preferences (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 describes a study that tested for positive association between inter-individual variation in testosterone levels and women’s masculinity preferences. The final experiment chapter (Chapter 7) investigated whether aversions to facial cues of illness (e.g., pallor) reflect contagion avoidance behaviour by testing for an association between individual differences in perceived vulnerability to disease and aversions to facial cues of illness. The findings described in this thesis are evidence that testosterone level, sex drive/sexual motivation and perceived vulnerability to disease are sources of potentially adaptive variation in face preferences.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:446215 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Welling, Lisa Louise Margaret |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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