Woman’s Ideal Mate: Tall, Dark and Pretty?

Given a choice between a dewy-looking Leonardo DiCaprio type and a rugged Sean Connery sort of guy, women may be naturally attracted to the man with the more feminine face, researchers say.

A group of Scottish psychologists studying sexual behavior report that women tend to prefer the faces of men with more feminine features because they are perceived as gentler and more trustworthy.

The researchers theorize that this preference is not just a 1990s concept of beauty but something that is hard-wired into us by evolution: Evolution has seen to it that women choose men who are likely to be more loyal mates and better fathers to their children.

“We speculate that the preference has been around for a long time,” said Ian Penton-Voak of the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. “If you look at the evolutionary record, we’ve moved from a more robust form to a more gracile form as a species” in overall features.

In separate experiments in Scotland and Japan, researchers created a composite “average” face for a man and a woman from about 30 digital photos. The faces then were altered at key points, including the eyes, lips, noses and eyebrows, to make them more feminine or more masculine.

Ninety-two volunteers--college students and staff members ages 18 to 44, including 44 women--were asked to rate the faces according to such factors as warmth, emotionality, honesty, intelligence and dominance.

Both men and women preferred more feminine faces.

The researchers said the results also reflect the natural tendency to favor youth when seeking a mate. The masculine faces tended to look older to the volunteers, even though the photo composites were identical in age.

The study was published in the journal Nature.

It expands on earlier work by Lori Roggman of Utah State University and Judith Langlois at the University of Texas, whose 1990 study suggested that a computer combination of “average” facial features produces the most attractive face. Roggman and Langlois said the new research doesn’t necessarily conflict with theirs.

“In the real world, people would find both Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Connery attractive. You have to use some common sense about this,” Langlois said.

Roggman suggested that the latest findings may reflect “simple social pressure at a time in human history when we can afford the luxury of sweet men.”

But the researchers involved with the study said similar test results with different cultures in South Africa and the Amazon indicate there is a strong biological basis to the preference for feminized male faces.

Meanwhile, David Perrett, the University of St. Andrews psychologist who led the study, said men with more masculine faces should not despair. He said even rugged film stars can project qualities such as warmth and compassion with a smile.

“What counts in our situation is personality,” he said. “And Sean Connery seems to have gotten by with a pretty nice personality.”