Chicago – Women looking for a long-term relationship like men who like children – and they can tell which guys might be interested in becoming fathers by looking at their faces.
Those are among the findings of a study of college students published today in a British scientific journal.
“This study suggests that women are picking up on facial cues that are perhaps related to paternal qualities,” said James Roney, a University of California at Santa Barbara psychologist and lead author of the study.
“The more they perceived the men as liking kids, the more likely they could see having a longer-term relationship,” Roney said.
Experts said evolution has apparently programmed women to recognize men who might be interested in propagating the species by raising a family.
The study – in which women viewed photos of men whose preferences for children and testosterone levels were recorded – wasn’t all bad news for men not interested in settling down.
It found that women can look at men’s faces and figure out which of them have the highest testosterone levels. The features that research has suggested denote high testosterone levels include a prominent jaw and a heavy beard.
Those men – rated the most masculine by the women – turn out to be just the kind of guys they would want for a fling.
“Women make very good use of any information they get from a man’s face,” said co-author Dario Maestripieri, an associate professor of comparative human development at the University of Chicago. “Depending on what they want and where they are in their lives, they use this information differently.”
The study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
