A wide or broad face is more attractive for a male in certain circumstances as it signals dominance.
For short-term relationships, women are more attracted to a wide face, research finds.
Men with a wide face are seen as more dominant and aggressive.
Dr Katherine Valentine, the study’s first author, said:
“Our study shows that within three minutes of meeting in real life, women find more dominant, wider-faced men attractive for short-term relationships, and want to go on another date with them.”
A wide face signals dominance
For the study, the researchers measured men’s facial width to height ratio, their fWHR.
Dr Valentine explained:
“High male fWHR has previously been associated with surviving in hand-to-hand combat, aggressiveness, self-perceived power, and CEO’s financial success.
Our study shows it’s also a reasonably good indicator of perceived dominance — not only that, it piques women’s interest in a face-to-face speed-dating setting.”
The study involved live speed dating in which heterosexual single people met for just 3 minutes.
Men with the widest or broadest faces (more accurately, the highest fWHR) were rated as more dominant.
They were more likely to be chosen for a short-term relationship.
Women were also more likely to choose them for a second date as well.
Dr Valentine said:
“The fact that women wanted to see these men again suggests that our findings are robust — women aren’t just saying they are interested, they’re actually willing to be contacted by these men.
Previous studies have found that women prefer more dominant men for short-term relationships, but almost all of these studies were based in the lab and did not involve an interaction that could actually lead to mating and dating.”
The researchers took into account the age and attractiveness of the men — in other words it wasn’t just that men with wider faces (or of a certain age) were more attractive.
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Valentine et al., 2014).
