Sex-typicality and attractiveness: are supermale and superfemale faces super-attractive
Abstract
Many animals find extreme versions of secondary sexual characteristics attractive, and such preferences can enhance reproductive success (Andersson, 1994). We hypothesized, therefore, that extreme versions of sex-typical traits may be attractive in human faces. We created supermale and superfemale faces by exaggerating all spatial differences between an average male and an average female face. In Expt 1 the male average was preferred to a supermale (50% exaggeration of differences from the female average). There was no clear preference for the female average or the superfemale (50% exaggeration). In Expt 2, participants chose the most attractive face from sets of images containing feminized as well as masculinized images for each sex, and spanning a wider range of exaggeration levels than in Expt 1. Chinese sets were also shown, to see whether similar preferences would occur for a less familiar race (participants were Caucasian). The most attractive female image was significantly feminized for faces of both races. However, the most attractive male image for both races was also significantly feminized. These results indicate that feminization, rather than sex exaggeration per se, is attractive in human faces, and they corroborate similar findings by Perrett et al. (1998).
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There is some evidence from the face perception literature that an average face, one closer to the population mean, is consistently rated as being attractive.
“There is some evidence from the face perception literature that an average face, one closer to the population mean, is consistently rated as being attractive (Rhodes et al., 2000; Valentine et al., 2004; Potter and Corneille, 2008).”
From The degree to which the cultural ideal is internalized predicts judgments of male and female physical attractiveness (2022) · cites this paper as Rhodes et al., 2000
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“…thin lips, square chins, and small eyes) were preferred to feminized ones (Keating 1985), but more recent studies using photographic sex continua generally show a preference for feminized male faces (Penton-Voak et al. 2004, Perrett et al. 1998, Rhodes et al. 2000; but see Johnston et al. 2001).”
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“As masculine traits have been linked to aspects of male quality (e.g. immunocompetence, health, dominance; Folstad & Karter 1992; Rhodes et al. 2000, 2003; Johnston et al. 2001), the preference for males with low fundamental frequencies is potentially adaptive.”
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“An evolutionary approach to facial attractiveness proposes that male preferences for feminine female faces (Perrett et al. 1994, 1998; Jones 1995; Rhodes et al. 2000) reflect an adaptation to identifying healthy and fertile mates (Thornhill & Gangestad 1999).”
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“A few extreme traits may be more attractive than average onesöeg feminised traits (Perrett et al 1998; Rhodes et al 2000), neotonous traits (Zebrowitz 1997)öbut average facial configurations are still more attractive than most faces, and this preference must be explained.”
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Rhodes, G., Zebrowitz, L. A., Clark, A., Kalick, S. M., Hightower, A., & McKay, R. (2001) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/s1090-5138(00)00060-x · Cited by 314 · see citing works
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“…female faces (Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammer, 2001; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes, Hickford, & Jeffery, 2000) and male faces (Little, Burt, Penton-Voak, & Perrett, 2001; Little & Hancock, 2002; Little, Jones, Penton-Voak, Burt, & Perrett, 2002; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
When Facial Attractiveness is Only Skin Deep
Jones, B. C., Little, A. C., Burt, D. M., & Perrett, D. I. (2004) · Perception · doi:10.1068/p3463 · Cited by 250 · see citing works
“Furthermore, female faces with a feminine shape, typified by large eyes and pronounced cheekbones (Penton-Voak et al 2001), are judged highly attractive (Perrett et al 1998; Rhodes et al 2000).”
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“…masculine than average in some studies (DeBruine et al., 2006; Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammer, 2001), although other studies have found women to prefer faces on the feminine side of the male average (DeBruine, Jones, Smith, & Little, 2010; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
ResultCorrelated preferences for men's facial and vocal masculinity
Feinberg, D., DeBruine, L., Jones, B., & Little, A. (2008) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.12.008 · Cited by 207 · see citing works
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“Sexual dimorphisms and attractiveness seem to differ between men and women in general, with attractiveness and femininity being directly correlated for women, but with attractiveness and masculinity lacking correlation or even being inversely correlated in men.(5,18,19) The very fact that human faces are relatively ha…”
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“One possibility is that homosexuals possess low fluctuating asymmetry which is known to be associated with greater attractiveness (Rhodes et al., 2000; Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999).”
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“Increasing the masculinity of a male face through morphing has been found both to make the face less attractive (Perrett et al 1998; Rhodes et al 2000) and to make it more attractive (Johnston et al 2001).”
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“Nonetheless, preferences are robust across different women and across cultures (Perrett et al. 1998; Rhodes et al. 2000).”
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“Studies in which sexual dimorphism appeared to be most restricted to shape cues typically showed that femininity is attractive in males (Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
BackgroundPerceptual adaptation affects attractiveness of female bodies
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“Faces were manipulated in sexual dimorphism of face shape with computer-graphic methods that exaggerate the twodimensional (2D) vector differences between average male and average female face shapes (sensu Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
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“, 2006; Grammer and Thornhill, 1994) and others showing attraction to femininity (Berry and McArthur, 1985; Cunningham et al., 1990; Little and Hancock, 2002; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
Shape analysis of female facial attractiveness
Valenzano, D. R., Mennucci, A., Tartarelli, G., & Cellerino, A. (2005) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/j.visres.2005.10.024 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
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“In prior studies, these manipulations have been shown to alter masculinity ratings in the predicted way (DeBruine et al., 2006; Penton-Voak, Jacobson, & Trivers, 2004; Penton-Voak & Perrett, 2000; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes, Hickford, & Jeffery, 2000 ).”
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Genetic factors predisposing to homosexuality may increase mating success in heterosexuals☆
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“2006; Grammer & Thornhill 1994) and others show attraction to femininity (Berry & McArthur 1985; Cunningham et al. 1990; Little & Hancock 2002; Perrett et al. 1998; Rhodes et al. 2000).”
BackgroundAre human preferences for facial symmetry focused on signals of developmental instability?
Simmons, L. W., Rhodes, G., Peters, M., & Koehler, N. (2004) · Behavioral Ecology · doi:10.1093/beheco/arh099 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
“Masculinity in male faces has been shown to contribute to attractiveness in some studies (Grammer and Thornhill, 1994; Johnstone et al., 2001; Penton-Voak et al., 1999) but not others (Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000; Swaddle and Reierson, 2002).”
BackgroundSelf-citationAttractiveness of Own-Race, Other-Race, and Mixed-Race Faces
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“…or pleasant expressions (for a review see Rhodes et al 2001a) and, although some extremes can be more attractive than average traits (eg feminised traitsöPerrett et al 1998; Rhodes et al 2000; neotenous traitsöZebrowitz 1997), the fact remains that average faces are more attractive than most.”
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“Feminine voices (Feinberg et al., 2008; Puts et al., 2011) and faces (Rhodes, 2006; Rhodes et al., 2000) are generally perceived to be more attractive in women, and their expression is related to lower testosterone levels compared to males across puberty (Puts et al., 2012c).”
BackgroundFacial masculinity is related to perceived age but not perceived health
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“…in male faces may conflict with previous findings showing overall preferences for femininity (Perrett et al. 1998; Penton-Voak et al. 1999; Rhodes et al. 2000; Little et al. 2001; Little and Hancock 2002), in fact variability in masculinity preferences has been highlighted in previous…”
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“Specifically, we assessed adults’ attractiveness preferences for dimorphically female-transformed male facial images that were similar to images used in previous studies (e.g., Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000) and compared those results with adult preferences for averages of masculine and feminine male faces…”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialGood genes, complementary genes and human mate preferences
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The Gendered Face of Partisan Politics: Consequences of Facial Sex Typicality for Vote Choice
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Chickens prefer beautiful humans
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BackgroundBotulinum Toxin Injections for Masseter Reduction in East Asians
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ResultEffect of averageness and sexual dimorphism on the judgment of facial attractiveness
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“However, many other studies have shown that male faces more feminine than the average are preferred (Little & Hancock, 2002; Little, Jones, PentonVoak, Burt, & Perrett, 2002; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
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“First, we replicated previous findings that femininity is generally attractive to men (Cunningham, 1986; Law Smith et al., 2006; Little et al., 2007; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
BackgroundBiased allocation of faces to social categories.
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“Attractiveness, studied by numerous researchers (e.g. Eysenck & Wilson, 1979; Smith, 1997; Rhodes et al., 2000), has its relevance in dating and intimacy.”
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“…2003, 2007; Saxton et al. 2009; Scheib et al. 1999), but in contrast to other studies which reported that overall, women prefer a close to average or slightly feminine male face shape (Little et al. 2001; Penton-Voak et al. 2004, 2003; Perrett et al. 1998; Rhodes et al. 2000; Scott et al. 2010).”
Inter-rater agreement in trait judgements from faces
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“Several studies have shown that female faces that, on a morphing continuum, have more feminine attributes than average ones, are rated as more attractive than the averaged female face (Gillen 1981; Keating 1985; Perrett et al 1994, 1998; Rhodes et al 2000).”
BackgroundUnrestricted sociosexuality predicts preferences for extraverted male faces
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“Keywords: attractiveness, face, voice, sexual orientation”
BackgroundThe faces of desirable mates and dates contain mixed social status cues
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“This is similar to findings from other studies of women’s facial masculinity preferences (Perrett et al. 1998; Rhodes et al. 2000; Little et al. 2002; Welling et al. 2008).”
ResultAnalyses of Facial Attractiveness on Feminised and Juvenilised Faces
Ishi, H., Gyoba, J., Kamachi, M., Mukaida, S., & Akamatsu, S. (2004) · Perception · doi:10.1068/p3301 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
“Furthermore, it has been reported that consistent deviations from averageness can lead to increased attractiveness for both male and female faces (Perrett et al 1998; Rhodes et al 2000).”
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“For example, exaggerating sex-typical shape characteristics in images of women’s faces increases their perceived attractiveness [6,7], but tends to decrease their perceived dominance [6,8].”
Quantitative genetic models of sexual selection by male choice
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“correlated positively with facial attractiveness (more masculine males were more attractive) which is against the established norms [3].”
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“1999; PUTS 2005; PUTS 2006), and that extreme sexually dimorphic features are not preferred (RHODES et al. 2000), it appears that faces and voices are stabilised.”
BackgroundBorau, S., & Bonnefon, J. (2019) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.007 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
“While some of these traits are not always preferred by women (e.g., beards or other highly masculi-nized features; Dixson & Vasey, 2012; Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes, Hickford, & Je ff ery, 2000), others are perceived as attractive by many heterosexual women.”
Nakamura, K., & Watanabe, K. (2019) · Royal Society Open Science · doi:10.1098/rsos.182189 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Facial attractiveness and preference of sexual dimorphism: A comparison across five populations
Fiala, V., Třebický, V., Pazhoohi, F., Leongómez, J. D., Tureček, P., Sarıbay, S. A., Akoko, R. M., & Kleisner, K. (2021) · Evolutionary Human Sciences · doi:10.1017/ehs.2021.33 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
“The results therefore do not support unequivocal conclusions that either masculine (Foo, Simmons, et al., 2017; Skrinda et al., 2014) or relatively more feminine (Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes et al., 2000) facial traits are universally preferred in male faces.”
BackgroundResultInfluentialNeuro-dynamics of executive control in bilingual language switching: An MEG study
Zhu, J. D., Seymour, R. A., Szakay, A., & Sowman, P. F. (2020) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104247 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Hills, P. J., Holland, A. M., & Lewis, M. B. (2010) · Cognitive Development · doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2010.01.002 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
The Influence of Recent Experience on Perceptions of Attractiveness
Cooper, P. A., & Maurer, D. M. (2008) · Perception · doi:10.1068/p5865 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
“…et al 2001; Rubenstein et al 1999; Valentine et al 2004), symmetry (Little et al 2007; Perrett et al 1999; Rhodes et al 1998), and secondary sexual characteristics (Baudouin and Tiberghien 2004; Perrett et al 1994, 1998; Rhodes et al 2000; see Rhodes 2006 for a meta-analysis of the three effects).”
BackgroundThe Importance of Aesthetics in Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Veale, D. M., & Lambrou, C. (2002) · CNS Spectrums · doi:10.1017/s1092852900017922 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Male Homosexual Preference: Femininity and the Older Brother Effect in Indonesia
Nila, S., Crochet, P., Barthes, J., Rianti, P., Juliandi, B., Suryobroto, B., & Michel Raymond, A. (2019) · Evolutionary Psychology · doi:10.1177/1474704919880701 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Welling, L. L. M., Singh, K. N., Puts, D. A., Jones, B. C., & Burriss, R. P. (2013) · Archives of Sexual Behavior · doi:10.1007/s10508-012-0059-8 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Preferences for sexual dimorphism on attractiveness levels: An eye-tracking study
Yang, T., Chen, H., Hu, Y., Zheng, Y., & Wang, W. (2015) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.12.005 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Is female attractiveness related to final reproductive success?
Pawłowski, B., Boothroyd, L. G., Perrett, D. I., & Kluska, S. (2008) · PubMed · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Bereczkei, T., & Meskó, N. (2007) · University of Zagreb University Computing Centre (SRCE) · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Children's recognition of caricatures.
Chang, P. P. W., Levine, S. C., & Benson, P. J. (2002) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037//0012-1649.38.6.1038 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Facial attractiveness: Variation, adaptiveness and consequences of facial preferences
Kościński, K. (2008) · Anthropological Review · doi:10.2478/v10044-008-0012-6 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
“Women prefer more feminized faces of both women and men than men do [RHODES et al. 2000].”
BackgroundUnderstanding Beauty via Deep Facial Features
Liu, X., Li, T., Peng, H. M., Ouyang, I. C., Kim, T.-H., & Wang, R. (2019) · IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW) · doi:10.1109/cvprw.2019.00034 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
“Several studies [47, 48, 49, 50, 51] showed that people prefer femininelooking faces regardless of actual genders of the faces.”
BackgroundInfants look longer at colours that adults like when colours are highly saturated
Skelton, A. E., & Franklin, A. (2019) · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · doi:10.3758/s13423-019-01688-5 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Men's judgments of women's facial attractiveness from two- and three-dimensional images are similar
Tigue, C. C., Pisanski, K., O’Connor, J. J. M., et al. (2012) · Journal of Vision · doi:10.1167/12.12.3 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
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“Laboratory studies that digitally enhance gendered features confirm that feminized faces are generally more attractive than masculinized ones [9,15], and meta-analyses have revealed cross-cultural preferences for these feminized faces over sex-typical faces, independent of the faces’ race [9,15–17].”
BackgroundThe impact of artificial fragrances on the assessment of mate quality cues in body odor
Allen, C., Cobey, K. D., Havlı́ček, J., & Roberts, S. C. (2016) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.05.001 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
“…of fragranced odor samples and faces. such studies that find analogous consequences of women being ‘too feminine’, with research suggesting that extreme feminization may not elicit these same negative responses (Rhodes et al., 2000), thus givingno reason to avoid over-feminizing a fragrance.”
BackgroundChildren's recognition of caricatures.
Chang, P. P. W., Levine, S. C., & Benson, P. J. (2002) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/0012-1649.38.6.1038 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“…in the sense that the primary aim of our study was not to directly examine the effect of different norms on recognition or likeness judgments (by contrast, see Perrett et al., 1998, and Rhodes et al., 2000, for evidence that a masculinized or feminized norm may affect attractiveness judgments).”
BackgroundWen, F., Zuo, B., Ma, S.-H., Xu, Y., Coley, J., & Wang, Y. (2020) · Evolutionary Psychology · doi:10.1177/1474704920980642 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
“…and feminized facial stimuli using sexual dimorphism techniques developed by Perrett et al. (1998), by either exaggerating or diminishing the sexual feature differences on two photo files of the same archetype, for both genders (DeBruine et al., 2010; Rennels et al., 2008; Rhodes et al., 2000).”
BackgroundMethodInfluential
- Authors
- Rhodes, G., Hickford, C., & Jeffery, L.
- Affiliations
- The University of Western Australia (AU)
- University of Canterbury (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Rhodes, Gillian
- Venue
- British Journal of Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2000-02
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 125-140
- ISSN
- 0007-1269 (ISSN-L)
- 2044-8295
- OpenAlex
- W2034454958
- Cited by
- 226
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 8.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- British Journal of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Australian Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- facial attractiveness, feminization, masculinization, secondary sexual characteristics, face preference, human face
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Anthropometry, Esthetics, Face, Female, Humans, Male, Sexual Behavior, Sex Factors, Visual Perception
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