WHR and physical attractiveness -
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Abstract Body mass index and waist—hip ratio are related to human health and both play a role in mate choice. Issue Section:. Download all slides.
Views 50, More metrics information. Total Views 50, Email alerts Article activity alert. Advance article alerts. New issue alert. In progress issue alert. Receive exclusive offers and updates from Oxford Academic. Citing articles via Web of Science Latest Most Read Most Cited No geographical differences in male mate choice in a widespread fish, Limia perugiae.
Parental overproduction allows siblicidal bird to adjust brood size to climate-driven prey variation. ERP analyses revealed a different pattern of activation for male and female viewers.
The 0. Naked bodies increased the N in both groups and peaked earlier for the 0. Finally, the late positive component LPC was found to be greater in male than in female viewers and was globally more marked for naked bodies as well as WHRs of 0.
These results provide the first electrophysiological evidence of specific time period s linked to the processing of a body feature denoting attractiveness and therefore playing a role in mate choice.
Paul N. Joseph, Rakesh K. Sharma, … Laura K. Giulia Fioravanti, Sara Bocci Benucci, … Silvia Casale. Physical attractiveness, which underlies mate selection, is determined by different characteristics of the face and body.
Additionally, sexually dimorphic traits such as full lips in women or large jaws in men, which determine the masculinity or femininity of a face, also affect perceived attractiveness Perrett et al.
WHR is defined as the ratio of the width of the waist i. the narrowest portion between the ribs and the iliac crest and the width of the hips i. Findings in the literature show that the WHR of a healthy woman during the fertile period of the lifespan is between 0.
A different concentration of hormones between males and females causes a sexual dimorphism that leads to differences in body shape between genders, as demonstrated in a study by Pazhoohi and Liddle Results showed that the female body shape had an average WHR of 0.
In this sense, specific WHRs can be perceived as a gender cue, in the absence of other indices. Remarkably, a lower WHR i. close to 0.
By contrast, it is inversely related to pregnancy Furnham et al. WHR is a dimorphic trait differentiating genders, as it reflects the effects of sex hormones that regulate fat deposits. Indeed, oestrogen stimulates fat deposits in the thighs and buttocks, but inhibits it in the abdominal area; conversely, testosterone acts in the opposite way.
Thus, women present a lower WHR compared to men, especially after puberty, because they possess more fat in their hips and less in their abdomen during the most fertile period of reproduction. During and after menopause, female WHRs change again, shifting closer to those of men, due to decreasing oestrogen levels Cremonini et al.
Women taking oestrogen-enhancing medication after menopause have relatively lower WHRs than women avoiding this type of medication. In this sense, WHR is thought to be a reliable cue of oestrogen level Dixson et al. Indeed, Jokela found that the more attractive women had a higher reproductive success and more children.
Interestingly, female facial attractiveness has also been linked to estimates of fertility Roberts et al. Overall, body fat affects WHR, especially in low or high values of BMI; however both BMI and WHR are usually measured in order to accurately assess effect sizes of both aspects Singh, Some authors argue that WHR may be one of the first filters in the evaluation of female bodies, used unconsciously by heterosexual men.
For instance, using eye-tracking technique, Dixson and colleagues explored the frequency of visual fixations when men looked at front view photographs of naked female bodies with two different WHRs 0.
The results showed that the earliest visual fixation occurring within ms and targeted the breasts or the waist, compared to the lower part of the body and the face. However, men rapidly rated the 0. This study seems to confirm that the WHR is a key feature in the appraisal of physical attractiveness of female bodies by male observers.
In one of the first studies on WHR preference Singh, , participants were asked to rate the physical attractiveness, as well as other characteristics of bodies e. good health, youthful looking, desire for children, ability to have children on a scale from 1 most attractive to 12 least attractive.
Stimuli consisted of line drawings combing three levels of BMI underweight vs. normal vs. overweight and four levels of WHR 0. Results revealed that men considered the 0.
However, using the same stimuli, Henss found that 0. In particular, they showed that WHRs of 0. All in all, findings in literature provide consistent evidence of a preference for a low WHR i. Although it has been suggested that men may universally prefer women with a low WHR e.
Singh, , variations may arise depending on the cultural background. Indeed, several studies have shown a significant association between country and WHR preference.
For instance, in New Zealand a ratio of 0. Britain and Japan , front view pictures of women with lower WHRs, like 0. Interestingly, Dixson, Dixson, Morgan, and Anderson found that women from Cameroon with ratios of 0. Different factors can explain these cultural variations in preferences, including a local conditions, b media influence, and c type of relationship.
This may condition the perception of bodies and fashion during such periods, reinforcing what people usually see in their everyday life from a very early age Swami et al.
The fact that preferences can be modified according to exposition during childhood or the cultural background opens the possibility for an alternate mechanism at the root of attractiveness. Indeed, these authors found that the average face is judged as more attractive than any of its individual exemplars and consequently argued that preference for an exemplar is likely determined by its proximity to the mean, or prototype of its category.
In an electromyographic investigation, in which the activity of the zygomatus major was used to index attractiveness, Principe and Langlois showed that, after repeated exposure to strongly morphed human—chimpanzee faces, an increased preference was observed for intermediately morphed human—chimp faces, which gave rise to higher explicit ratings of attractiveness.
This was not observed in control participants who were presented with nonmorphed human or chimpanzee faces. The fact that a preference for prototypes is observed even for stimuli unrelated to mate selection suggests that the attractiveness of faces and bodies might not rely on a mechanism evaluating health and reproductive fitness, but rather on a more general one that computes a cognitive average and leads to a preference for exemplars that are closer to the prototypical representation.
By opposition, Holliday and colleagues found that BMI was more correlated with attractiveness judgments than WHR and activated higher cortical visual areas and reward centres. No change in BOLD signal was observed for WHR variations; but the lack of effect here was likely due to the very restrictive range of WHRs used between 0.
From an electrophysiological perspective, event-related potential findings have shown that a posterior negative deflection, the N, is category-sensitive to human bodies. This component arises over the posterior scalp at ms and is akin to the N observed for faces Thierry et al.
However, to our knowledge, no electrophysiological studies have addressed visual processing of the WHR to date. In this study, we present the first electrophysiological investigation of WHR processing of images of realistic human female bodies.
The aims of this study are threefold:. To establish if and how the WHR can affect the attractiveness of female bodies in male and female participants. To analyse the temporal processing and electrophysiological disparities of different WHRs, without voluntary attention, in heterosexual man compared to heterosexual woman.
We performed two different experiments. In an initial behavioural rating task, female models with four different WHRs 0. The second task included ERP measures and required indirect processing of the four WHRs.
Both experiments included heterosexual men and women to test possible gender differences in the evaluation of attractiveness. Forty healthy adult s 20 men and 20 women , between 19 and 45 years of age, took part in the attractiveness rating task.
They had no self-declared history of neurological or psychiatric disorder, and, in particular, declared no eating disorders or weight dysfunctions Cornelissen et al.
The investigation was approved by our local ethics committee. Volunteers gave their written informed consent before contributing to the study. Participants were considered heterosexual if they scored 0 or 1 36 with score 0 and 4 with score 1, mean score 0.
One hundred and ninety-two coloured images of × pixels 7 × 20 cm representing entire female bodies in a neutral static position were created using N-sided Quidam 3. com , a software dedicated to professional game developers. This software allowed us to generate realistic female bodies by changing size, skin and hair colour, and clothes.
Thus, each condition comprised a total of stimuli. Skin colour was varied from dark African to light Caucasian to match the variations in light intensity produced by clothing.
Additionally, all faces were manually blurred using Adobe Photoshop 6. Examples of the stimuli are presented in Fig. a Different categories of stimuli depicting four WHRs 0. b Waist-to-hip ratio was calculated by dividing the width at the waist with the width at the hips.
The WHRs were calculated by dividing the width of the waist by that of the hips see Fig. The realistic female bodies had an apparent average BMI, that is, were neither underweight, nor overweight. Stimuli were identical with respect to size in all experimental conditions.
html and Adobe Photoshop 6. A statistical comparison of pixel intensity across conditions confirmed the absence of any significant difference across conditions. Stimuli were presented in a random order at the centre of the screen. Participants indicated the degree of attractiveness of every single model by placing the mouse cursor on the black horizontal line appearing below the picture.
The vertical red line indicated the localization of the cursor on the horizontal line and a corresponding numeric value, between 0 unattractive and extremely attractive , was recorded. After the instructions and before starting the rating task, some examples were presented to ensure that participants had fully understood how to perform the task properly for an example, see Fig.
Based on the position of the cursor, the E-Prime software recorded the corresponding discrete value between 0 unattractive and extremely attractive. Behavioural data were collected using E-Prime 2.
A mixed design analyses of variance ANOVA was computed using participant gender group: male or female as a between-subjects measure, and nudity clothed vs. naked bodies , view front and back , and WHR waist-to-hip-ratios : 0.
Greenhouse—Geisser corrections were applied to correct for violations of sphericity and post hoc comparisons were performed using a Fisher LSD test uncorrected.
We reported measures of effect size partial η 2 in addition to probability values. Four participants two men and two women were excluded during the ERP analyses from the experimental sample due to excessive artefacts. Participants received 30 CHF for their contribution and were not informed about the goal of the study beforehand.
Participants gave their written informed consent prior to the procedure. All had corrected-to-normal vision. Based on the 7 point Kinsey Scale Orientation Questionnaire Kinsey et al.
Experimental sessions took place in an electrically and acoustically isolated room, where participants were comfortably seated at a distance of cm from a in. display resolution: × , refreshing rate: 60 Hz. The stimuli included the same female bodies as in the behavioural study.
At this distance, they subtended a visual angle of 3. In this second study, participants performed an oddball task in which they were asked to respond to infrequent targets consisting either of clothed male bodies or pseudoanimals also created using Quidam 3.
They were asked to pay attention and to respond manually to targets by pressing a key with the index finger of the left or right hand.
Response hand was counterbalanced across trails, with half of the subjects answering with the right index. The experiment consisted of eight blocks of trials presenting female bodies 12 different models × 16 conditions and 21 trials presenting the target pseudo animals or clothed males.
This yielded a total of 96 trials for every female body category. In half the blocks, targets consisted of pseudoanimals, while in the other half, the targets were realistic pictures of men.
The order of the blocks was randomized across subjects and target categories. The stimuli were presented for ms, followed by a fixation cross, with an interstimulus interval ISI varying randomly between 1, and 1, ms. htm and five external electrodes to detect eye movements see Fig.
The signal was bandpass filtered online between 0. Impedances were checked and maintained below 20 kΩ during all the recording session. Participants were instructed to fixate the centre of the screen and to avoid any eye or body movements during the experimental EEG session.
The EEG was down sampled to Hz, filtered off-line from 0. EEG was epoched offline from ms before to 1, ms after the onset of the stimulus. Separate epochs were computed and averaged for each of the 16 female body categories and were baseline corrected using a prestimulus interval of ms prior to the onset of the stimulus.
Epochs contaminated by blinks, eye movements, or other artefacts EEG sweeps with amplitudes exceeding ± μV as well as incorrect behavioural responses false alarms were excluded before the averaging procedure.
Remaining artefacts were manually rejected upon visual inspection. Scalp distribution and names of electrodes used in the EEG experiment. Black circles delimit the left and right ROIs region of interests used to compute the ERP analysis of the P1, the N, and the P2.
Red circle delimits central ROI used to compute LPC analysis Colour figure online. Based on visual observation of the maximum ERP effects, two ROIs were created, one on the left PO7, A11, A12 and the other on the right PO8, B8, B9 hemisphere, for the P1, the N and the P2 components.
The peak amplitude was computed within — ms, — ms, and — ms time windows see Fig. The peak amplitudes and the latency values of P1, N1, and P2 ERPs were compared using a 2 group: male or female × 2 nudity: clothed or naked × 2 view: front or back × 4 WHRs: 0. For the LPC, only one ROI was used so this level not present in the ANOVA.
Additionally, post hoc comparisons were performed using the Fisher LSD test uncorrected. Greenhouse—Geisser corrections were applied to correct for violations of sphericity. All the significant results are summarised in the Table 1. Ratings did not differ between the male and the female group.
The main effect of WHR was significant because of a greater preference for lower compared to higher ratios. A significant decrease in attractiveness was found between WHRs of 0. No effect was found for the 0. WHR rating for naked and clothed bodies.
Male and female groups show the same preferences when judging the WHRs of clothed and naked models. WHRs of 0. Performance on the oddball task was high, with a hit rate of The interaction of WHR × Group showed an increased amplitude for 0.
ERPs illustrating the P1 and P2 in men. The P1 — ms and P2 — ms were computed by averaging the electrodes of the left and right ROIs for male participants. Only men showed an early effect for the 0. Moreover, this component was more negative for front -4 μV ±.
N for naked and clothed bodies. A strong negative effect is observed between clothed and naked bodies at the N level for both groups of participants. Colours correspond to different conditions: naked black and dressed red models for men; naked blue and dressed green models for women Colour figure online.
LPC of male and female participants for naked and clothed bodies. Naked bodies produced more positive responses than clothed bodies over the central leads for both groups of participants. However, male participants produced overall a more positive ERP than female viewers.
Traces are shown for the three central electrodes see Fig. Yellow highlighted box indicates the time period in which the LPC was computed Colour figure online.
This study addressed the dynamic aspects of visual processing of biologically relevant stimuli, in particular of the waist-to-hip ratio WHR , an index of female body attractiveness. Behavioural results showed that the WHR affected the subjective evaluation of female body attractiveness by female as well as male viewers, with WHRs of 0.
The electrophysiological results revealed early differences for the 0. In addition, the P1 peaked earlier for naked bodies in both men and women, suggesting that they are processed more rapidly than clothed ones. The N showed an effect of nudity with greater amplitudes for naked than clothed bodies, as well as an effect of viewpoint, with a stronger N1 for front than for back views, and finally an effect of WHR, with a greater response for ratios of 0.
In male viewers, a faster response was found for the WHR of 0. Naked bodies were also found to increase the P2 component in both groups of viewers. Lastly, the LPC, identified at — ms, was greater in male than female participants overall.
Furthermore, this component was less negative more positive for naked than clothed bodies, and for front views than back views in both participant groups.
It was also stronger for WHRs of 0. Our behavioural results are in line with previous findings showing the expected preference of participants for lower WHRs here 0. The event-related potential data revealed the components anticipated for visual processing of body stimuli.
Indeed, as mentioned, a category-sensitive ERP, the N, has been described for bodies Thierry et al. In our investigation, this N was also found to be sensitive to naked bodies. The sensitivity of the N1 component to naked bodies has only been reported very recently and suggests that these stimuli possess a high motivational and affective value.
The current data show that female naked bodies generate a more powerful response in opposite-sex, as well as same-sex heterosexual viewers. However, a subsequent study appears to be more in line with our current findings. However, the opposite-sex difference was observed under subliminal conditions, suggesting that the effect may vary according to the extent of voluntary processing of the stimuli.
Nevertheless, the N1 response for bodies appears to be enhanced by the sexual content of the stimulus. This interpretation seems to be further corroborated by the fact that front views and thus the visibility of the primary sexual features also enhanced the N1 in our paradigm.
Our study also sheds light on the spatiotemporal dynamics of the cognitive processing underlying preferences for such stimuli. Based on the electrophysiological results, it is evident that the type of WHR ratio plays an important role in producing an interest in heterosexual men and women.
Although behavioural assessments were similar in both genders, the ERP results were clearly different. Women were still sensitive to WHRs in evaluating female body attractiveness, but the ERP analyses revealed different patterns of cerebral activation.
Specifically, the P1 component was sensitive to the 0. Thus, the sensibility to this specific body feature appears evident and marked in heterosexual men.
The P1 is thought to represent a marker of early automatic attention for biologically relevant visual stimuli. The current findings suggest that human bodies can be processed very early in time, especially when they represent biologically relevant cues.
Kuhr and colleagues suggested that positive as well as negative stimuli might affect very early components when they are appetitive. In their experiment, performed only with men, they found an increased positivity peaking at ms after the presentation of arousing photos of erotic, nude women compared to photos of attractive, dressed bodies, extreme sport scenes, or daily activities.
Our research shows very similar results. Indeed, we observed that specific traits have the potential to make the human body appetitive, and this can be processed very early in time. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B , , — Ford, C.
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Unpublished honours dissertation, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland. Heinberg, L. Body image and televised images of thinness and attractiveness: A controlled laboratory investigation. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 14, — Henss, R. Waist-to-hip ratio and female attractiveness.
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Masculinity and femininity: The taboo dimension of national cultures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Janienska, G. Physical work causes suppression of ovarian function in women. Johannesen-Schmidt, M.
Another look at sex differences in preferred mate characteristics: The effects of endorsing the traditional female gender role. Psychology of Women Quarterly , 26, — Katzman, M. Beyond body image: The integration of feminist and transcultural theories in the understanding of self-starvation.
International Journal of Eating Disorders , 22, — Lake, J. Women's reproductive health: The role of body mass index in early and adult life. International Journal of Obesity , 21, — Lavrakas, P. Female preferences for male physique. Journal of Research in Personality , 9, — Maier, R.
Attitudes toward women, personality rigidity, and idealized physique preferences in males. Sex Roles , 11, — Maisey, D. Characteristics of male attractiveness for women. Lancet , , Mamalakis, G. Prevalence of obesity in Greece. International Journal of Obesity Related Metabolic Disorders , 20, — Manson, J.
Body weight and mortality among women. New England Journal of Medicine , , — Markey, C. Preadolescents' perceptions of females' body size and shape: Evolutionary and social learning perspectives. Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 31, — Marlowe, F. Preferred waist-to-hip ratio and ecology. Personality and Individual Differences , 30, — McGarvey, S.
Obesity in Samoans and a perspective in its aetiology in Polynesians. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , 53, 86— Miller, M. Culture and eating disorders: A historical and cross-cultural review.
Psychiatry , 64, 93— Morris, A. The changing shape of female fashion models. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 8, — Nasser, M. Eating disorders: The cultural dimension. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology , 23, — The new socio-cultural debate.
Chichester, MA: Routledge. Parsons, J. The psychobiology of sex differences and sex roles. Washington, DC: Hemisphere. PawÕwski, B.
Human mate choice strategies. van Hooff, R. Hammerstein Eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Polivy, J. Dieting and binging. American Psychologist , 40, — Posavac, H. Exposure to media images of female attractiveness and concern with body weights among young women. Sex Roles , 38, — Reducing the impact of media images on women at risk for body image disturbance: Three targeted interventions.
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 20, — Powers, P. Obesity: The regulation of weight. Puhl, R. Predicting female physical attractiveness: Waist-to-hip ratio versus thinness. Psychology, Evolution, and Gender , 3, 27— Radke-Sharpe, N.
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Advanced Search. Search Menu. Article Navigation. Close mobile search navigation Article Navigation. Volume Article Contents Abstract. Journal Article. Krzysztof Kościński Krzysztof Kościński. Institute of Anthropology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University. Oxford Academic. Google Scholar.
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Abstract Body mass index and waist—hip ratio are related to human health and both play a role in mate choice. Issue Section:. Download all slides.
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Citing articles via Web of Science Latest Most Read Most Cited No geographical differences in male mate choice in a widespread fish, Limia perugiae.
Parental overproduction allows siblicidal bird to adjust brood size to climate-driven prey variation. Sensory trap leads to reliable communication without a shift in nonsexual responses to the model cue.
Inter- and intraspecific female behavioral plasticity drive temporal niche segregation in two Tribolium species. Movement or plasticity: acoustic responses of a torrent frog to stream geophony. More from Oxford Academic.
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: WHR and physical attractiveness| Cometh the hourglass: Why do men prefer a low waist-to-hip ratio? | Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar Kuhr, B. Still more — including WHR as a hormone-driven indicator of sexual and maternal behavior, or a warning of abdominal parasites — remain untested. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. All the significant results are summarised in the Table 1. Article PubMed Google Scholar Swami, V. Altogether, images were constructed and they comprised 12 levels of BMI from 15 to 26 times 26 levels of WHR from 0. Google Scholar Manson, J. |
| Human Verification | Body mass in relation to height is commonly determined by body mass index BMI , which is the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters World Health Organization American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , 53, 86— Johannesen-Schmidt, M. Article PubMed Google Scholar Pegna, A. Article PubMed Google Scholar Beck, S. |
| Frontiers | Science News | Volume Phhysical Access. Physiczl results showed Healthy digestive system, regardless of the cultural setting, BMI phyaical the Herbal remedy for fatigue determinant of women's physical attractiveness, whereas Attractiveneess emerged Attractieness a Healthy digestive system predictor Electrolyte balance research the Greek groups but Gestational diabetes complications the British group. Two women who described themselves as bisexual and 1 man who refused to provide his sexuality were excluded from further analysis, thus reducing the sample size to 67 females and 51 males, all heterosexual. Women are expected to perceive the physical attractiveness of other females in a similar way to men so as to assess the mate value of competitors and to adjust their own mating and rivaling behaviors Dijkstra and Buunk ; Brewer et al. |
| Access this article | Singh, D. An anthropological perspective of obesity. Streeter SA McBurney DH. Article PubMed Google Scholar Roberts, S. Body Image. Winkielman, P. New York: Oxford University Press. |
| Adaptive significance of female physical attractiveness: role of waist-to-hip ratio | Heaney, M. Male preference for female waist-to-hip ratio: Evolutionary adaptation, cultural confound, or methodological artefact? Unpublished honours dissertation, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland. Heinberg, L. Body image and televised images of thinness and attractiveness: A controlled laboratory investigation. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 14, — Henss, R. Waist-to-hip ratio and female attractiveness. Evidence from photographic stimuli and methodological considerations. Personality and Individual Differences , 28, — Hofstede, G. Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Masculinity and femininity: The taboo dimension of national cultures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Janienska, G. Physical work causes suppression of ovarian function in women. Johannesen-Schmidt, M. Another look at sex differences in preferred mate characteristics: The effects of endorsing the traditional female gender role. Psychology of Women Quarterly , 26, — Katzman, M. Beyond body image: The integration of feminist and transcultural theories in the understanding of self-starvation. International Journal of Eating Disorders , 22, — Lake, J. Women's reproductive health: The role of body mass index in early and adult life. International Journal of Obesity , 21, — Lavrakas, P. Female preferences for male physique. Journal of Research in Personality , 9, — Maier, R. Attitudes toward women, personality rigidity, and idealized physique preferences in males. Sex Roles , 11, — Maisey, D. Characteristics of male attractiveness for women. Lancet , , Mamalakis, G. Prevalence of obesity in Greece. International Journal of Obesity Related Metabolic Disorders , 20, — Manson, J. Body weight and mortality among women. New England Journal of Medicine , , — Markey, C. Preadolescents' perceptions of females' body size and shape: Evolutionary and social learning perspectives. Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 31, — Marlowe, F. Preferred waist-to-hip ratio and ecology. Personality and Individual Differences , 30, — McGarvey, S. Obesity in Samoans and a perspective in its aetiology in Polynesians. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , 53, 86— Miller, M. Culture and eating disorders: A historical and cross-cultural review. Psychiatry , 64, 93— Morris, A. The changing shape of female fashion models. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 8, — Nasser, M. Eating disorders: The cultural dimension. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology , 23, — The new socio-cultural debate. Chichester, MA: Routledge. Parsons, J. The psychobiology of sex differences and sex roles. Washington, DC: Hemisphere. PawÕwski, B. Human mate choice strategies. van Hooff, R. Hammerstein Eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Polivy, J. Dieting and binging. 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Nevertheless, there are patterns. Writing in Frontiers in Psychology , one woman asks: why? But its link to female mate value — i. Jeanne Bovet of Stony Brook University SUNY. After combing the literature, Bovet defined specific traits that could link WHR with mate value, to be subjected to empirical scrutiny. She asked: can a man select this trait in a mate, based on her WHR? And will he have more and higher-quality descendants as a consequence? WHR is high in children and men. In women though, WHR drops around the onset of puberty until early adulthood, then rises again with age and number of children. Temporary increases in waist size are the unique reliable visual cue of current pregnancy. As such, WHR tracks reproduction potential, which is null in prepubertal, pregnant and postmenopausal women; peaks in the twenties; and is unreliable in women with many children or none. Related: Love Island: Flamboyant males get the girls on Madagascar. That a wider pelvis facilitates delivery of big-brained offspring is a widely accepted idea. |
WHR and physical attractiveness -
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Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Abstract Body mass index BMI and body shape as measured by the waist-to-hip ratio WHR have been reported to be the major cues to women's bodily attractiveness.
Access this article Log in via an institution. Google Scholar Altman, D. Google Scholar Anderson, J. Article Google Scholar Apparala, M. Article Google Scholar Baker, D. Article PubMed Google Scholar Beck, S. Article Google Scholar Becker, A.
PubMed Google Scholar Bentley, G. Article PubMed Google Scholar Bray, G. Article Google Scholar Brown, P. Google Scholar Bryant, J. Google Scholar Buss, D. Article PubMed Google Scholar Cash, T.
Google Scholar Craig, P. PubMed Google Scholar Crandall, C. Article PubMed Google Scholar DeSoto, M. Google Scholar Eagly, A. Article Google Scholar Ehrenberg, M. Google Scholar Fan, J. Article Google Scholar Ford, C.
Google Scholar Forestell, C. Article Google Scholar Freese, J. PubMed Google Scholar Frisch, R. Article PubMed Google Scholar Furnham, A. PubMed Google Scholar Furnham, A. ERP studies of facial attractiveness have reported the presence of P1, N1 and P2 modulations.
Some researchers have provided evidence that the P2 is the earliest component sensitive to attractive and unattractive faces Chen et al. Others have reported earlier modulations. Halit, de Haan, and Johnson observed that natural, unattractive faces produced a larger N component.
However, this was found only for natural faces judged to be unattractive, but not for faces that were artificially modified, making them not only unattractive, but also atypical.
By contrast, artificially modified stretched unattractive faces affected P1 and P2 amplitudes, rather than the N This suggested that the N might in fact be sensitive essentially to the typicality of a face i.
variations of features across individuals , corroborating the view that prototypicality and attractiveness are linked, with both affecting the same electrophysiological component, and arguing in favour of prototypicality detector rather than a fertility detector.
This evidence points to a potential limitation of our study due to the use of computer-generated bodies. This procedure could have limited the ecologically validity of the stimuli and, as was observed for faces Halit et al.
Indeed, the modifications that were applied to the bodies did not take into account elements such as breast size, actual BMI, skin quality, and so forth. This may have given an artificial appearance to the bodies and could have produced unwanted effects.
However, the P1 was enhanced only for male viewers that would argue against an effect due solely to an artificial appearance. In addition, the findings in the behavioural task are compatible with those carried out with real photographs, confirming that the stimuli were nevertheless evaluated in a similar way, and thus, to a certain extent, as real bodies.
On the other hand, the advantage of computer-generated images resides in the fact that low-level visual characteristics luminance, posture, background, and colour can be precisely controlled across conditions, allowing us to interpret any early components in terms of the behavioural relevance of the stimuli, rather than their elementary visual features.
In our case, both components show a clear effect for the most attractive WHR when stimuli are presented centrally at the attended, and only in heterosexual men presented. The stronger response appears most likely due to their high biologically significance and value, which are relevant for mating behaviour.
Based on this, it seems plausible that evolutionary selection has developed human cognitive mechanisms to recognize specific physical traits as potential indices of health and fertility Dixson et al. Finally, our data revealed a heightened LPC for the most attractive 0.
This is in keeping with findings reporting a greater LPC for attractive faces Chen et al. For example, Johnston and Oliver-Rodriguez observed an LPC in male viewers viewing female but not male faces that were manipulated to enhance attractiveness.
The results revealed that the LPC, which showed a greater parietal than frontal scalp distribution, reflected the beauty rating of a female faces and not just attractiveness. In addition, they demonstrated that the modification of proportions producing facial traits of masculinity or femininity enhanced the beauty ratings as expected, along with the LPCs to female, but not male faces.
Similarly, Oliver-Rodriguez and colleagues found that the average P and the mean subjective ratings were correlated, indicating that this late component was linked to the perceived degree of attractiveness. Of particular interest to our study, the authors also observed a stronger P or LPC for male viewers compared to female viewers, as observed in our results.
Based on their interpretation of this phenomenon with faces, we would argue that if the LPC reflects the attractiveness of a stimulus for the participant, it is clear that the response must be greater for heterosexual male viewers as only female naked and clothed models were presented and a preference is to be expected.
However, despite the lower emotional value of the stimuli for heterosexual female participants, ratings were similar between female and male viewers, reflecting as a similar value on the LRP for naked versus clothed bodies and for 0.
Another potential limitation of this study is that the behavioural and EEG measures were not collected from the same set of participants. We were therefore unable to investigate any direct correlation between the subjective evaluation of the bodies and the ERP components.
This could be carried out in future research as this approach could strengthen the actual interpretation.
In line with other reports Cornelissen et al. They are more meticulous than men in maintaining their level of desirability, probably to maximize the own reproductive success.
Being focused on opposite sex mates with the same level of attractiveness, they avoid an engagement of resources, energy, and time with partners of different levels and, consequently increase the likelihood of mating success. It is important to emphasise that the WHR is an index of physical symmetry and good health.
In fact, premature births, psychosis, consanguinity and mental retardation are associated with bodily asymmetry in humans. The choice of partners with symmetric features is thus likely to indicate higher genetic quality and subsequent benefits to the offspring Buggio et al.
In the case of WHRs, the 0. The sum of evidence thus shows that early electrical activity of the human brain responds to this ideal ratio, revealing that mate selection affects cognitive dynamics within the first ms of visual processing.
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Journal of Neuroscience Research, 89 11 , — Download references. This investigation was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation Grant No. We are grateful to Sophie Nussbaum and Chiara Chillà who provided diligent assistance with EEG recording and analysis. Laboratory of Experimental Neuropsychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, , Geneva, Switzerland.
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld, , Australia. Department of Radiology and Medical Informatics, Division of Medical Information Sciences, University Hospitals of Geneva, CH, Geneva, Switzerland.
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to Marzia Del Zotto or Alan J. Reprints and permissions. Del Zotto, M. Electrophysiological evidence of perceived sexual attractiveness for human female bodies varying in waist-to-hip ratio.
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Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Download PDF. Abstract The dynamics of brain activation reflecting attractiveness in humans are unclear.
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WHRs and fertility Findings in the literature show that the WHR of a healthy woman during the fertile period of the lifespan is between 0. WHRs and attractiveness Some authors argue that WHR may be one of the first filters in the evaluation of female bodies, used unconsciously by heterosexual men.
Cultural influences Although it has been suggested that men may universally prefer women with a low WHR e. The aims of this study are threefold: 1. To verify if the WHR is a biologically relevant visual cue that can be processed automatically. Method Behavioural study Participants Forty healthy adult s 20 men and 20 women , between 19 and 45 years of age, took part in the attractiveness rating task.
Body mass phyeical BMI Non-GMO bakery body shape Brain health and aging measured attractiveneess the waist-to-hip ratio WHR have been reported to be the major Physucal to women's bodily attractiveness. The znd WHR and physical attractiveness of each physicla Healthy digestive system cues was examined cross-culturally in two distinct countries, Greece and Britain. Fifty Britons, 25 British-Greeks, and 25 participants in Greece were asked to rate a set of images of real women with known BMI and WHR. The results showed that, regardless of the cultural setting, BMI is the primary determinant of women's physical attractiveness, whereas WHR emerged as a significant predictor for the Greek groups but not the British group. This finding is discussed in terms of the different gender roles occupied by Britons and Greeks. Body anx index and waist—hip ratio are physifal to human health and both Antioxidant foods and free radicals a role in mate choice. However, physival research is inconsistent as to what body mass index and waist—hip ratio pyhsical are preferred in Attractivenesw and what Healthy digestive system attactiveness importance of body Electrolyte balance research index and waist—hip ratio for attractiveness is. Here, we made several methodological refinements to obtain reliable estimations. Participants Poles indicated the most attractive woman from a set of digitally manipulated high-quality silhouettes varying orthogonally in body mass index and waist—hip ratio and viewed from behind to exclude effects of the breast size. These represent preferences for unhealthy body mass and healthy body shape. Furthermore, body mass index proved twice as important for attractiveness as waist—hip ratio, even though literature data indicate that waist—hip ratio is at least as important for health as body mass index.
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