Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/32489
Appears in Collections:Psychology Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: How and why patterns of sexual dimorphism in human faces vary across the world
Author(s): Kleisner, Karel
Tureček, Petr
Roberts, S Craig
Havlíček, Jan
Valentova, Jaroslava Varella
Akoko, Robert Mbe
Leongómez, Juan David
Apostol, Silviu
Varella, Marco A C
Saribay, S Adil
Keywords: Anthropology
Biological anthropology
Sexual selection
Issue Date: 2021
Date Deposited: 31-Mar-2021
Citation: Kleisner K, Tureček P, Roberts SC, Havlíček J, Valentova JV, Akoko RM, Leongómez JD, Apostol S, Varella MAC & Saribay SA (2021) How and why patterns of sexual dimorphism in human faces vary across the world. Scientific Reports, 11, Art. No.: 5978. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-85402-3
Abstract: Sexual selection, including mate choice and intrasexual competition, is responsible for the evolution of some of the most elaborated and sexually dimorphic traits in animals. Although there is sexual dimorphism in the shape of human faces, it is not clear whether this is similarly due to mate choice, or whether mate choice affects only part of the facial shape difference between men and women. Here we explore these questions by investigating patterns of both facial shape and facial preference across a diverse set of human populations. We find evidence that human populations vary substantially and unexpectedly in both the magnitude and direction of facial sexually dimorphic traits. In particular, European and South American populations display larger levels of facial sexual dimorphism than African populations. Neither cross-cultural differences in facial shape variation, sex differences in body height, nor differing preferences for facial femininity and masculinity across countries, explain the observed patterns of facial dimorphism. Altogether, the association between sexual shape dimorphism and attractiveness is moderate for women and weak (or absent) for men. Analysis that distinguishes between allometric and non-allometric components reveals that non-allometric facial dimorphism is preferred in women’s faces but not in faces of men. This might be due to different regimes of ongoing sexual selection acting on men, such as stronger intersexual selection for body height and more intense intrasexual physical competition, compared with women.
DOI Link: 10.1038/s41598-021-85402-3
Rights: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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