Women's Preferences for Masculinity in Male Faces Are Predicted by Material Scarcity, But Not Time or Psychological Scarcity.

ABSTRACT: Facial femininity in men is purportedly used as a cue by women as a signal of parental quality and willingness to provide resources. Accordingly, in contexts where choosing a partner that will provide resources is more beneficial (e.g., when resources are scarce), women have shown an increase preference for facial femininity in male faces. However, domains of scarcity often covary, and it is, therefore, unclear whether these contextual shifts in facial masculinity/femininity preferences are specific to material scarcity (as implied by previous theory), or due to an unrelated domain of scarcity (e.g., time or psychological scarcity). Here, a sample of 823 women completed the Perceived Scarcity Scale, which measures three separate domains of scarcity: material scarcity, time scarcity, and ps

SUBMITTER: Lee AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10517608 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul-Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature