Pregnant Women's Preferences for Men's Faces Differ Significantly from Nonpregnant Women

Abstract

Introduction: There is evidence that women's preferences for facial characteristics in men's faces change according to menstrual phase and sexual hormones. Literature indicates that the pregnancy is characterized by a specific sexual hormonal pattern with respect to all other physiological conditions concerning the sexual hormone status during the reproductive age, configuring this physiological condition as an excellent surrogate to study how the sexual hormones may affect many of the aspects concerning the sexual behavior.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate pregnancy as a model of hormonal influence on women's facial preferences in short-term and long-term relationships and compare the choices of pregnant women with those of nonpregnant women.

Main outcome measures: Measurement of women's preferences for synthetic men's faces, morphed from hyper-masculine to hypomasculine shape.

Materials and methods: Forty-six women in the third trimester of pregnancy, and 70 nonpregnant women took part in the study. All women were shown a composite male face. The sexual dimorphism of the images was enhanced or reduced in a continuous fashion using an open-source morphing program that produced a sequence of 21 pictures of the same face warped from a feminized to a masculinized shape.

Results: Pregnant women's choices differed significantly from those of nonpregnant women. In fact, in the context of both a hypothetical short- (M = -0.4 ± 0.11) and long-term relationship (M = -0.4 ± 0.07) pregnant women showed a clear preference for a less masculine man's face than the other group (short-term: M = 0.15 ± 0.13; long-term: M = -0.06 ± 0.15; P < 0.0001).

Conclusions: Women in the third trimester of pregnancy clearly prefer more feminine men's faces, distancing themselves from the choices of women in other physiological conditions concerning the sexual hormonal status during the reproductive age. However, other psychosocial variables may explain this interesting finding.

Keywords: Attractiveness; Dimorphism; Hormones; Pregnant Women.