Fear of Violence among Colombian Women Is Associated with Reduced Preferences for High-BMI Men

Abstract

Recent studies reveal that violence significantly contributes to explaining individual's facial preferences. Women who feel at higher risk of violence prefer less-masculine male faces. Given the importance of violence, we explore its influence on people's preferences for a different physical trait. Masculinity correlates positively with male strength and weight or body mass index (BMI). In fact, masculinity and BMI tend to load on the same component of trait perception. Therefore we predicted that individuals' perceptions of danger from violence will relate to preferences for facial cues to low-BMI. In two studies in Colombia, men and women from Bogota, Medellin, and surrounding communities were shown pairs of faces transformed to epitomize the shape correlates of men with high or low-BMI. The images were of European, Salvadoran, or Colombian men. Participants were asked to choose the face they considered most attractive. Subsequently, participants answered a survey about their health (e.g., frequency of illnesses the past year), media access (e.g., frequency of Internet use), education level (e.g., graduating from high school), and experiences/perceptions of violence in study 1 and about specific types of violence (public and domestic) in study 2. Results from both studies showed that women who experienced/perceived higher levels of violence preferred faces of low-BMI Salvadoran men. Preferences for low-BMI facial cues were significantly explained by violence (public or domestic), even after controlling for all other variables (including age, education, health, and media access). These results may reflect women's strategy to avoid male partners capable of inflicting harm.

Keywords: BMI; Intrasexual competition; Mate choice; Violence.

Fig. 1

Average of the five pairs of European (a) and Salvadoran (b) male facial stimuli (shown in the field). The left of each pair corresponds to the average face showing cues of low-BMI and the right shows cues of high BMI

Fig. 2

Effect of the public violence factor on preferences for facial cues to high BMI (a) Salvadoran and (b) European males. Each black dot represents an individual; gray lines indicate the 95% confidence interval. (Residual public violence plotted against high BMI preferences unstandardized residuals, controlling for all other covariates)

Fig. 3

Effect of the public violence factor on women’s preferences for facial cues to high BMI Salvadoran males. Each black dot denotes a participant and grey lines show a 95% confidence interval. Unstandardized residuals of the public violence factor plotted against the unstandardized residuals of preferences for high BMI, controlling for age, access to media, domestic violence, access to health, illnesses, education, and having children

Fig. 4

Average of five pairs of the Colombian facial stimuli. The left face corresponds to an average face exhibiting high-BMI cues and the right face low-BMI cues. (European and Salvadoran images used in this study were the same as in study 1; see Fig. 1)

Fig. 5

Effect of violence within partnership on women’s preferences for facial cues to high BMI males. Participants are represented by black dots in the graph. Grey lines show a 95% confidence interval. (Residual domestic violence plotted against the unstandardized residuals of preferences for high BMI, controlling for age, frequency of Internet use, education, illnesses, public violence and having children)