14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers have often asked themselves (and they are certainly not alone in doing so) what is the first thing that men look at when making contact with a woman, her face or her body. While previous studies have tried to come up with an answer to that by analyzing each aspect alone, a new research has managed to factor them both jointly and separately, as SciTechBits can confirm.
According to the findings, men look at a woman’s face first, therefore rate it higher, if they’re looking for a long-term relationship. However, if they want only a fling or something that comes with a deadline or few strings attached, their focus changes on the woman’s body, meaning, they judge her the by-now-all-too-popular WHR (waist-hip-ration) standard. The former has to do with a woman’s personality, many traits of which can be “read” in the face, while the latter happens for obvious reasons, hailing back to the days when men still picked their mates based on such considerations as fertility and health.
Researchers took 260 volunteers, 127 men and 133 women, and presented them with photos of models, all of them as similar to one another as possible. Some photos were just head shots, while the others showed a model’s body in underwear. Great effort went into making the photos stick to the same pattern: all underwear was black, hair was removed from the body shots (which did not include the head and only went down to the knees), each face was framed as to cover the hair, while the same distance between camera and the model was maintained.
All participants were asked to rate the photos shown to them on criteria such as a long-term or a short-term relationship, each participant was shown a head shot, a body shot and then a combined photo, but with the head placed next to the body and not on top of it.
“Statistical analysis of men rating women indicated that, even though both the body and face ratings were significant positive predictors of the ratings given to the combined images, the face ratings were stronger predictors of the combined ratings. It was also observed that the ratings for combined images was [sic] slightly higher for short term relationships as compared to long term relationships. One other significant observation – when the short term and long term relationship data were analyzed separately, the body ratings stood as more significant predictors to the combined ratings than face ratings, for short term relationships.” the aforementioned e-zine says.
The answer seems to be clear: men rate the attractiveness of the body higher for short-term affairs, and the face for long-term commitment. “Statistically, this study proves that men and women approach long-term relationships (attractiveness) in a similar fashion ie, paying more attention to the face. However, for short-term relationships, men are liberal in rating women for attractiveness (this coincides with an earlier study which tells that – minimum acceptable levels for a number of factors increased with the length of relationship sought) and also give more importance to the body than the face.” SciTechBits concludes by saying.