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Several studies have demonstrated men’s preference for symmetrical women. In one study, asymmetry was found to be inversely related to male judgments of attractiveness (Singh, 1995).
Compared to women, men rate women’s facial attractiveness as rapidly and harshly declining with age (Henss, 1991). In addition, older men more than younger men have been found to prefer the scent of symmetrical women when the women are at high risk of conception (as measured by timing of their ovulatory cycle) (Thornhill et al., 2003). It is known that chemicals similar to estrogen stimulate hypothalamic responses in men but not in women, suggesting that males may have an
evolved mechanism to specifically detect ovulatory cues (Savic, Berglund, Gulyas, & Roland., 2001). Other studies suggest that men show olfactory sexual responses to couplins (sex pheromones) that may be present in the vaginal secretions of fertile women (Grammer & Jutte, 1997). However, these results are attenuated by other studies that have not found a relationship between the “scent of symmetry” among women’s and men’s mate preference (Thornhill et al., 2003; Thornhill &
Gangestad, 1999). Other physiological measures such as neuroimaging techniques have found that “attractive” (symmetrical) women’s faces stimulated reward-areas of the brains of male subjects, whereas average women and men’s faces did not, suggesting that symmetrical is pleasing (Aharon, Etcoff, Ariely, Chabris, O’Connor, & Breiter, 2001). Taken together, such findings suggest that
men’s partner-evaluation mechanisms are tuned to facial symmetry, which declines with age. That symmetry increases when women are most fertile also supports the notion that symmetry is tied to male mate-choice and that women signal their fitness through symmetry.
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Jon A. Sefcek