EVOLUTIONARY CONCEPTS OF HUMAN PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS: THE CASE OF MALE PHYSIQUE

Perception of certain body traits as attractive or unattractive has a profound effect on our everyday life. Here we employ sexual selection models which aim to explain why perception of specific traits as attractive might have evolved to conceptualize evidence on male body attractiveness. One line o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Anthropologie (Brno) 2012-01, Vol.50 (1), p.33-46
Main Authors: TŘEBICKÝ, VÍT, KLEISNER, KAREL, HAVLÍČEK, JAN
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Body
Ecological competition
Evolution
Evolutionary anthropology
Human biology
Human evolution
Human sexual behavior
Humans
Males
Masculinity
Mating behavior
Men
ORIGINAL PAPERS • TRAVAUX ORIGINAUX • ORIGINALARBEITEN
Perception of others
Perceptions
Personal appearance
Phenotypic traits
Physical constitution
Reproductive success
Somatotypes
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Summary:Perception of certain body traits as attractive or unattractive has a profound effect on our everyday life. Here we employ sexual selection models which aim to explain why perception of specific traits as attractive might have evolved to conceptualize evidence on male body attractiveness. One line of reasoning considers attractive traits to be markers of individual qualities. We specifically focus on two concepts: I) developmental stability and heterozygosity and II) immunocompetence and sexual dimorphism and their link to attractiveness of the human male physique. The available data on preferences for the majority of traits of the human male physique show inverted U curved patterns, which are indicative of a trade-off. Further, we show that several key links between physical appearance and the quality of a mate still need to be established in humans.
ISSN:0323-1119
2570-9127