British researchers have said women have an innate ability to gauge a man's sexual intentions by the look on his face.
Romantic intentions can be judged by facial characteristics say British researchers. Photo: The Kiss. Credit: *Riot*/Flickr
Whether her suitor is looking for a quick sexual encounter or a more committed relationship is easily apparent by his facial characteristics claims Lynda Boothroyd, a psychologist at the UK's Durham University and lead author of the paper.
“People can judge the sexual strategy of others simply by looking at faces,” she told the Telegraph. “We think for male faces, people are using facial masculinity — for instance, the shape of the jaw or the forehead. For female faces, we can’t work out what the precise features are.”
Researchers found men who had a square jaw, small eyes and a large nose -- classic male features -- were more likely to betray a wish for a short term fling rather than a long term commitment.
Women looking for a longer term relationship tended to opt for men with softer features the study found, with woman judging men with masculine faces as more likely to be unfaithful and be poor parents. On the other hand, men found the women who were deemed most likely to be interested in casual sex as being the most attractive.
“This shows that these initial impressions may be part of how we assess potential mates — or potential rivals — when we first meet them," said Dr Boothroyd. “These will then give way over time to more in-depth knowledge of that person as you get to know them better, and may change with age.”
Ben Jones, of the University of Aberdeen said that though previous studies had shown how people judge health and character by facial characteristics, this was the first to show how people use them as a guide to romance.
“This really is the first study to show that people are also sensitive to subtle facial signals about the type of romantic relationships that others might enjoy,” he told The Times.
The study was conducted with 700 heterosexual people carried out by Durham, St. Andrews and Aberdeen universities. The findings are published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour.
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