http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090824115811.htm
According to this website, women judge men's faces for attractiveness on two parts: sexually and non-sexually.
The first part determines if you have the characteristics of being a good mate. They're looking for qualities that will help them determine if you have high levels of androgen (testosterone). According to evolutionary psychology, this is a highly desirable trait to look for in a partner since testosterone is linked to aggression, which will lead to better protection and more food. These traits will include strong cheekbones, a square jaw, full lips, and over all proportions of the overall face.
The second part is overall attractiveness of the face. If these proportions of the face are symmetrical or not is one key point in determining the attractiveness.
More on this topic can be seen during a short video on the next link.
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/science-of-sex-appeal-attractive-facial-features.html
First of all, I love the discovery channel.
The video quickly explains that although as children, we all have very similar faces. However, because of puberty, our faces will change and become more prominent for the men and finer for the women (generally). According to the video, a strong does of these hormones will indicate good health and fertility. Also, by saying that someone is attractive, you're saying that they have good genes and would make a good partner for reproduction.
Wow, that discovery channel video was really interesting. I really enjoyed watching the pictures morph from one face to the next. Learning about these studies makes me sad that the research that I participated in as a freshmen were so boring (at least to me, questionnaires about anything are less interesting than rating the attractiveness of a face).
I think that it is intriguing that we are attracted to those individuals who have symmetric and manly/feminine (depending on your sexual preference) features. The idea that we are more motivated by our biology and genetics than we realize is also interesting. Chapter 4 in our Reeve also discussed Facial Metrics and their influence on how attractive we find a potential mate. Reeve stated that while cultures are rather divergent on what body type is seen as most attractive, different cultures are convergent on what facial characteristics are attractive. He also states that the facial features that are most important are the ones that cue youthfulness/agreeableness, strength/status, and happiness/openness. These ideas were also, well expressed in the video on the discovery channel.
It makes one wonder, where on the scale of facial features do I fit? And is beauty really in the eye of the beholder?
I found an additional link, that is interesting: http://www.faceresearch.org/demos/average
On this website you can choose the faces to be averaged together. It is interesting to see how people's differences can come together to make an entirely new face. There are also some other demos on the website that are pretty cool, including transform a face and make a baby.
The discovery channel video is very interesting. I just got done doing my book report on the evolution of mating and testosterone was definitely one of the key components in mate selection and the attractiveness of the male face. It is so surprise to me that most women feel as those the more masculine face is more attractive and that men feel the more feminine face is more attractive when looking at the people of the opposite sex. I agree with the idea that people of the opposite sex are attracted to those characteristics because of what they represent. The more masculine features represent a more masculine behavior which brings out the other ideas that females find attractive in men which are protection, intelligence, and stability—and the same goes for women. However, I was also reading the infamous Cosmo while on break at work and there was an article about men faces and there attractiveness. One face was altered to be more masculine and the other was altered to be more feminine. The idea of this article was stating that birth control or oral contraceptive was altering how females view the attractiveness of men. The outcome stated that female on oral contraceptive or any type of birth control was going to prefer the more feminine face over the masculine face due to the hormones that are affecting her via birth control. This fact is interesting to me because it basically reiterates this attractiveness point. Women are have more androgen (testosterone) in their system due to the birth control therefore altering their perception of attractiveness.