Allison Ross, Ashley Bobman, Malia Piper, Nicole Riley

February 22, 2013

HONORS 221 B: Evolution and Human Behavior
Research Paper on Correlation between financial stability and male facial ratio deemed most
attractive.

Financial Stability and Male Facial Ratio

In a hunter-gatherer society, masculinized men would be better able to accumulate resources

during times of hardship. DeBruine, et al. showed that higher levels of testosterone indicates greater
health and reproductive potential and thus these more masculine men would be better able to collect food
and supplies (De Bruin et al. 2010). As a result, they would be more desirable mates. That is, women in
times of hardship would view these more masculine men as better equipped to protect and provide for
them and their offspring. On the other hand, women who have access to more resources and are not in
times of hardship would no longer require a masculinized man as a mate to survive. Thus, this group of
females would be more likely to choose less masculinized men, who, based on our discussion in class,
would be better fathers, as mates. DeBruine, et al. showed that women in less healthy nations prefer
more masculinized men. Similarly, our research question is whether there is a correlation between
womens confidence in their financial stability and independence and their preference in masculinity of
men. Evolutionarily, females who lack confidence in their financial stability and thus their ability to
accumulate resources would be more likely to pursue masculine men. We hypothesize that women who
are less confident in their financial stability would feel more vulnerable, and thus would be more inclined
to seek masculinized men. Contrastingly, women who feel more financially stable would not feel the
same pressures and thus would be more likely to choose men with less masculine faces who could be
better fathers.
In order to test our hypothesis, we created an anonymous survey that asks questions about sex of
the participants, confidence in financial stability and independence, and which was the most attractive
face of several altered photos of a single man. The attached survey contains Figure 1, which shows the
pictures of the single man with differing facial ratios that we used. We only used the data collected from
women. We collected data by distributing the surveys out to individuals in our classes on campus. Using
the formula of Weston et al., we measured the facial ratio of each man as a function of biozygomatic
width over upper-facial height in order to determine the masculinity of each face. The scale ranges from 0
to 3, where the higher the number, the broader and thus more masculinized the face. The facial ratios that
we used from most masculine to least masculine were 1.59, 1.49, 1.48 1.39, and 1.31. Figure 2 shows

how we imposed boxes over the mens faces in order to measure the width of their faces and their upperfacial height in order to measure the facial ratios. We assigned the number 5 to the most masculine facial
ratio of 1.59, 1 to the least masculine facial ratio of 1.31, and 2-4 to the other faces, according to
masculinity. We also collected data about confidence in financial stability, ranging from 1 to 10, where 1
represents not at all confident and 10 represents very confident. We graphed our data on a scatterplot
with relative confidence in financial stability as the x-axis and facial ratio of the mans face who was
deemed the most attractive as the y-axis. We then evaluated the relative trend in our data to see if it
supported our hypothesis or not. If our hypothesis is correct, we would expect to see a negative
correlation between confidence in financial stability and preference for masculinized men or men with
higher facial ratios, where women who are less confident in their financial stability prefer more
masculinized men and women who are more confident in the economy prefer less masculinized men. This
is illustrated by Figure 3. If our hypothesis is incorrect, will either be no correlation between confidence
in financial stability and preference for more masculinized men or we would see a positive correlation
between confidence in financial stability and preference for masculinized faces, where women who are
more confident in their financial stability prefer more masculinized faces and women who are less
confident in their financial ability prefer less masculinized face. The former is illustrated by Figure 4, and
the latter is illustrated by Figure 5.
During our experiment, we collected data from 98 women. Our data in Figure 6 shows little to no
correlation between financial stability and the facial ratio of the man deemed most attractive, which
means that our data does not support the hypothesis. The R-squared value for our data is 0.0383, which
means that 3.83 percent of the variation in the data is explained by our best-fit line. This means that very
little of the variation in our data is explained by the linear relationship between financial stability and the
facial ratio deemed most attractive. The p-value for this scatterplot and distribution was .053, which is
above the cutoff of .05, which suggests that our results could have been due to sampling error. The
majority of women chose the same two faces as most attractive and similar scores for financial stability.
This is shown by Figure 7, which shows that a large number of women chose high numbers to describe

their economic stability, and Figure 8, which shows a high number of women chose faces 3 and 4 as the
most attractive. Both of the distributions for these variables are roughly normal, with the financial
stability data set pushed to the upper bound of high confidence. This seems to suggest that the majority of
the college women we surveyed are confident in their financial status and prefer a moderately masculine
face. Because the relationship between our variables could have likely occurred by chance, we cannot
draw a conclusion about whether womens confidence in financial stability affects preference of more
masculine facial ratios.
There are several issues with our study. We only looked at college students, who are about the
same age and are from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, which could serve as confounding variables.
Another problem with our study is the ambiguity of the term confidence in our question about financial
stability. We could have written our question in a clearer manner, like can you afford basic necessities
without worrying about money?. This question was also not suited towards college students because
many college students still rely on their parents to pay for college and other basic necessities. Thus,
people could have been confused on whether this question referred to their families economic status or to
their own economic status. Our question about attractiveness was also unclear because it did not
differentiate between the man who a woman would want to be in a relationship with and thus support her,
and one who she would rather have a fling with. Likewise, the masculinized face ratios were extremely
similar, even though each face showed marked differences in masculinity. Our measurement of
masculinity also did not account for jawline, which is something many people would look at when
deciding on the most attractive face. A redesigned study asking two separate questions after our clearer
question about financial stability: which man do you find sexier? and which man would you want to
marry?. These questions differentiate between which men women want as lifelong partners versus short
affairs, which would allow us to see how confidence in financial stability affects who women want for
support versus sexual gratification. We would hypothesize that women who have higher socioeconomic
status would prefer to marry more feminized men as partners who could better help them care for
children. On the other hand, women in lower classes would prefer to marry more masculinized men as

partners who could better provide for them. If we are correct, we would see a negative correlation
between financial stability and the masculinity of men. If we are incorrect, we would see a positive
correlation between financial stability and masculinity or no correlation.

Survey:
What is your sex?
M
F
How confident are you in your ability to become financially stable and independent? Please rate 110, with one being not at all confident and 10 being very confident.
1

10

Which of the following men do you find the most attractive? Please choose only one face.
Figure 1:

These are the faces we used for our study, with the most masculinized face on the left and the least
masculinized fact on the right. Their facial ratios from most masculine to least masculine were 1.59,
1.49, 1.48 1.39, and 1.31. We assigned numerical, integer values to the masculinity of each of the
faces based on masculinity, where 1 was assigned to the least masculine face with a ratio of 1.31 and
5 was assigned to the most masculine face with a ratio of 1.59.
Figure 2:

We took full-face photographs of each altered face and copied them into a PowerPoint, resizing the
images as little as possible. All photographs had the men facing the camera as squarely as possible to
maximize the accuracy of the biozygomatic width measurement, with their chin level (i.e. not tilted
up) to maximize the accuracy of the nasion to prosthion (upper facial height) measurement.

Next, using the methodology of Weston, et al. we measured the facial ratio of each man as a function
of biozygomatic width over upper-facial height (Diagram 2B)
Diagram 2B:

Source: Weston et al. 2007.

Figure 3:

This figure shows our prediction if our hypothesis is correct. Relative confidence in financial stability
is on the x-axis while facial ratio of the man deemed the most attractive is on the y-axis. We
predicted that there would be a negative correlation between confidence in financial stability and
preference for masculinized men, where women who are less confident in their financial stability
prefer more masculinized men and women who are more confident in the economy prefer less
masculinized men.

Figure 4:

This figure shows one of our predictions if our hypothesis is incorrect. Relative confidence in
financial stability is on the x-axis and facial ratio of the man deemed most attractive is on the y-axis.
We could expect to see no correlation between confidence in financial stability and preference for
more masculinized men, which means that we see no linear pattern in the data and relative financial
stability does not affect how attractive women think different facial ratios are.

Figure 5:

This figure shows another prediction for our data if our hypothesis is incorrect. Confidence in
financial stability is on the x-axis and facial ratio of the man who is deemed most attractive is on the
y-axis. We would expect to see a positive correlation between confidence in financial stability and
preference for masculinized faces, where women more confident in their financial stability prefer
more masculinized faces and women who are less confident in their financial ability prefer less
masculinized faces.

Figure 6:

This figure shows the actual distribution of our data. We received responses from 98 women and
graphed relative confidence in financial stability on the x-axis and facial ratio of the man deemed
the most attractive on the y-axis. There seems to be little to no correlation between our two
variables, which suggests that our hypothesis was incorrect because the data does not support it.
The R-squared value for our data is 0.0383, which means that 3.83 percent of the variation in the data
is explained by our best-fit line. This means that very little of the variation in our data is explained by
the linear relationship between financial stability and the facial ratio deemed the most attractive. The
p-value for this scatterplot and distribution was .053, which is above the cutoff of .05, which suggests that
our results could have been due to sampling error.

Figure 7:

This bar graph shows the distribution in answers to our survey that we received about how
confident they were in their financial stability. We received an extremely high number of
responses in the range of 8-10 range. This distribution is roughly normal but pushed to the upper
bound.
Figure 8:

This is a bar graph showing the distribution in responses of our participants in which face they
deemed the most attractive. The majority of participants preferred faces 3 and 4. The distribution
of womans selections for this variable was roughly normal.

Works Cited
DeBruine, et al. 2010. The health of a nation predicts their mate preferences: cross-cultural
variation in womens preferences for masculinized male faces. The Proceedings of the
Royal Society: Biological Sciences. 277: 2405-2410.
Victor S. Johnston. 2006. Mate choice decisions: the role of facial beauty. Trends in Cognitive
Sciences 10: 9-13
Weston, et al. 2007. Biometric Evidence that Sexual Selection Has Shaped the Hominin Face. PLos
ONE. 8, e710: n.p.