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Examining Ecological Harshness, Sociosexuality, and Mate Value in Women’s Preferences for Men’s Height and Shoulder-to-Hip Ratio

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Abstract

Physical features in men, such as height and shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR), have been shown to contribute to women’s mate preferences. The independent and interactive effects of height and SHR have been shown to be associated with attractiveness, masculinity, dominance, and fighting ability. It is suggested that these sexually dimorphic features are a reflection of men’s genetic quality, in addition to the ability to provide direct benefits (e.g., protection, resource provisioning). The current study investigated how ecological harshness may modulate women’s mate preferences to men displaying variations in height and SHR ratio. In a sample of predominately Hispanic women (N = 247), manipulating ecological harshness did not affect their ratings of men. Women considered taller men with larger SHRs as more attractive, masculine, dominant, and higher in fighting ability. Interestingly, these ratings were moderated by individual differences in women’s mate value but not sociosexuality. Women with higher mate value rated all men who were taller than the anchor woman (172 cm) in the presentation sequence as more attractive, masculine, dominant, and higher in fighting ability. The findings replicated previous research on the interactive effects of men’s height and SHR and showed that women calibrate their mating preferences as a function of their overall mate quality (i.e., mate value).

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Data Availability

The data is available upon request.

Code Availability

The data was analyzed using SPSS and Jamovi program. The file is available upon request.

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Funding

The authors acknowledge support from the TAMIU Advancing Research and Curriculum Initiative (TAMIU ARC) awarded by the US Department of Education Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (Award # P031S190304).

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  1. Department of Psychology and Communication, Texas A&M International University, 5201 University Blvd, Laredo, TX, 78041, USA

    Ray Garza & Regina Gonzalez Elizondo

  2. School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

    Farid Pazhoohi

Authors
  1. Ray Garza
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  2. Regina Gonzalez Elizondo
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  3. Farid Pazhoohi
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Ray Garza and Regina Gonzalez Elizondo. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ray Garza, Regina Gonzalez Elizondo, and Farid Pazhoohi, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ray Garza.

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Ethics Approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Institutional Review Board at Texas A&M International University (#2022–02-16).

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for Publication

The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for the publication of the images in Figs. 2–10.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Garza, R., Elizondo, R.G. & Pazhoohi, F. Examining Ecological Harshness, Sociosexuality, and Mate Value in Women’s Preferences for Men’s Height and Shoulder-to-Hip Ratio. Evolutionary Psychological Science 10, 122–134 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-024-00394-3

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