Women find men’s faces more attractive if other females find them appealing, research shows. It found that women reassessed their opinions after discovering what others thought.
The study by St Andrews university published in the journal Scientific Reports looked at 49 women, who were also shown abstract works of art.
After rating how attractive the images were on a scale of 0 to 100, they were shown the scores of other women and then asked to reassess them.
When shown the works of art they also reassessed their opinions, suggesting a tendency to be influenced by the opinions of others. The findings cast doubt on theories that evolution favoured women who were attracted to other women’s partners because they could be assumed as being a good choice. Many species of bird and fish exhibit mate-choice copying, which helps females to select high-quality males as sexual partners and therefore provides an evolutionary advantage.
Dr Kate Cross, of St Andrews who led the study, said: “Women in our study found men’s faces more attractive if other women had given that face high ratings. But the same goes for pictures of abstract artworks. Women appear to copy the mate preferences of other women, but this might be because humans have a general tendency to be influenced by the opinions of others.”