This month, we investigate faking orgasm. Who fakes orgasms, and why? We also find out how men and women weigh up the relative importance of facial and bodily attractiveness in a partner.
Look like they're having fun. But are they just faking it? Flickr/Jessica Wüst
The articles covered in the show:
Jonason, P. K. (2019). Reasons to pretend to orgasm and the mating psychology of those who endorse them. Personality and Individual Differences, 143, 90-94. Read summary
Zaidi, A. A., White, J. D., Mattern, B. C., Liebowitz, C. R., Puts, D. A., Claes, P., et al. (in press). Facial masculinity does not appear to be a condition-dependent male ornament and does not reflect MHC heterozygosity in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read summary
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Why are we attracted to attractive people? Perhaps because evolution has shaped us to seek healthy and fertile partners. But is beauty r...
Why are we attracted to attractive people? Perhaps because evolution has shaped us to seek healthy and fertile partners. But is beauty really linked to biological fitness? We find out. This episode also features an interview with Kai Hiraishi of Keio University, who presented his research on men's over-perception of women's sexual intent at this summer's HBES conference.
Are attractive people healthier and more fertile? Previous assumptions are being overturned. Freestocks
The articles covered in the show:
Cai, Z., Hahn, A. C., Zhang, W., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., DeBruine, L. M., et al. (in press). No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are cues to susceptibility to infectious illnesses in a university sample of young adult women. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Hiraishi, K., Kawahata, Y., Nomura, K., & Shigematsu, H. (2018). Women's perception of men's overperception of women's sexual-intent and what she says she really wants. Poster presented at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society Annual Conference.
Lassek, W. B., & Gaulin, S. J. C. (in press). Do the low WHRs and SMIs judged most attractive indicate higher fertility? Evolutionary Psychology. Read summary
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Looking healthy is vital to an attractive appearance. But how do we judge a person's healthiness? We find out how face shape and col...
Looking healthy is vital to an attractive appearance. But how do we judge a person's healthiness? We find out how face shape and colour influence our perceptions of health, and revisit the idea of limbal rings: a part of the eye that gives away our health and age.
Support me! Support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 and get access to the patron-only feed, including bonus podcasts and blogs not available elsewhere.
The eye is the window to your... health? The eye on the left has an exaggerated limbal ring. Modified from Joanna Malinowska/freestocks.org
The articles covered in the show:
Brown, M., & Sacco, D. F. (in press). Put a (limbal) ring on it: Women perceive men's limbal rings as a health cue in short-term mating domains. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Read summary
Jones, A. L. (in press). The influence of shape and colour cue classes on facial health perception. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Is there any truth to the cliche of the man who can't talk to a woman without tearing his eyes away from her body? We find out. Also...
Is there any truth to the cliche of the man who can't talk to a woman without tearing his eyes away from her body? We find out. Also, are we more likely to remember attractive or unattractive faces, even after seeing them for just a split second? And Dr. Evita March is back to talk about her research on sharing explicit images (AKA sending dick pics).
Support me! Support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 and get access to the patron-only feed, including bonus podcasts and blogs not available elsewhere.
Gillath, O., Bahns, A. J., & Burghart, H. A. (in press). Eye movements when looking at potential friends and romantic partners. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Nakamura, K., Arai, S., & Kawabata, H. (in press). Prioritized identification of attractive and romantic partner faces in rapid serial visual presentation. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
March, E., & Wagstaff, D. (2017). Explicit Image Orientation: The role of sex, personality, and mate value. Paper presented at the conference of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, Warsaw.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Earlier this year I posted a bonus episode featuring contributions from students in my undergraduate seminar here at Basel University. ...
Earlier this year I posted a bonus episode featuring contributions from students in my undergraduate seminar here at Basel University. It proved to be one of the more popular episodes of the podcast. This semester I taught a masters level class on the evolutionary psychology of mate preference and, again, gave the students the task of summarising the research papers they found most interesting for a special bonus episode. As before, most of the students are not native English speakers, nor have they recorded audio before. I am super grateful they agreed to be a part of the podcast (especially after I freaked them out by telling them how many people listened to the previous bonus episode!).
The articles covered in the show (in order of appearance):
Sebastiaan:
Singh, D. & Luis, S. (1995). Ethnic and gender consensus for the effect of waist-to-hip ratio on judgment of women's attractiveness. Human Nature, 6(1), 51-65. Read summary
Elena:
Olderbak, S. G., Malter, F., Wolf, P. S. A., Jones, D. N., & Figueredo, A. J. (2017). Predicting romantic interest at zero acquaintance: Evidence of sex differences in trait perception but not in predictors of interest. European Journal of Personality, 31(1), 42-62. Read summary
Lara:
Ha, T., van den Berg, J. E. M., Engels, R. C. M. E., & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A. (2012). Effects of attractiveness and status in dating desire in homosexual and heterosexual men and women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41(3), 673-682. Read summary
Babice:
Dixson, B. J., Vasey, P. L., Sagata, K., Sibanda, N., Linklater, W. L., & Dixson, A. F. (2011). Men’s preferences for women’s breast morphology in New Zealand, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(6), 1271-1279. Read summary
Katrin:
Sherlock, J. M., Sidari, M. J., Harris, E. A., Barlow, F. K., & Zietsch, B. P. (2016). Testing the mate-choice hypothesis of the female orgasm: Disentangling traits and behaviours. Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, 6(1), 31562. Read summary
Sabrina:
Wlodarski, R., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2013). Menstrual cycle effects on attitudes to kissing. Human Nature, 24(4), 402-413. Read summary
Natascha:
Tracy, J. L., & Beall, A. T. (2014). The impact of weather on women’s tendency to wear red or pink when at high risk for conception. PLoS One, 9(2), e88852. Read summary
Antonia:
Krems, J. A., Neel, R., Neuberg, S. L., Puts, D. A., & Kenrick, D. T. (2016). Women selectively guard their (desirable) mates from ovulating women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(4), 551-573. Read summary
Samuele:
Perrett, D. I., Lee, K. J., Penton-Voak, I. S., Rowland, D. R., Yoshikawa, S., Burt, D. M., et al. (1998). Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness. Nature, 394, 884-887. Read summary
James:
Dixson, B. J., & Brooks, R. C. (2013). The role of facial hair in women's perceptions of men's attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(3), 236-241. Read summary
Sebastian:
Lefevre, C. E., & Perrett, D. I. (2015). Fruit over sunbed: Carotenoid skin coloration is found more attractive than melanin coloration. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(2), 284-293. Read summary
Denise:
Kaufman, S. B., Kozbelt, A., Silvia, P., Kaufman, J. C., Ramesh, S., & Feist, G. J. (2016). Who finds Bill Gates sexy? Creative mate preferences as a function of cognitive ability, personality, and creative achievement. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 50(4), 294-307. Read summary
Julia:
Apostelou, M., Kasapi, K., & Arakliti, A. (2015). Will they do as we wish? An investigation of the effectiveness of parental manipulation of mating behavior. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 1(1), 28-36. Read summary
Tita:
DeBruine, L. M., Jones, B. C., & Little, A. C. (2017). Positive sexual imprinting for human eye color. bioRxiv, 135244. Read summary
Tuesday, July 04, 2017
Can you tell a good leader from their face or their name? We'll look at the results of two new experiments to find out. Plus I talk ...
Can you tell a good leader from their face or their name? We'll look at the results of two new experiments to find out. Plus I talk to Zuzana Štěrbová about her research on how childhood experiences impact our love lives.
Support me! Support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 and get access to the patron-only feed, including bonus podcasts and blogs not available elsewhere.
The faces carved on Mount Rushmore are among the greatest leaders in American history, but did their presidential faces help them to the top? Kurt Magoon/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Barton, D. N., & Halberstadt, J. (in press). A social Bouba/Kiki effect: A bias for people whose names match their faces. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Read summary
Re, D. E., & Rule, N. (in press). Distinctive facial cues predict leadership rank and selection. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Read summary
Štěrbová, X., Bartova, K., Weiss, P., & Varella., V. J. (2017). Relationship with parents during childhood predicts age of the first love but not the first sexual experience in heterosexual and non-heterosexual individuals. Poster presented at the conference of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, Paris.
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
Supporters of the podcast on Patreon have chosen the topic for this month's episode, and it's a family affair: we find out if pa...
Supporters of the podcast on Patreon have chosen the topic for this month's episode, and it's a family affair: we find out if parents prefer attractive partners for their offspring. We will also discover if our partners tend to resemble our siblings (*shudder*). And I speak to Jaime Benjamin, a PhD student at the University of Dundee, about her new research on how men and women trade off appearance against wealth in potential partners.
Support me! Support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 and get access to the patron-only feed, including bonus podcasts and blogs not available elsewhere.
The Godfather clan kept it in the family, but do parents interfere in their offsprings' choice of mates? And do our partners resembles our siblings?
The articles covered in the show:
Benjamin, J., & Moore, F. (2017). Mate preference trade-offs a la carte vs. table d'hôte: Examining sex differences using Conjoint Analysis. Poster presented at the conference of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, Paris.
Lefevre, C. E., & Saxton, T. K. (in press). Parental preferences for the facial traits of their offspring's partners can enhance parental inclusive fitness. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Saxton, T. K., Steel, C., Rowley, K., Newman, A. V., & Baguley, T. (in press). Facial resemblance between women's partners and brothers. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
It's a bad boy special. We discover if a spell at an army training camp can change the type of woman a man finds most attractive. We...
It's a bad boy special. We discover if a spell at an army training camp can change the type of woman a man finds most attractive. We also find out what tattoos say about a man's health, masculinity, and perceived parenting ability.
Support me! Support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 and get access to the patron-only feed, including bonus podcasts and blogs not available elsewhere.
Can army training affect what kind of women men are attracted to? And do tattoos make a man seem healthier and hotter? Defence Images/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Batres, C., & Perrett, D. I. (2016). How the harsh environment of an army training camp changes human (Homo sapiens) facial preferences. Ethology. Read summary
Galbarczyk, A., & Ziomkiewicz, A. (2017). Tattooed men: Healthy bad boys and good-looking competitors. Personality and Individual Differences, 106. Read summary
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Download the MP3 Sex and drugs: Does taking illicit substances affect your mating success? We also find out how a dose of testosterone ...
Sex and drugs: Does taking illicit substances affect your mating success? We also find out how a dose of testosterone influences what men find attractive.
Support me! Support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 and get access to the patron-only feed, including bonus podcasts and blogs not available elsewhere.
Richardson, G. B., Chen, C.-C., Dai, C.-L., Swoboda, C. M., Nedelec, J. L., & Chen, W.-W. (in press). Substance use and mating success. Evolution and Human Behavior. View summary
Bird, B. M., Welling, L. L. M., Ortiz, T. L., Moreau, B. J. P., Hansen, S., Emond, M., . . . Carré, J. M. (in press). Effects of exogenous testosterone and mating context on men's preferences for female facial femininity. Hormones and Behavior. View summary
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
We discover why beauty is in the nose of the beholder in this odor special. We'll find out whether spraying scented deodorant all over y...
We discover why beauty is in the nose of the beholder in this odor special. We'll find out whether spraying scented deodorant all over your body can make your smell more masculine or feminine, and we'll also learn if a man's whole mating psychology is turned topsy turvy when he catches a whiff of female pheromones.
Also, this is episode 100 of the podcast so if you want to send me lots of gifts then go right ahead.
Scents -- whether natural or artificial -- can influence what we find attractive and even how we see ourselves. J. Sibiga/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Allen, C., Cobey, K. D., Havlíček, J., & Roberts, S. C. (in press). The impact of artificial fragrances on the assessment of mate quality cues in body odor. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Williams, M. N., & Jacobson, A. (2016). Effect of copulins on rating of female attractiveness, mate-guarding, and self-perceived sexual desirability. Evolutionary Psychology, 14(2). Read summary
Wednesday, March 09, 2016
The perils of dating your boss: do workplace romances have a positive or negative effect on your job prospects? And predicting the sex of yo...
The perils of dating your boss: do workplace romances have a positive or negative effect on your job prospects? And predicting the sex of your child: do women who prefer a certain type of man think they're more likely to give birth to boys or girls?
I don't think donning a giant shower cap is going to attract anyone, but OK... Gwendal Uguen/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Chan-Serafin, S., Teo, L., Minbashian, A., Cheng, D., & Wang, L. (in press). The perils of dating your boss: The role of hierarchical workplace romance and sex on evaluators’ career advancement decisions for lower status romance participants. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Read summary
Palmer-Hague, J. L., & Watson, N. V. (2016). Predicted offspring sex is related to women’s preferences for dominance in men. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 10(1), 10-28. Read summary
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
Turn that frown upside down! We look at research on attraction and humor. Does a GSOH make you more desirable? And Matia Okubo reveals why ...
Turn that frown upside down! We look at research on attraction and humor. Does a GSOH make you more desirable? And Matia Okubo reveals why a man who cracks a smile is good marriage material.
Psychologists from Japan have found that men are more attractive when they smile, but only for long-term relationships. Luca [JP@G]/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Okubo, M., Ishikawa, K., Kobayashi, A., Laeng, B., & Tommasi, L. (2015). Cool guys and warm husbands: The effect of smiling on male facial attractiveness for short- and long-term relationships. Evolutionary Psychology, 13(3). Read paper
Tornquist, M., & Chiappe, D. (2015). Effects of humor production, humor receptivity, and physical attractiveness on partner desirability. Evolutionary Psychology, 13(4), 1474704915608744. Read paper
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Head posture: Does tilting your noggin like a bobble-head doll make you more or less alluring? I talk to Danielle Sulikowski. Download t...
Does tilting her head make this woman more attractive? Or does she just look like her bonce is about to snap off at the hinge?
The articles covered in the show:
Burke, D., & Sulikowski, D. (2010). A new viewpoint on the evolution of sexually dimorphic human faces. Evolutionary Psychology, 8(4), 147470491000800404. Read summary
Sulikowski, D., Burke, D., Havlíček, J., & Roberts, S. C. (in press). Head tilt and fertility contribute to different aspects of female facial attractiveness. Ethology. Read summary
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
How voices and faces win votes. I talk to Casey Klofstad about his new research into voice pitch and the effect it has on perceptions of a ...
How voices and faces win votes. I talk to Casey Klofstad about his new research into voice pitch and the effect it has on perceptions of a political candidate's age, strength, and competence. We'll also look at how other nonverbal cues, including facial appearance, influence election success.
Are female political candidates more successful if they have deep voices? New research by Casey Klofstad shows that Margaret Thatcher may have been correct to lower her voice an octave or two.
The articles covered in the show:
Elmore, W., Vonnahame, E. M., Thompson, L., Filion, D., & Lundgren, J. D. (2015). Evaluating political candidates: Does weight matter? Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 1(3), 287-297. Read summary
Klofstad, C. A., Anderson, C., & Nowicki, S. (2015). Perceptions of competence, strength, and age influence voters to select leaders with lower-pitched voices. PLoS One, 10(8), e0133779. Read paper
Laustsen, L., & Petersen, M. B. (in press). Winning faces vary by ideology: How nonverbal source cues influence election and communication success in politics. Political Communication. Read summary
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Can men detect if a woman is a cheater? I talk to Samantha Leivers of the University of Western Australia about her new research on appearan...
Can men detect if a woman is a cheater? I talk to Samantha Leivers of the University of Western Australia about her new research on appearance and faithfulness. More about Samantha on LinkedIn and ResearchGate.
Maybe if Richard Gere had been able to detect Diane Lane's cheating ways in her face, he would have avoided a lot of grief...
The articles covered in the show:
Leivers, S., Simmons, L. W., & Rhodes, G. (2015). Men’s sexual faithfulness judgments may contain a kernel of truth. PLoS One, 10(8), e0134007. Read paper
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
We know that pregnant women get cravings for unusual foods, but does pregnancy also affect what women desire in a man? We also look at a new...
We know that pregnant women get cravings for unusual foods, but does pregnancy also affect what women desire in a man? We also look at a new experiment that shows once and for all whether men prefer larger or smaller breasts. You'll be surprised by the results!
Dixson, B. J., Duncan, M., & Dixson, A. F. (in press). The role of breast size and areolar pigmentation in perceptions of women’s sexual attractiveness, reproductive health, sexual maturity, maternal nurturing abilities, and age. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Limoncin, E., Ciocca, G., Gravina, G. L., Carosa, E., Mollaioli, D., Cellerino, A., et al. (in press). Pregnant women's preferences for men's faces differ significantly from nonpregnant women. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Read summary
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Is beauty contagious? How the average attractiveness of a group of people is influenced by its members. Also, how the ratio of men to women ...
Is beauty contagious? How the average attractiveness of a group of people is influenced by its members. Also, how the ratio of men to women in our social group meddles with our mating psychology.
One man and four women: new research shows how our 'mating strategies' (how we seek partners and what we find attractive) are influenced by the relative numbers of men and women we encounter.
The articles covered in the show:
Schacht, R., & Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (2015). Sex ratio effects on reproductive strategies in humans. Royal Society Open Science, 2, 140402. Read summary
van Osch, Y., Blanken, I., Meijs, M. H. J., & van Wolferen, J. (in press). A group’s physical attractiveness is greater than the average attractiveness of its members: The group attractiveness effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Read summary
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Why do women wear make up? I interview Alex Jones of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania about his new research into cosmetics and 'facia...
Why do women wear make up? I interview Alex Jones of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania about his new research into cosmetics and 'facial contrast' (follow @AlexJonesPHD on Twitter). Also, how did Kim Kardashian break the Internet? Was it her massive bum, or the pronounced curvature of her lower back?
Why do women wear make up? I interview Alex Jones of Gettysburg College PA about his new research that suggests make up works by enhancing female-typical 'facial contrast'.
The articles covered in the show
Jones, A. L. (2015). Cosmetics alter biologically-based factors of beauty: evidence from facial contrast. Evolutionary Psychology, 13(1), 210-229. Read summary
Jones, A. L., & Kramer, R. S. S. (2015). Facial cosmetics have little effect on attractiveness judgments compared with identity. Perception, 44, 79-86. Read summary
Lewis, D. M. G., Russell, E. M., Al-Shawaf, L., & Buss, D. M. (in press). Lumbar curvature: A novel evolved standard of attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
The images Alex and I mentioned in the show
Richard Russell's "The Illusion of Sex" placed third in the 2009 Illusion of the Year Contest. Most people perceive the face on the left as female, and the face on the right as male. In fact, the photographs show the same face (a computer-generated androgynous face): the only difference is that the contrast of the face on the left is higher than the that of the face on the right. The effect is so strong, it is difficult not to see a woman and a man.
A figure from Alex's paper. The white lines encircle the 'features' (eye, eyebrow, and mouth) and the black lines the surrounding areas. It was the contrast between the features and the surrounding skin that Alex measured. He confirmed that facial contrast is higher in women than in men. His other research showed that women exaggerate these sex differences with make up.
This figure is from the Lewis paper, and shows how he manipulated back curvature. Men preferred a curvature of around 45 degrees. Listen in to find out why.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
How democracy is undermined by the psychology of attractiveness: we discover why good looking candidates have an advantage come polling day,...
How democracy is undermined by the psychology of attractiveness: we discover why good looking candidates have an advantage come polling day, either because their beauty distracts from their extreme policies, or (if they're very lucky) because their constituents are ill.
Remember David Cameron's allegedly airbrushed poster from 2010? Well, he might have been onto something...
The articles covered in the show:
Herrmann, M., & Shikano, S. (in press). Attractiveness and facial competence bias face-based inferences of candidate ideology. Political Psychology. Read summary
Zebrowitz, L. A., Franklin, R. G., & Palumbo, R. (2015). Ailing voters advance attractive congressional candidates. Evolutionary Psychology, 13(1), 16-28. Read summary
Friday, December 12, 2014
"I’ll have what she’s having": why younger women are more prone to pursuing the partners of their peers. We also find out whether ...
"I’ll have what she’s having": why younger women are more prone to pursuing the partners of their peers. We also find out whether high heels really do put you one step ahead of the competition, and why women who engage in anal sex engage in anal sex. I mean seriously, why??
Do high heels or flats make a woman more attractive? Nicolas Gueguen took to the streets of France to find out. Jake Guild/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Little, A. C., Caldwell, C. A., Jones, B. C., & DeBruine, L. M. (in press). Observer age and the social transmission of attractiveness in humans: Younger women are more influenced by the choices of popular others than older women. British Journal of Psychology. Read summary
Guéguen, N. (in press). High heels increase women’s attractiveness. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Reynolds, G. L., Fisher, D. G., & Rogala, B. (in press). Why women engage in anal intercourse: Results from a qualitative study. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
This is the archive for the Psychology of Attractiveness Podcast, a science show covering the most interesting and cutting edge research on the psychology of attraction and relationships. The podcast was active between 2009 and 2019. All episodes remain available.
The podcast was produced by Dr Robert Burriss, a psychologist who has held research posts at universities in the UK, USA, and Switzerland.
