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.
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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
Why do people have cosmetic surgery, and how do cosmetic surgery advertisements make women feel about themselves and behave towards thei...
Why do people have cosmetic surgery, and how do cosmetic surgery advertisements make women feel about themselves and behave towards their partners? I also speak to Dr. Sylvie Borau of the Toulouse Business School about her new research on how sexy advertisements trigger women's competitive urges.
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How do sexy swimwear advertisements affect women's competitive urges? Mike Monoghan/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Ashikali, E.-M., Dittmar, H., & Ayers, S. (2017). The impact of cosmetic surgery advertising on Swiss women's body image and attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 76(1), 13-21. Read summary
Atari, M., Barbaro, N., Sela, Y., Shackelford, T. K., & Chegeni, R. (in press). Consideration of cosmetic surgery as part of women's benefit-provisioning mate retention strategy. Frontiers in Psychology. Read summary
Borau, S., & Bonnefon, J.-F. (in press). The imaginary intrasexual competition: Advertisements featuring provocative female models trigger women to engage in indirect aggression. Journal of Business Ethics. 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).
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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, August 29, 2017
Nobody likes to discover that their partner is cheating on them, but how do we react when infidelity is exposed on social media? And can...
Nobody likes to discover that their partner is cheating on them, but how do we react when infidelity is exposed on social media? And can you tell if someone is a cheater by their voice alone? I also speak with Dr. Evita March of Federation University, Australia, about her research on selfies and narcissism.
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Who knows what this couple are up to on their laptops? Probably just playing Solitaire... CGP Grey/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Dunn, M. J., & Billett, G. (in press). Jealousy levels in response to infidelity-revealing facebook messages depend on sex, type of message and message composer: Support for the evolutionary psychological perspective. Evolutionary Psychological Science. Read summary
Hughes, S. M., & Harrison, M. A. (2017). Your cheatin’ voice will tell on you: Detection of past infidelity from voice. Evolutionary Psychology, 15(2), 1474704917711513. Read summary
March, E., & McBean, T. (2017). Love looking at your self(ie)? The moderating effect of self-esteem on narcissism. Poster presented at the conference of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, Warsaw.
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
Do men and women have different tactics for making up after a fight? And do couples resolve sexual and non-sexual conflicts differently?...
Do men and women have different tactics for making up after a fight? And do couples resolve sexual and non-sexual conflicts differently? We'll find out in this episode about conflict resolution. I also talk to Dr. Sylvie Borau about her research on gendered marketing.
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Borau, S., & Bonnefon, J.-F. (2017). Gendered products confer asymmetric benefits to the mate value of male and female consumers. Poster presented at the conference of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, Paris.
Rehman, U. S., Lizdek, I., Fallis, E. E., Sutherland, S., & Goodnight, J. A. (in press). How is sexual communication different from nonsexual communication? A moment-by-moment analysis of discussions between romantic partners. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Wade, T. J., Mogilski, J., & Schoenberg, R. (in press). Sex differences in reconciliation behavior after romantic conflict. Evolutionary Psychological Science. Read summary
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, May 09, 2017
This month we investigate unusual aspects of mating behaviour. How many young adults have experience of threesomes (sex with two partner...
This month we investigate unusual aspects of mating behaviour. How many young adults have experience of threesomes (sex with two partners at the same time)? And why does anyone read -- and write -- sexually explicit fan fiction? I also interview Naomi Muggleton, a PhD student from the University of Warwick, about her research on women's long- and short-term mate preferences and how they vary across cultures. (I've also covered Naomi's previous work on body odour: click here for that episode)
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.
Anisimowicz, Y., & O’Sullivan, L. F. (2017). Men’s and women’s use and creation of online sexually explicit materials including fandom-related works. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(3), 823-833. Read summary
Muggleton, N. (2017). Ecological predictors of female sexual suppression. Poster presented at the conference of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, Paris.
Thompson, A. E., & Byers, E. S. (2017). Heterosexual young adults’ interest, attitudes, and experiences related to mixed-gender, multi-person sex. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(3), 813-822. Read summary
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
For the first time, I hand over editorial control to you, the listeners of The Psychology of Attractiveness Podcast. Supporters of the p...
For the first time, I hand over editorial control to you, the listeners of The Psychology of Attractiveness Podcast. Supporters of the podcast on Patreon have chosen what we'll discuss in today's show. Thanks to them, we'll find out why people choose to stay single, and how sex makes men immoral.
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.
It wasn’t until dusk that Emma accepted her wedding day hadn’t gone exactly to plan. Bobby Bradley/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Apostolou, M. (2017). Why people stay single: An evolutionary perspective. Personality and Individual Differences, 111, 263-271. Read summary
Chiou, W.-B., Wu, W.-H., & Cheng, W. (in press). Sexy women can tempt men down the road of immorality: Exposure to sexy stimuli leads to increased dishonesty in men. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
How do mobile phones improve and damage our relationships? We look at a study of sexting among high school students, and find out about ...
How do mobile phones improve and damage our relationships? We look at a study of sexting among high school students, and find out about 'phubbing': a modern relationship behaviour you have almost certainly experienced.
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.
Strassberg, D. S., Cann, D., & Velarde, V. (in press). Sexting by high school students. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Wang, X., Xie, X., Wang, Y., Wang, P., & Lei, L. (2017). Partner phubbing and depression among married Chinese adults: The roles of relationship satisfaction and relationship length. Personality and Individual Differences, 110, 12-17. Read summary
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Some of you may know that last summer I started a new job at Basel University in Switzerland. During the autumn semester, I taught a cla...
Some of you may know that last summer I started a new job at Basel University in Switzerland. During the autumn semester, I taught a class on personality and intimate relationships. One thing I had the class do is read research papers and prepare short written assignments on them, in a style similar to my podcast. Several of the students also recorded their assignments, so here is a special bonus episode featuring their work. Almost none of the students are native English speakers, and until now most had summarised research only in formal scientific language, so the project was a real challenge. I am very proud of the effort they put in and hope you enjoy this bonus podcast.
Michelle:
Pawłowski, B., & Jasienska, G. (2008). Women's body morphology and preferences for sexual partners' characteristics. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(1), 19-25. Read summary
Ting:
Lill, M. M., & Wilkinson, T. J. (2005). Judging a book by its cover: descriptive survey of patients' preferences for doctors' appearance and mode of address. BMJ, 331(7531), 1524-1527. Read summary
Hanna:
Maybach, K. L., & Gold, S. R. (1994). Hyperfemininity and attraction to macho and non‐macho men. The Journal of Sex Research, 31(2), 91-98. Read summary
Sou Bouy:
Nordsletten, A. E., Larsson, H., & Crowley, J. J. (2016). Patterns of nonrandom mating within and across 11 major psychiatric disorders. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(4), 354-361. Read summary
Dania:
Schützwohl, A., & Koch, S. (2004). Sex differences in jealousy: The recall of cues to sexual and emotional infidelity in personally more and less threatening context conditions. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25(4), 249-257. Read summary
Alina and Dominik:
Mark, K. P., Janssen, E., & Milhausen, R. R. (2011). Infidelity in heterosexual couples: Demographic, interpersonal, and personality-related predictors of extradyadic sex. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40, 971-982. Read summary
Daphne:
Campbell, L., & Kohut, T. (2017). The use and effects of pornography in romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 6-10. Read summary
Leonie:
Cravens, J. D., & Whiting, J. B. (2014). Clinical implications of internet infidelity: Where Facebook fits in. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 42(4), 325-339. Read summary
Emily:
McDaniel, B. T., Drouin, M., & Cravens, J. D. (2017). Do you have anything to hide? Infidelity-related behaviors on social media sites and marital satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior, 66, 88-95. Read summary
Galya:
Meltzer, A. L., & McNulty, J. K. (2016). Who is having more and better sex? The Big Five as predictors of sex in marriage. Journal of Research in Personality, 63, 62-66. Read summary
Christine:
Ahmetoglu, G., Swami, V., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2010). The relationship between dimensions of love, personality, and relationship length. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(5), 1181-1190. Read summary
Philipp:
Barnes, S., Brown, K. W., Krusemark, E., Campbell, W. K., & Rogge, R. D. (2007). The role of mindfulness in romantic relationship satisfaction and responses to relationship stress. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 33(4), 482–500. Read summary
Oriana:
Jackson, J. J., Connolly, J. J., Garrison, S. M., Leveille, M. M., & Connolly, S. L. (2015). Your friends know how long you will live. Psychological Science, 26(3), 335-340. Read summary
Susanne:
Mogilski, J. K., & Welling, L. L. M. (in press). Staying friends with an ex: Sex and dark personality traits predict motivations for post-relationship friendship. Personality and Individual Differences. 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.
