Length of Relationship Determined by Women’s Facial Features

A new and interesting study highlights that women with feminine features are preferred by men for a fling. This study was conducted by Anthony Little from the University of Stirling along with Benedict Jones from the University of Glasgow.

The study investigated whether a woman's facial features affect a man's preference for long term or short term relationships.

To proceed with the finding, the researchers conducted a study on 393 heterosexual men.  Among the participants nearly 207 stated they had a current partner. For the study, the researchers presented the participants with 10 paired images of women and in each pair of composite images they further transformed one image to have certain masculine traits and the other more feminine traits.

From the given images, the men were asked to rate which of each pair they found most attractive for both short term and long term relationships.

The researchers noticed that those men who claimed to be in a relationship were more likely to find women with feminine faces most attractive when it was for short term relationships.

"It's interesting that these findings are comparable to previous research that indicates women's preference for masculine male faces are higher if they were judging for short-term relationships.  Our findings point to a similar preference in men. When they already have a partner, men find more feminine women more attractive for short-term relationships," said Anthony.

The researchers give possible explanations for this stating that a few men are more likely to have long term partners and still try and cheat with others who have more feminine features. They also suspect that a person in long term relationship thinks he is secure and the cost of being caught increases his choice regarding short term partners when compared to unpartnered men.

In another part of the study researchers found that men who consider themselves to be attractive are more likely to chose women with more feminine features whereas an attractive women is very selective about her preference for men.

In both the studies it was seen that men who are attractive are very discriminating in their choice of a feminine looking woman.  

The study was published in the published in the British Journal of Psychology.