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Heterosexual male gym rats, rejoice! Women, when asked in a study to judge photos of men's bodies, rated the strongest men as the most attractive. Height and leanness were appealing attributes, too, but strength played an outsize role in the ratings of a man's torso, per a report published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“No one will be surprised by the idea that strong men are more attractive,” said study author Aaron Lukaszewski, an evolutionary psychologist at California State University at Fullerton. “It's no secret that women like strong, muscular guys.”
There was no nuance to these results, he said. Zero of the 160 women surveyed showed a statistical preference for weaker men.
“That is so obvious, people are going to wonder why scientists needed to study it,” said Holly Dunsworth, an anthropologist at the University of Rhode Island who was not involved in the research. “And the answer would be because they want to know how these preferences evolved.”
Lukaszewski and his co-authors created a photo database of shirtless or tanktop-wearing male college students, all from the University of California at Santa Barbara. The men's heads were digitally obscured. Dunsworth described the overall effect as “faceless, soulless blockheads” above naked torsos. “It’s nice to see evolutionary psychology treating everybody like pieces of meat,” she said, “not just women.”
“No one will be surprised by the idea that strong men are more attractive,” said study author Aaron Lukaszewski, an evolutionary psychologist at California State University at Fullerton. “It's no secret that women like strong, muscular guys.”
There was no nuance to these results, he said. Zero of the 160 women surveyed showed a statistical preference for weaker men.
“That is so obvious, people are going to wonder why scientists needed to study it,” said Holly Dunsworth, an anthropologist at the University of Rhode Island who was not involved in the research. “And the answer would be because they want to know how these preferences evolved.”
Lukaszewski and his co-authors created a photo database of shirtless or tanktop-wearing male college students, all from the University of California at Santa Barbara. The men's heads were digitally obscured. Dunsworth described the overall effect as “faceless, soulless blockheads” above naked torsos. “It’s nice to see evolutionary psychology treating everybody like pieces of meat,” she said, “not just women.”
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