Beyond waist--hip ratio: experimental multivariate evidence that average women's torsos are most attractive

Misha L. Donohoe, William von Hippel and Robert C. Brooks

Behavioral Ecology, 2009, vol. 20, issue 4, 716-721

Abstract: One of the most iconic findings in human behavioral ecology is the fact that women with waist-hip ratios (WHRs) of approximately 0.7 are most attractive and that this ratio indicates maximum fecundity and reproductive value. However, the effects of WHR and of other indices of body shape and size on attractiveness are far from fully resolved. We adopt a recently developed method that combines multivariate manipulation of experimental stimuli with evolutionary selection analysis to test the linear and nonlinear effects of waist, hip, and shoulder width and the interactions between these traits on the attractiveness of 200 line-drawn models to 100 men. There was no general support that WHR or body mass (expressed as perimeter--area ratio) significantly influences attractiveness. There was, however, strong preference for average values of all 3 traits indicating that attractiveness is due to the tight integration of these 3 traits. We plot the mean waist and hip sizes of 8 samples of women on our response surface, including Playboy centerfolds, models from the 1920s and 1990s, Australian escorts, and Australian women in 4 different age categories (collectively we refer to this latter group as the "regular women"). The regular women in the 25- to 44-year age-group were closest to the peak attractiveness value on our response surface. Our results highlight the strong integration of and interrelationships among different parts of the body as determinants of attractiveness. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arp051 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:20:y:2009:i:4:p:716-721

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().