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No increased inbreeding avoidance during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle (2022)
Journal Article
Holzleitner, I. J., Driebe, J. C., Arslan, R. C., Hahn, A. C., Lee, A. J., O'Shea, K. J., …Debruine, L. M. (2022). No increased inbreeding avoidance during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 4, 1-48. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.41

Mate preferences and mating-related behaviours are hypothesised to change over the menstrual cycle to increase reproductive fitness. Recent large-scale studies suggest that previously reported hormone-linked behavioural changes are not robust. The pr... Read More about No increased inbreeding avoidance during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle.

Re-evaluating the relationship between pathogen avoidance and preferences for facial symmetry and sexual dimorphism: A registered report (2022)
Journal Article
Tybur, J. M., Fan, L., Jones, B. C., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., & DeBruine, L. M. (2022). Re-evaluating the relationship between pathogen avoidance and preferences for facial symmetry and sexual dimorphism: A registered report. Evolution and Human Behavior, 43(3), 212-223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.01.003

Over the past decade, a small literature has tested how trait-level pathogen-avoidance motives (e.g., disgust sensitivity) and exposure to pathogen cues relate to preferences for facial symmetry and sexual dimorphism. Results have largely been interp... Read More about Re-evaluating the relationship between pathogen avoidance and preferences for facial symmetry and sexual dimorphism: A registered report.

Does facial attractiveness really signal immunocompetence? (2021)
Journal Article
Jones, B. C., Holzleitner, I. J., & Shiramizu, V. (2021). Does facial attractiveness really signal immunocompetence?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(12), 1018-1020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.09.003

The dominant theory of facial attractiveness judgments is that they evolved to identify healthy individuals with strong immune systems. Here, we summarize results of recent tests of this hypothesis, concluding that it has little compelling empirical... Read More about Does facial attractiveness really signal immunocompetence?.

Do 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do? (2021)
Journal Article
Holzleitner, I. J., Jones, A. L., O’Shea, K. J., Cassar, R., Fasolt, V., Shiramizu, V., …DeBruine, L. M. (2021). Do 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do?. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 7(3), 209-219. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-021-00170-8

Objectives: A large literature exists investigating the extent to which physical characteristics (e.g., strength, weight, and height) can be accurately assessed from face images. While most of these studies have employed two-dimensional (2D) face ima... Read More about Do 3D face images capture cues of strength, weight, and height better than 2D face images do?.

Does self-rated attractiveness predict women’s preferences for facial masculinity? Data from an Arab sample (2021)
Journal Article
Alharbi, S. A. H., Holzleitner, I. J., Saribay, S. A., Jones, B. C., & Lee, A. J. (2021). Does self-rated attractiveness predict women’s preferences for facial masculinity? Data from an Arab sample. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 7(2), 105-113. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-021-00163-7

Objectives: Because more attractive women may be better able to attract and/or retain masculine mates, many researchers have proposed that women who consider themselves to be more physically attractive will show stronger preferences for men displayin... Read More about Does self-rated attractiveness predict women’s preferences for facial masculinity? Data from an Arab sample.

Facial masculinity increases perceptions of men’s age, but not perceptions of their health: Data from an Arab sample (2020)
Journal Article
Alharbi, S. A., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., Saribay, S. A., & Jones, B. C. (2021). Facial masculinity increases perceptions of men’s age, but not perceptions of their health: Data from an Arab sample. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 7(2), 184-188. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-020-00263-9

Masculine characteristics in men’s faces are often assumed to function as health cues. However, evidence for this assumption from empirical tests is mixed. For example, research on Western women’s face perceptions found that masculinized versions of... Read More about Facial masculinity increases perceptions of men’s age, but not perceptions of their health: Data from an Arab sample.

Are sexual desire and sociosexual orientation related to men’s salivary steroid hormones? (2020)
Journal Article
Stern, J., Karastoyanova, K., Kandrik, M., Torrance, J., Hahn, A. C., Holzleitner, I., …Jones, B. C. (2020). Are sexual desire and sociosexual orientation related to men’s salivary steroid hormones?. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 6(4), 447-466. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-020-00148-y

Objective: Although it is widely assumed that men’s sexual desire and interest in casual sex (i.e., sociosexual orientation) are linked to steroid hormone levels, evidence for such associations is mixed. Methods: We tested for both longitudinal and c... Read More about Are sexual desire and sociosexual orientation related to men’s salivary steroid hormones?.

Kin recognition and perceived facial similarity (2020)
Journal Article
Hansen, F., DeBruine, L. M., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., O'Shea, K. J., & Fasolt, V. (2020). Kin recognition and perceived facial similarity. Journal of Vision, 20(6), Article 18. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.20.6.18

Facial similarity between individuals informs kinship judgments in third-party kin recognition. Indeed, one study found that similarity and kinship judgments encapsulate the same information (Maloney & Dal Martello, 2006). Yet, another study found th... Read More about Kin recognition and perceived facial similarity.

Women’s preferences for sexual dimorphism in faces: Data from a sample of Arab women (2020)
Journal Article
Alharbi, S. A. H., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., Saribay, S. A., & Jones, B. C. (2020). Women’s preferences for sexual dimorphism in faces: Data from a sample of Arab women. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 6(4), 328-334. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-020-00244-y

Many previous studies have investigated the effects of manipulating sexually dimorphic shape characteristics in face images on attractiveness judgments. However, results have been mixed and show considerable cross-cultural variability, particularly f... Read More about Women’s preferences for sexual dimorphism in faces: Data from a sample of Arab women.

Stability of women’s facial shape throughout the menstrual cycle (2020)
Journal Article
Marcinkowska, U. M., & Holzleitner, I. J. (2020). Stability of women’s facial shape throughout the menstrual cycle. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287(1924), https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.2910

Facial characteristics can serve as a cue for judgements of multiple human traits, from maternal tendencies, overall fertility to sexual openness. In this study, we tested previously found fluctuations in facial shape throughout the menstrual cycle.... Read More about Stability of women’s facial shape throughout the menstrual cycle.

Evidence head tilt has dissociable effects on dominance and trustworthiness judgments, but does not have category-contingent effects on hypothetical leadership judgments (2020)
Journal Article
Torrance, J. S., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., DeBruine, L. M., & Jones, B. C. (2020). Evidence head tilt has dissociable effects on dominance and trustworthiness judgments, but does not have category-contingent effects on hypothetical leadership judgments. Perception, 49(2), 199-209. https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006619898589

Previous research has found that physical characteristics in faces that influence perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance have context-contingent effects on leadership perceptions. People whose faces are perceived to be trustworthy are judged to... Read More about Evidence head tilt has dissociable effects on dominance and trustworthiness judgments, but does not have category-contingent effects on hypothetical leadership judgments.

Comparing theory-driven and data-driven attractiveness models using images of real women's faces (2019)
Journal Article
Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., Hahn, A. C., Kandrik, M., Bovet, J., Renoult, J. P., …Jones, B. C. (2019). Comparing theory-driven and data-driven attractiveness models using images of real women's faces. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 45(12), 1589-1595. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000685

Facial attractiveness plays a critical role in social interaction, influencing many different social outcomes. However, the factors that influence facial attractiveness judgments remain relatively poorly understood. Here, we used a sample of 594 youn... Read More about Comparing theory-driven and data-driven attractiveness models using images of real women's faces.

Contribution of shape and surface reflectance information to kinship detection in 3D face images (2019)
Journal Article
Fasolt, V., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., O'Shea, K. J., & DeBruine, L. M. (2019). Contribution of shape and surface reflectance information to kinship detection in 3D face images. Journal of Vision, 19(12), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.1167/19.12.9

Previous research has established that humans are able to detect kinship among strangers from facial images alone. The current study investigated what facial information is used for making those kinship judgments, specifically the contribution of fac... Read More about Contribution of shape and surface reflectance information to kinship detection in 3D face images.

The influence of body composition effects on male facial masculinity and attractiveness (2019)
Journal Article
Lei, X., Holzleitner, I. J., & Perrett, D. I. (2019). The influence of body composition effects on male facial masculinity and attractiveness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 2658. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02658

Body mass index (BMI) and its facial correlates influence a range of perceptions including masculinity and attractiveness. BMI conflates body fat and muscle which are sexually dimorphic because men typically have more muscle but less fat than women.... Read More about The influence of body composition effects on male facial masculinity and attractiveness.

A data-driven study of Chinese participants' social judgments of Chinese faces (2019)
Journal Article
Wang, H., Han, C., Hahn, A. C., Fasolt, V., Morrison, D. K., Holzleitner, I. J., …Jones, B. C. (2019). A data-driven study of Chinese participants' social judgments of Chinese faces. PLoS ONE, 14(1), Article e0210315. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210315

Social judgments of faces made by Western participants are thought to be underpinned by two dimensions: valence and dominance. Because some research suggests that Western and Eastern participants process faces differently, the two-dimensional model o... Read More about A data-driven study of Chinese participants' social judgments of Chinese faces.

Birth order does not affect ability to detect kin (2019)
Journal Article
Fasolt, V., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., O’Shea, K. J., & Debruine, L. M. (2019). Birth order does not affect ability to detect kin. Collabra: Psychology, 5(1), Article 35. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.235

Previous studies suggest that birth order affects kinship detection ability. Kaminski et al. (2010) argued that firstborns use contextual cues (e.g., maternal perinatal association) to assess kinship in their own family, leading to a disadvantage in... Read More about Birth order does not affect ability to detect kin.

Facial masculinity is only weakly correlated with handgrip strength in young adult women (2018)
Journal Article
Hahn, A. C., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., Kandrik, M., O'Shea, K. J., DeBruine, L. M., & Jones, B. C. (2019). Facial masculinity is only weakly correlated with handgrip strength in young adult women. American Journal of Human Biology, 31(1), https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23203

Objectives: Ancestrally, strength is likely to have played a critical role in determining the ability to obtain and retain resources and the allocation of social status among humans. Responses to facial cues of strength are therefore thought to play... Read More about Facial masculinity is only weakly correlated with handgrip strength in young adult women.

No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are cues to susceptibility to infectious illnesses in a university sample of young adult women (2018)
Journal Article
Cai, Z., Hahn, A. C., Zhang, W., Holzleitner, I. J., Lee, A. J., DeBruine, L. M., & Jones, B. C. (2019). 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, 40(2), 156-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.10.002

Previous reports that women with attractive faces are healthier have been widely cited as evidence that sexual selection has shaped human mate preferences. However, evidence for correlations between women's physical health and facial attractiveness i... Read More about No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are cues to susceptibility to infectious illnesses in a university sample of young adult women.

No clear evidence for correlations between handgrip strength and sexually dimorphic acoustic properties of voices (2018)
Journal Article
Han, C., Wang, H., Fasolt, V., Hahn, A. C., Holzleitner, I. J., Lao, J., …Jones, B. C. (2018). No clear evidence for correlations between handgrip strength and sexually dimorphic acoustic properties of voices. American Journal of Human Biology, 30(6), https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23178

Objectives: Recent research on the signal value of masculine physical characteristics in men has focused on the possibility that such characteristics are valid cues of physical strength. However, evidence that sexually dimorphic vocal characteristics... Read More about No clear evidence for correlations between handgrip strength and sexually dimorphic acoustic properties of voices.

No compelling evidence that more physically attractive young adult women have higher estradiol or progesterone (2018)
Journal Article
Jones, B. C., Hahn, A. C., Fisher, C. I., Wang, H., Kandrik, M., Lao, J., …DeBruine, L. M. (2018). No compelling evidence that more physically attractive young adult women have higher estradiol or progesterone. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 98, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.07.026

Putative associations between sex hormones and attractive physical characteristics in women are central to many theories of human physical attractiveness and mate choice. Although such theories have become very influential, evidence that physically a... Read More about No compelling evidence that more physically attractive young adult women have higher estradiol or progesterone.