Data from: Women's attractiveness is linked to expected age at menopause

A great number of studies have shown that features linked to immediate fertility explain a large part of the variance in female attractiveness. This is consistent with an evolutionary perspective, as men are expected to prefer females at the age at which fertility peaks (at least for short-term relationships) in order to increase their reproductive success. However, for long-term relationships, a high residual reproductive value (the expected future reproductive output, linked to age at menopause) becomes relevant as well. In that case, young age AND late menopause are expected to be preferred by men. However, the extent to which facial features provide cues to the likely age at menopause has never been investigated so far. Here, we show that expected age at menopause is linked to facial attractiveness of young women. As age at menopause is heritable, we used the mother’s age at menopause as a proxy for her daughter’s expected age of menopause. We found that men judged faces of women with a later expected age at menopause as more attractive than those of women with an earlier expected age at menopause. This result holds when age, cues of immediate fertility and facial ageing were controlled for. Additionally, we found that the expected age at menopause was not correlated with any of the other variables considered (including immediate fertility cues and facial ageing). Our results show the existence of a new correlate of women’s facial attractiveness, expected age at menopause, which is independent from immediate fertility cues and facial ageing.

大量已有研究表明，与即时生育能力（immediate fertility）相关的面部特征，可解释女性吸引力变异的绝大部分。这与进化生物学视角相符：就短期择偶关系而言，男性应偏好处于生育能力峰值年龄段的女性，以提升自身繁殖成功率。然而，对于长期择偶关系，较高的剩余生育价值（residual reproductive value）——即与绝经年龄（menopause）相关的未来预期生育产出——同样具有重要意义。此时，男性更倾向于同时偏好年轻且绝经年龄较晚的女性。但迄今为止，尚无研究探讨面部特征能否提供绝经年龄的潜在预测线索。本研究证实，年轻女性的预期绝经年龄与其面部吸引力存在关联。由于绝经年龄具有遗传特性，我们以母亲的绝经年龄作为女儿预期绝经年龄的替代指标（proxy）。研究结果显示，相较于预期绝经年龄较早的女性，男性认为预期绝经年龄较晚的女性面部更具吸引力。这一结论在控制年龄、即时生育能力线索与面部衰老程度的条件下依然成立。此外，我们发现预期绝经年龄与其余所有考量变量（包括即时生育能力线索与面部衰老程度）均无相关性。本研究结果揭示了女性面部吸引力的一项全新关联因素——预期绝经年龄，该因素独立于即时生育能力线索与面部衰老程度之外。