Look at that face

	James Hilston, Post-Gazette Click photo for larger image.

Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? Why not be as superficial as possible? Why not trust first impressions? We all do it, and sometimes we're actually correct in doing so.

A study released several weeks ago noted women can look at a photograph of a man's face and assess with high accuracy whether he's the kind of guy who likes children, and thus shows good potential as a long-term mate. Conversely, the females identified correctly the men who had the highest testosterone levels and most suitability for a short-term fling (i.e. someone who won't tolerate nagging over changing diapers, chauffeuring the kids, doing household chores, keeping beer stains off the furniture, etc.).

University of Chicago researcher Dario Maestripieri, a co-author of the study, guessed that the women judged men with "a more rounded face, a gentler face" to be those most favorably inclined toward children. Another researcher suggested the men who liked children seemed to have a happier expression on their face when photographed, and women must have picked up on that.

Of course, the men showing a fondness for children may never have actually been around them. Once properly exposed, they may hate the brats, and in fact become foul-tempered, depressed louts from whom the children cower. But that would take a longitudinal study to determine, which we don't have time for.

Girly-men look good

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Back in 1998, Scottish psychologists concluded women tended to prefer the faces of men with more feminine features because they were perceived as gentler, trustworthy types who would be loyal mates and good fathers. In fact, men as well as women had more favorable opinions of those with more feminine features. It's a long-term trend, apparently.

"If you look at the evolutionary record, we've moved from a more robust form to a more gracile form as a species" in overall features, said Scottish researcher Ian Penton-Voak. We're too illiterate to know the word "gracile," but we think it means someone who looks more like Leonardo DiCaprio than, say, one of the hillbillies in "Deliverance."

Shallow little people

It's never too early to begin showing bias toward attractive people, and prejudice against those among us who are not. Infants, in fact, lead the way.

University of Texas professor Dr. Judith H. Langlois wrote of how babies spend more time looking at attractive than unattractive faces, if they're given a pair of images to look at side by side. When able to play with a woman wearing either an attractive or unattractive life-like mask, babies focused far more on the prettier choice. Newborns, it seems, are just as shallow as anyone who ever watched "The Man Show."

Dr. Langlois was also among the researchers who concluded years ago that nothing is better than looking average. Computer technology has demonstrated that composites of various faces are typically viewed as more attractive than individual photos of any of the subjects themselves.

"Despite the old adage 'never judge a book by its cover' and despite the prevailing belief that attractiveness does not matter once we know a person, even parents judge and treat their own children differently based on attractiveness, although they are not aware of it," Dr. Langlois wrote.

Vive le difference?

Does anyone doubt that men care more about their partners' looks than do women? Author David Buss, in "The Evolution of Desire," found proof for the assumption in surveys done repeatedly of the two genders worldwide. On a scale of 0.00 to 3.00, men tend to rate the importance of looks as about 0.5 more important than do women.

"Regardless of the location, habitat, marriage system or cultural living arrangement, men in all 37 cultures ... value physical appearance in choosing a mate more than women," Mr. Buss wrote. Back in the day, as they say, men wanted youthful-looking wives who gave the appearance of being able to pump out babies at a high rate. Modern studies have shown, according to Mr. Buss, that men acquire social status by having an attractive mate, although women with handsome husbands don't reap the same benefit.

"People suspect that a homely man must have a high status if he can interest a stunning woman," Mr. Buss says.

Pretty as a picture

Show a heterosexual guy a pretty female face, and he's likely to be seduced just as much as he is by the attraction of food, drugs and money. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital found the same men's brain circuitry was activated by pictures of attractive women as by those other temptations. If shown photos of less attractive women or of other men, the "rewards" section of the males' brains had less reaction, or even an aversion. The study participants took more time to look at attractive women's faces than others shown to them, and shockingly, they seemed to rather enjoy it.

Of course, this is the kind of knowledge from which Hugh Hefner and other publishers have profited for decades, without any researcher needing to tell them anything.