Facial attractiveness

Humans in societies around the world discriminate between potential mates o n the basis of attractiveness in ways that can dramatically affect their li ves. From an evolutionary perspective, a reasonable working hypothesis is t hat the psychological mechanisms underlying attractiveness judgments are ad aptations that have evolved in the service of choosing a mate so as to incr ease gene propagation throughout evolutionary history. The main hypothesis that has directed evolutionary psychology research into facial attractivene ss is that these judgments reflect information about what can be broadly de fined as an individual's health. This has been investigated by examining wh ether attractiveness judgments show special design for detecting cues that allow us to make assessments of overall phenotypic condition. This review e xamines the three major lines of research that have been pursued in order t o answer the question of whether attractiveness reflects non-obvious indica tors of phenotypic condition. These are studies that have examined facial s ymmetry, averageness, and secondary sex characteristics as hormone markers.