Abstract
The value of different mate choices may depend on the local pathogen ecology and on personal infection susceptibility: when there is a high risk of infection, choosing a healthy or immunocompetent mate may be particularly important. Frequency of childhood illness may act as a cue of the ecological and immunological factors relevant to mate preferences. Consistent with this proposal, we found that childhood illness – and frequency of diarrhea in particular – was positively correlated with preferences for exaggerated sex-typical characteristics in opposite-sex, but not same-sex, faces. Moreover, this relationship was stronger among individuals with poorer current health. These data suggest that childhood illness may play a role in calibrating adult mate preferences and have implications for theories of disease-avoidance psychology, life-history strategy and cross-cultural differences in mate preferences.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 384-389 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Evolution and Human Behavior |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 28 Aug 2013 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2013 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgmentsWe thank Rashed Zaman, Zakir Hossain, and M. Sirajul Islam for their support during data collection.
Keywords
- Facial attractiveness
- Infectious disease
- Sexual dimorphism
- Predictive adaptive response
- Behavioral immune system
