Physical attraction, feminine faces and why ‘the Johnny Depp effect’ doesn’t always apply

The Washington Post:

Forcing someone to fit into a “rigid gender category” can make them seem less physically appealing to others, according to the results of a new study.

That revelation may explain why “the Johnny Depp effect” — in which women prefer more feminine faces to more masculine ones — applies in some cases, but not others, researchers found.

Study co-author Piotr Winkielman, from the Warwick School of Business at the University of Coventry in England and the University of California at San Diego, said the findings appear to undercut the notion that female attraction is primarily dependent upon “hormonal influences” that are believed by some researchers to be the primary subconscious driver of a woman’s mate selection.

…

To reach their findings, Winkielman and his co-author — professor Jamin Halberstadt of the Department of Psychology at New Zealand’s University of Otago – had participants look at photos of gender-blended face morphs and rate their attractiveness during two separate experiments.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post