Posted on 07/13/2005 7:05:31 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Facial attractiveness and smell give us contradictory messages about how to select mates, new research has revealed.
Previous research on smell suggests that humans prefer odours from potential partners who are genetically dis-similar. But new research in which women rated the facial attractiveness of men suggests the exact opposite. So sight and smell appear to be giving contradictory messages about which partners to choose.
The new research investigated possible links between mate preference and the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) - the huge molecule on cells, unique to each individual, which helps our immune systems to distinguish native from alien cells.
The underlying theory is that humans avoid the dangers of inbreeding, and maximise the chances of having genetically fitter children, by selecting partners who have a vastly different MHC from their own. That way, there is more chance of one parent’s genes compensating for faulty genes in the other. But how the senses pick up subliminal cues about someone else’s MHC is still something of a mystery.
Most research so far has focused on smell, especially in rodents, and has backed up this basic assumption. Male and female mice, for example, usually select mates with different MHC, which they judge by smelling each others’ urine.
Subtle effects
Smell experiments in humans have broadly given the same message, showing that body odour is more appealing in people with vastly differing MHC. But new research in which women rated the attractiveness of men’s faces has bucked the trend, showing that women preferred faces of men with similar MHC.
“It’s a subtle effect,” says Craig Roberts of the University of Liverpool, who led the team which made the discovery. “We’re not saying it’s something that rules who we find attractive.”
Roberts and colleagues recruited 92 women and 75 men, and recorded differences in their MHC by analysing DNA from blood samples. Then each woman was asked to rate photographs of six men, three with similar and three with different MHC.
The results showed that, visually, the women preferred men with similar MHC. The preference applied both to long and short relationships, but was strongest for potential long term relationships.
Cultural advantages
Although the results appear to contradict those applying to smell, Roberts and his colleagues offer an explanation to resolve the paradox, based on the notion that kith and kin - despite having similar MHC - can offer cultural and social advantages in child rearing.
The team suggests that “filtering” for mates takes place at two levels - the first based on facial likeness to select someone not too distantly related, and the second based on smell, essentially to avoid in-breeding.
“It is a plausible explanation,” says Claus Wedekind, now visiting Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and whose research provides the strongest evidence that on smell alone, humans and mice prefer mates with different MHC.
“It could be explained by a desire for cultural ‘sameness’, but you could build up 20 or more equally plausible scenarios to explain it,” he adds, citing evidence that, in general, Americans prefer to marry within ethnic groups.
But even incorporating smell research, the picture remains unclear. A study by Martha McClintock and colleagues at the University of Chicago, US, showed that women preferred odours matching the MHC of their fathers. And Wedekind showed that women taking contraceptive pills switched to preferring odours of men with similar MHC, an effect also seen in pregnant mice.
What a crock. All this pseudo-science is just designed to reinforce the false notion that people are no more than animals. This is materialism run amok. Bunk, total bunk. Bush should defund it all and give the money to the families of soldiers killed or wounded in battle.
"Where Jane?!"
I agree...What a waste of taxpayer's money...Besides, the old axiom holds true in my view, and that is women fall for what they hear and men fall for what they see...
They REALLY fall when they hear he's worth $$$$$;)
I must disagree. We are creatures with intellects and immortal souls, but we live in earthly bodies, and our higher minds are influenced by the physical. Psychobiology gives us some fascinating insights into why we sometimes behave as we do. It can be very useful, when one is subject to some emotion or temptation, to know that one is not being moved by "true love" or fate or God, but by innate biochemistry. (I know it's helped me a thousand times to be able to remind myself that my promptings were just my hormones talking to me, so I could resist them better!) In any case it is always valuable to understand ourselves better, and that is one of the functions of science. Some research may be bunk, but the money is not going to be re-assigned to the relicts of our soldiers.
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