Study: Women look away more from abnormal babies

AP-Yahoo! ^ | 24 June 2009 | LAURAN NEERGAARD

[greatdefender]

WASHINGTON – Puzzling new research suggests women have a harder time than men looking at babies with facial birth defects. It's a surprise finding. Psychiatrists from the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, who were studying perceptions of beauty, had expected women to spend more time than men cooing over pictures of extra-cute babies. Nope.

Instead, the small study being published Wednesday raises more questions than it can answer.

First the background: The McLean team already had studied men and women looking at photos of adults' faces on a computer screen. They rated facial beauty, and could do various keystrokes to watch the photos longer. A keystroke count showed men put three times more effort into watching beautiful women as women put into watching handsome men.

Lead researcher Dr. Igor Elman wondered what else might motivate women. Enter the new baby study.

This time 13 men and 14 women were shown 80 photos of babies, 30 of whom had abnormal facial features such as a cleft palate, Down syndrome or crossed eyes. Participants rated each baby's attractiveness on a scale of zero to 100, and used keystrokes to make the photo stay on the screen longer or disappear faster.

[Gondring]

I must give credit to the reporter for emphasizing “small” study in an early graf.

[thefactor]

breathtaking

[Gondring]

If the women are “more emotional,” why don’t they look at the “cute babies” longer than the men.

[TC Rider]

Little Johnny stares and says, “Good thing that baby will never need glasses, how would he keep them on?”

[donna]

Because men are the true romantics in this world! They look at babies and see the future.