If you are a person that believes that everyone has their soulmate out there, recent research suggests that if you’re looking for a male soulmate, that soulmate may have a higher chance of success at wooing you if he has a wider face (Valentine, Li, Penke & Perrett, 2014).
Apparently, when put to the test through speed dating and follow-up studies, men with wide faces had a higher chance of being chosen for a second date and are perceived as being more attractive. However, there are some technicalities and exceptions to this research.
The first exception is that having a wider face was also perceived with having a dominant personality.
The research failed to distinguish whether this perception or the facial width was the determining cause in what actually led to the increased success with speed dating. The second exception is that although men with wide faces were perceived as being more attractive, this only applied to short-term relationships. Long-term relationships did not show the same results.
One of the other problems with this research is that it definitely showed a bias towards dominant males. Starting out a research study by stating that dominant men are preferred as mates by ovulating women and those seeking short-term relationships clearly states that bias and researchers that show this kind of explicit bias are extremely hard to take seriously.
The article basically states that less-dominant males have no chance with the female gender. The authors go on to state that women who have sex with dominant and aggressive men are more likely to have orgasms.
The problem with this line of research and thinking is that it promotes aggressiveness, which can and does lead to domestic violence and abuse.
These two things are not attractive at all, in my opinion, and I believe there are many women out there that will agree with me (at least I hope they would). Finally, suggesting that dominant men are more fertile than less-dominant males is almost laughable and not based on any scientific research at all.
The final thing that I would say about this study is that it focused exclusively on speed dating while trying to apply its results to all dating experiences, which is a pretty big no-no in the psychological world.
The authors only showed results that supported their hypotheses in speed dating settings, and there results also only show a positive correlation in short-term relationships.
