Essay on Male and Female Nonverbal Indicators in Physical Attraction

Sandra Bem’s book, The Lenses of Gender, discusses the three lenses of gender: androcentrism, gender polarization and biological essentialism. The first sense of gender Sandra touches on is androcentrism, which is the idea that men create the standard for society and females do not meet the standard. The most important concept in this reading is the idea that women are naturally given the caregiver role because they bear children. This is important because men are given the responsibility of defending the family and collecting food, “because they were bigger and stronger and also because they did not have their mobility limited by the continuous presence of children” (Bem, 1993, p. 31). The significance of this is that it seems to be the biggest

There are many factors that influence female attraction towards men, and many of them are driven by women’s menstrual cycle. Sexual attraction in females has been shown to increase during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle, which is the period of most fertility (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1998). Evolutionarily, this time is beneficial because it would be more likely for a female to conceive if she were more prone to attraction towards men during her fertile period. It has also been shown that female mate preferences change across the ovulatory cycle. Men with particular attributes, such as facial symmetry, are preferred during the period of most fertility (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1998). This can be explained by the Ovulatory Shift Hypothesis, first proposed by Gangestad and Thornhill (1998). Gangestad and Thornhill (1998) make three predictions within this hypothesis. This first prediction includes the ‘good genes principle,’ that women are attracted to certain attributes that signify that a male has “high genetic quality” (Gildersleeve, Haselton, & Fales, 2014). This could mean that a certain individual possesses genes that would increase an offspring’s’ fitness and, therefore the parent’s fitness, or do not possess genes that would be harmful to an offspring. Therefore, theoretically, if a female were more attracted to a male based on the male having high quality genes, she would more likely conceive an offspring with that individual. This would, in turn,

The allocation of the roles is based solely on the most obvious differences between men and women. Men were larger, stronger and possessed a greater amount of endurance where as women were viewed as smaller, weaker and were considered flawed because of menstruation. Men were favored because of their physical strength, the absentness of periodic bleeding, and did not participate in any role of bearing and nurturing of children. Women’s bodies-female sexuality, their ability to procreate and their pregnancy, breast-feeding, and child care, menstruation, and

Biologists believed that facial symmetry should be attractive because it may signal mate quality. Rhodes, Proffit, Grady and Sumich (1998) manipulated the symmetry to figure out the effect on attractiveness. 4 versions of a picture were created. One was perfectly symmetric, the others were a highly symmetric version, normal level of symmetry and a low symmetric version.64 subjects rated these faces. The results clearly stated that perfect symmetry was significantly more attractive and low symmetry faces were unattractive, more over the males found the perfect symmetric faces more appealing as potential life partners, so facial symmetry does play a role in mate selection. In the second experiment the authors compared the attractiveness of faces at three symmetry levels. These were normal, high and perfect. The subjects were shown two versions of the same face at different

Throughout the history of society, women and men both have faced the constricting roles forced upon them, from a young age; each gender is given specific social and cultural roles to play out throughout their lives. Little girls are given dolls and kitchen toys, little boys are given dinosaurs and power tool toys, if one was to step out of this specified role, social conflict would ensue. Contrast to popular belief, sex is a biological construct, and gender is a social construct specifying the roles men and women are to follow to be accepted into society as “normal”. The effects of gender roles have had on women have proved harmful over the decades. Although the woman’s involvement in society has improved throughout the decades,

The research findings showed that a man’s sexual attraction to a woman was increased by young women associated with red, but it was not increased by older women with red. It also revealed that the older participants found the two age groups of women equal in their sexual attraction, while the younger participants did not find the older women, as sexually attractive as the younger women. The color red did not affect physical attractiveness, intellect, and empathy. In addition, the article greatly contributed to the theories of social psychology. In Exploring Psychology in Modules, the author discusses physical attractiveness. He discusses how among different cultures, men are attracted to women through signs of the body. These signs indicate fertility, which makes the man more attracted to a woman. This understanding may help to show why both age groups of men were equally attracted to the younger women in the pictures, as opposed to the older women, where only the older men found them equally attractive to the younger women (Schwarz & Singer,

Ethological studies on non-linguistic communication suggested that the language of love is, indeed, universal (Givens, 1978). This non-linguistic or non-verbal communication is used in courtship, such as by facial expression, gesture, posture, distance, para-language, and gaze. Persons use these when symbolizing a desire for sexual relationship. This non-verbal form is considered more powerful the verbal form in expressing like, dislike, superiority, timidity, fear and other feelings or emotions (Bateson, 1966, 1968 as qtd in Givens). In fact, human courtship relies a great deal on these non-verbal signals, such as submissiveness and affiliation. A submissive-affiliative pose or gesture creates a peaceable or non-threatening image, which is aimed at attracting the sought-after mate. These studies investigated several familiar non-verbal cues used during flirtation, courtship, and seduction (Givens).

Due to the natural human instinct to seek partners who will be suitable to carry children, humans along with other animals tend to search for physical indicators of genetic fitness. Although the media showcases that women who are thin are generally more attractive than fuller figured women it is possible that men are subconsciously more attracted to women who seem fit enough to have

Humans have traits that can be manipulated to attract the opposite sex. For instance, males’ facial hair can be groom or removed to enhance attractiveness of their facial hair (Janif et al. 2014). However, this practice could be just related to

A social aspect of anthropology is the observation of cultures and how their characteristics are influenced by the biological and implied roles between genders. Physical differences between men and women would seem to dictate that men are designed for hard labor and protectors while women’s physicality makes them suitable for child bearing and natural nurturers. It seems the advancement of cultural societies also plays a role in how gender roles are defined and interpreted. Ember maintains, “Less complex societies, however, seem to approach more equal status for males and female in a variety of areas of life.” (Ember, 2015, p. 208) Could it not be said that both men

Human attraction has also become a sensitive topic over the course of history due to the fact that in earlier times, attraction was used just as a method to produce offspring, however, nowadays, attraction is used to create relationships that are meant to last. In other words, attraction is no longer just about producing offspring, but to find the perfect mate that will become a lifetime companion. Furthermore, literature that has been written on the subject has mainly focused on the attraction that form heterosexual romantic relationships. However, this

Posture is an indicator of status and rank and is also a marker of etiquette.

The relationship between physical attraction and economic status are some of the key factor for dating. It’s important to take into consideration that people often seek a partner for their wealth, rather than love. Based upon the social construct it may be beneficial to marry an individual of high social economics statues because it can introduce access to resource, job opportunities, and influence over those of lower socioeconomic status. This is in fact an issue because it supports traditional gender roles that prevents social change and people for discovering themselves.

Despite the problems our senses may cause, they still play a significant role in our areas of knowledge. Evolutionarily, we trusted our sense. According to Charles Darwin’s natural selection theory, the strongest will survive and the weakest will die. Men select the best looking women and women select the strongest looking man. Although the this pattern has now changed, men are still generally attracted to good looking women and women choose men that they feel being safe with. Scientifically, scientists need to observe the phenomenon and conduct

The topic of attraction in humans has been one of deep interest for years as it is a fundamental aspect of human nature, and yet our understanding of why some people find certain traits attractive and not others is far from complete. The gap in knowledge is largely due to the vast evolution of that which defines attractiveness among humans (Gangestad & Scheyd, 2005). On a personal level, the decision on what is and is not attractive lies with the individual, but throughout time, evolution and, in more recent centuries, society have influenced the individual’s notion of what is attractive (Baur & Hofmeister, 2008; Gangestad et al, 2005; Lippa, 2007). The pursuit for a “perfect” mate