An evolutionary perspective on characteristics of physical attractiveness in humans

Over evolutionary history, sexual attractiveness has had a large influence on the propagation of an organism's genes in sexuallyreproducing species such as humans: individuals most desirable to members of the opposite sex were more likely to attract and retain a mate. In this chapter, we discuss the importance of attractiveness to two facets of sexual selection: intersexual selection (i.e., choosiness of potential mating partners) and intrasexual selection (i.e., within-sex competition over mating opportunities and resources). We describe how specific morphological features can provide important information about a potential partner's quality as a mate, and whether these features are in fact linked to aspects of mating success. We then describe under what conditions systematic variation in standards of attractiveness would be expected to occur, and how individuals compete (sometimes dishonestly) in the display of attractiveness characteristics.