Women

We performed initial Spearman’s rank correlations and found that Age of First Sex significantly correlated with preference for masculine facial characteristics (7-39 =

-.427, /? = .007) but not male face age (7-39 = -.092, /? = .578) and showed a trend to

correlate with male facial attractiveness (7-39 = .292,/? = .071). Women with early

sexual experience preferred more masculine looking males, yet showed a reduced tendency to prefer attractive faces. Interestingly, we did not find a significant

correlation between Age of Menarche and any facial characteristic preferences (all 7-42

developmental markers, age of first sex and age of menarche (7-42 = .047,/? = .768).

Additionally, face preferences for attractiveness and masculinity were not

significantly correlated (7-42 — -.047,/? = .769); nor were attractiveness and apparent

facial age preferences (7-42 = -.109,/? = .492); but there was a slight trend indicating

that as preference for facial masculinity increased so did preferences for increased apparent facial age (7-42 = .259, /? = .097).

5.5.5 Control Variables and Partial Correlations

Our Spearman’s rank correlations revealed, as with our male sample, both warmth toward father (7-44 = .297, /? = .050) and warmth toward mother (7-44 =.313,/?

= .036) significantly correlated with parents’ relationship, as well as with one another

(7-44= .585,/? < .001). Thus we chose quality of parents’ relationship again as a

control variable. Our zero-order correlations indicated a relationship between Quality of Parents’ Relationship and a preference for younger looking male faces (r4i = -.387,

/? = .012). Our analysis also revealed that self-rated attractiveness was positively correlated with preferences for more attractive males (7-42 = .307, /? = .048), indicating

that as self perceived attractiveness increased, so did a preference for more attractive male faces. None of our other control variables were found to significantly relate to preferences for facial characteristics (all /? > . 180).

To assess our hypothesis that timing of developmental milestones influenced women’s preferences for male facial characteristics, partial correlations were used to control the possibility of other factors known to influence mate choice preferences. We found that the relationship between Age of First Sex and preferences for male facial masculinity remained after controlling for current age, self-rated attractiveness, dad’s age, and quality of parents’ relationship (7-3; = -.423,/? = .014). The other

correlations between sexual developmental markers (Age of First Sex and Age of Menarche) and face preferences remained non-significant (all p > .18). The

relationship between Age of Menarche and male face masculinity was non-significant (r29 = .173,/? = .35). We did not find any other significant correlations with

masculinity preferences among our control variables, (all /?> .22).

To investigate further the relationship of Self-Rated Attractiveness and our dependent variable male facial attractiveness, we ran a partial correlation with Age of First Sex, Age of Menarche, own age, current age, dad’s, and quality of parents’ relationship as our control variables. The relationship between Self-Rated

Attractiveness and preference for male facial attractiveness remained significant (7-29

= .431,/? = .016), while the relationship between Self-Rated Attractiveness and masculinity remained non-significant (7*29 = .185,/? = .320). Additionally the

relationship between quality of parents’ relationship and preference for apparent male face age remained marginally non-significant {rjo = -.342,/? = .055) when controlling for Age of First Sex, Age of Menarche, current age, dad’s, and Self-Rated

Attiactiveness. 5.5.5 ANCOVAs

As noted above Age of First Sex or Age of Menarche did not correlate. Moreover the two developmental markers differed on masculinity preference; women who experienced sex earlier preferred more masculine faces, whereas women who experienced sex later (or remained virgins) indicated no preference for facial masculinity (7-42 = .159,/? = .314). Additionally, our correlation analyses did not

reveal any relationships between Age of Menarche and preferences for facial characteristics. With this in mind, we opted not to create two groups combining the

timing of developmental markers as we did with the males, but rather to limit our analyses to Age of First Sex.

We created two groups. Early and Late sexual development based on Age of First Sex. To maintain nearly even groups, women who engaged in first sex prior to the age of 19 (n=20) were placed into the Early group, and those who were 19 or older (n=3), or were still virgins and over the age of 18 (n=16), were placed into the Late group. T-tests indicate that on Age of First Sex the groups significantly differed (t(37) = 7.16, p < .001) between the Early age of first sex (M = 17.35) and the Late age of first sex group (M= 19.53). Age of Menarche M = 12.90 M = 12.92 did not differ between groups (t(37) = -.22, p =.83). There was a trend for the early sexual maturation group to rate themselves more attractive (t(37) = 1.69,/? = .099) and have younger fathers (t(37) = 1.89,/? = .068) than the Late group. No other factors were found to be significantly different between the two groups.

We ran an ANCOVA with Age of First Sex as a fixed factor (Early vs. Late) and Age of Menarche, current age, self-rated attractiveness, quality of parents’ relationship, and father’s age as covariates (see Figure 5.4). Analyses reveal that the Early First sex group preferred more masculine faces (M = .219) than the Late First sex age group (M = -.117) (Figure 2), (F(l,27) = 6.36,/? = .019, =..188). Other covariates did not influence masculinity preference (all F<\.3, /? >.27).

Women's Masculinity Preference ? 0% 50% -, 0) 4 0% o = 30% £ jZ 20% £ Q. 10% 3 -10% « -20% re -30% '5_{rt -40%} -50% -I Figure 5.4 < 19 years

Age of First Sex 19 years +

Women’s preferences for male masculinity

Similar ANCOVA analyses were run for both of the other dependent variables: male facial attractiveness and apparent age of male faces. The results pointed toward the trend seen in our correlations, with women who experienced sex earlier indicating a diminished preference for attractive male faces (F(l,26) = 2.8,/? = .10); however, no group differences were found regarding preferences for apparent age of the male face (F(l,26) = 1.51,/? = .23). Quality of Parents’ Relationship, as found previously in our correlations, related to decreased preference in apparent age of male faces (F(l,26) = 7.35,/? = .012, = .220). Additionally women with a high quality of parents’ relationship also showed an increased preference for male facial attractiveness (F(l,26) = 7.28,/? = .012, = .220).