Women Get Lots of Info From Male Faces

dtjohnson writes "Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have found that women have a remarkable ability to assess a man's testosterone levels and his interest in fathering children by looking at his facial features. Sixty-nine percent of the women were able to correctly judge a man's interest in having children merely by looking at cues on photograph's of his facial features. Saliva samples were also taken from each man in the study and tested for testosterone with a $2,000-a-pop test. The women in the study were able to correctly identify the men with the highest testosterone levels just by looking at their photographs. Of course, the study did not look at what men were able to tell about women by looking at photographs of their female body parts."

Comments

Small sample size?

[presidentbeef]

A group of 29 undergraduate students hardly seems enough to be able to generalize the results to the entire female gender.

Translation

[ebrandsberg]

Women are able to judge someone with aggressive genes that can father a strong child, then pick a sucker to stand with her to raise them.

Then you picked the wrong woman

[DG]

Seriously, if you have to make major alterations to your lifestyle in order to keep your wife/girfriend happy, then you chose the wrong wife/girlfriend.

Your signifigant other and you should share goals and lifestyles; you should click into each other's lives with little to no behavioural modification for either party.

Your primary disagreements should be about *timing*, not philosophy - ie, you both want to do X, and the only real question is "when?". If you want X and she wants Y... problem.

Note that I'm talking in broad strokes here. Both of you will have to modifiy little bits of your behaviour as "social grease" to help make it easier to get along. There is plenty of give and take in a good marriage. But the give and take should be over small stuff, not major life issues & choices.

I was one of those guys who tried to overhaul his personality to fit the needs and wants of the Girl of the Moment, and that only ever led to tears. Once I decided to be me, and to find a girl that fit me the way I was (and vice versa) I met my wife and I've been blissfully happy (on the marital front at least) ever since.

I think a lot of guys, particularly technical, goal-oriented guys, get focussed on "making the relationship work" and start making these big personal sacrifices to that end, thinking that it gets them points. It doesn't. If you have to make radical alterations to who you are in order to keep your girlfriend, then let her go and find one who likes you as you are.

DG

Re:Then you picked the wrong woman

[Alric]

This advice is fine but not necessarily true.

Enjoying a spouse openly, comfortably, and even vulnerably is certainly a trait of a successful relationship. However, a successful marriage is not built on enjoying each other and "being who you really are." Those are effects, not causes of a happy relationship, IMO.

Most couple don't truly realize marriage is (in theory) a lifetime commitment. Here's the big secret nobody tells young couples: people change. You and your spouse are going to change dramatically over the course of your marriage, and there's a likelihood that unless you are careful, you will end up disliking each other in 30 years. The best you can hope for is that as each of you changes, the other will adapt to your new personality or have ability to tell you calmly that you are changing for the worse. I won't go into a long tangent about the requisites for changing together successfully, but I basically think deep mutual respect and completely honest communication are the biggest ingredients.

Here's the other part of your sentiment that is slightly flawed. Perhaps you really need to change. Maybe you are an inconsiderate, arrogant asshole, and the only person who would date you is a meek little insecure person who will let you walk all over him/her. Maybe a partner is trying to change you for the better.

But yes, I absolutely agree with you: being comfortable and open with your partner is absolutely essential. If you don't have that, it seems that you're missing the fundamental point of dating and marriage (at least for secular humanists). The most you can hope for in this life is to understand yourself and this world around you. By loving, trusting, living with and focusing all of your powers of observation and appreciation on this one person, maybe -- just maybe -- you will understand humanity, yourself, and this whole absurd universe a tiny bit better.

That's my current theory at least. It will probably change next year.