Vukovic J, Feinberg DR, Jones BC, DeBruine LM, Welling LLM, Smith FG

Self-rated attractiveness predicts individual differences in women's preferences for masculine men's voices. Personality and Individual Differences.  45(6): 451-456

Abstract:

Masculine physical traits may signal men's genotypic condition and are associated with indices of men's reproductive fitness. Here we show that preferences for masculinized men's voices (i.e. men's voices with lowered pitch) are positively related to self-rated attractiveness among women who are not using hormonal contraceptives. This relationship between masculinity preferences and self-rated attractiveness was evident when women judged the attractiveness of men’s voices that were played forward, but was not present when women judged the attractiveness of men's voices that had been reversed. The systematic variation in women's preferences for masculinized men's voices that we observed complements findings from previous studies showing positive relationships between preferences for masculine cues in men's faces and women's self-rated attractiveness and may be adaptive if attractive women are better able to attract and/or retain masculine mates. Interestingly, we observed no significant relationships between preferences for masculinized men's voices and self-rated attractiveness among women using hormonal contraceptives. These null findings for women using hormonal contraceptives are consistent with previous studies in which potentially adaptive individual differences in masculinity preferences were also absent in women using hormonal contraceptives.