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PEOPLE are unconsciously attracted to healthy females and wealthy
men—even when they only have a picture of a face to judge. Robert
Montgomerie and Deborah Hume from Queen’s University in Ontario asked hundreds
of volunteers to rate how attractive they found different faces of the opposite
sex, all shown without jewellery or make-up and with hair combed back. Men rated
healthy women most highly. But for women, the most important factor in
attractiveness was socio-economic status (Evolution and Human Behaviour,
vol 22, p 93). The researchers are now trying to find out how we judge things
like status and health from facial features.