The Relationship Between Mating Context and Women's Appearance Enhancement Strategies

Previous research has indicated that men tend to prioritize facial over bodily attractiveness in long-term mating contexts but shift in the opposite direction in short-term mating contexts. The current study extended this research to test whether women adjust their appearance enhancement practices in ways that reflect men's relative priorities. In particular, we hypothesized that women pursuing short-term relationships would report engaging in appearance enhancement tactics that increase the attractiveness of their bodies more than their faces, whereas the opposite should be true for women pursuing long-term relationships. Using an act nomination procedure, we identified the most common practices women engage in to enhance the attractiveness of their faces and bodies. From this list, a separate sample of women selected the 10 tactics they considered to be most important to increasing their own physical attractiveness and reported how much time, money, and effort they invest in enhancing the appearance of their faces and bodies. Results partially supported our hypothesis: Women's inclination toward short-term mating was positively correlated with the percentage of body-related tactics chosen but did not correlate with the amount of time, money, or effort they reported spending on facial or bodily appearance enhancement. These results provide preliminary support for the proposal that women internalize men's priorities for facial versus bodily attractiveness in different mating contexts, though more work is needed to determine the extent to which this occurs.