Inferences of Parental Abilities Through Facial and Bodily Features

This chapter explains that within the corpus of research showing the extent to which cues to physical attractiveness connote individuals’ specific value as a mate, findings have begun to recognize how these cues specifically apply to inferring parental abilities. Namely, this research suggests some physical features that were likely selected due to their connotations of heritable fitness may dually implicate a person as an especially effective parent. Such work additionally demonstrates the instances in which features not selected for their connotation of what we typically consider heritable fitness (i.e., adiposity) become desirable while providing additional evidence for the trade-offs in selecting short- and long-term mates. This selection of adiposity further clarified what is actually meant when researchers discuss selecting for good genes. That is, individuals could be inferring parental abilities through adiposity, thus leading individuals to select mates with higher levels for a long-term context given that connotation.