a facial attractiveness account of gender asymmetries in interracial marriage性别不对称的面部吸引力账户异族通婚.pdfVIP

A Facial Attractiveness Account of Gender Asymmetries in Interracial Marriage Michael B. Lewis* School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom Abstract Background: In the US and UK, more Black men are married to White women than vice versa and there are more White men married to Asian women than vice versa. Models of interracial marriage, based on the exchange of racial status for other capital, cannot explain these asymmetries. A new explanation is offered based on the relative perceived facial attractiveness of the different race-by-gender groups. Method and Findings: This explanation was tested using a survey of perceived facial attractiveness. This found that Black males are perceived as more attractive than White or East Asian males whereas among females, it is the East Asians that are perceived as most attractive on average. Conclusions: Incorporating these attractiveness patterns into the model of marriage decisions produces asymmetries in interracial marriage similar to those in the observed data in terms of direction and relative size. This model does not require differences in status between races nor different strategies based on gender. Predictions are also generated regarding the relative attractiveness of those engaging in interracial marriage. Citation: Lewis MB (2012) A Facial Attractiveness Account of Gender Asymmetries in Interracial Marriage. PLoS ONE 7(2): e31703. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0031703 ´ Editor: Etienne Joly, Universite de Toulouse, France Received May 25, 2011; Accepted January 17, 2012; Published February 9, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Michael B. Lewis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original auth