Music makes male faces looking more attractive

Sounds like rose-colored spectacles: women listening to music feel men more attractive and are more ready for a date. The effect is more intense the more exciting and complex the sounds are. This is shown by an experiment. Music seems to play a decisive role in the choice of a partner - but only in females. Men are obviously immune to the effect of music.

Music obviously affects sexual attraction. © KovacsAlex / thinkstock / Alexas / pixabay (collage)

Music is part of every culture and deeply rooted in our nature: already unborn children react to harmonious sounds and babies can be soothe by quiet singing. No wonder music is closely linked to our emotions. In this way it exerts a great influence on our mind as well as on our body. When we listen to music, we perceive not only touches differently - even our gene activity is changing.

Music and choice of partners

A further effect of music has now been revealed by scientists around Manuela Marin of the University of Vienna. They wanted to know what role music could play in partner selection - and investigate the influence of music on the subjective assessment of faces of the opposite sex.

The appeal of the face is one of the most important physical features that can influence the choice of a partner, and we wanted to find out how music might alter the perception of this feature, explains Helmut Leder.

To this end, the researchers presented heterosexual subjects with different instrumental music excerpts, and then presented them with images of neutral facial expressions of the opposite sex. One control group was only shown faces without any music running. How would men and women evaluate the attractiveness of their faces?

More attractive men

It turned out that while men were apparently immune to the effects of music, it was possible to influence women strongly. They rated male faces as more attractive when they had heard music before. The willingness to date men was much higher in the music group than in the "silent" group.

The more complex the music and the more exciting the sound, the greater was the effect. For the scientists it is clear that music - at least in women - can influence sexual attraction and thus affect who we consider as a potential partner.

The empirical findings that music has the power to influence human behavior in relation to the choice of a partner are increasing, Marin notes.

Result of sexual selection

Next, the researchers want to clarify whether musical skills can compensate for weaknesses in terms of physical attractiveness. To put it pointedly: Does a piano-playing, rather average-looking man has the same chances as an Adonis who is unmusical?

Even Charles Darwin had the opinion that music developed through sexual selection. Accordingly, the motor and cognitive abilities required for making music serve as an indicator for good genes and thus increase the reproductive success.

Source: Plos One, 2017; doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0183531