Original Article
Men's preferences for women's breast size and shape in four cultures

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.10.002Get rights and content

Abstract

The morphology of human female breasts appears to be unique among primates due to their permanent fat deposits. It has been previously suggested that female breast morphology arose as a result of sexual selection. This is supported by evidence showing that women with larger breasts tend to have higher estrogen levels; breast size may therefore serve as an indicator of potential fertility. However, breasts become less firm with age and parity, and breast shape could thus also serve as a marker of residual fertility. Therefore, cross-culturally, males are hypothesized to prefer breast morphology that indicates both high potential and residual fertility. To test this, we performed a survey on men's preferences for breast morphology in four different cultures (Brazil, Cameroon, the Czech Republic, Namibia). As stimuli, we used two sets of images varying in breast size (marker of potential fertility) and level of breast firmness (marker of residual fertility). Individual preferences for breast size were variable, but the majority of raters preferred medium sized, followed by large sized breasts. In contrast, we found systematic directional preferences for firm breasts across all four samples. This pattern supports the idea that breast morphology may serve as a residual fertility indicator, but offers more limited support for the potential fertility indicator hypothesis. Future studies should focus on a potential interaction between the two parameters, breast size and firmness, which, taken together, may help to explain the relatively large variation in women's breast sizes.

Introduction

Women develop enlarged breasts during puberty, mainly due to the deposition of adipose tissue, and retain them through adulthood. This appears to be unique to humans, as in other primate species enlargement is restricted to periods of pregnancy and lactation. Although the proximate mechanisms involved in permanent breast development are relatively well understood (e.g., Anderson, 1983), the ultimate mechanisms involved in the evolution of permanent breasts are still debated. Hypotheses regarding their function can be classified into those that involve sexual selection and those that primarily rely on mechanisms of natural selection (Arieli, 2004, Barber, 1995). The latter suggests that adipose deposits may serve either as energy reserves for breast-fed infants during food scarcity or as thermo-insulation during cold nights (Pawlowski, 1999).

The sexual selection hypotheses propose that permanently enlarged breasts evolved via male choice. In this context, the specific morphology of women's breasts might be an honest signal of mate value if adipose deposits provide information on lactational capacity and/or fertility (Low, Alexander, & Noonan, 1987). This is supported by a study showing that breast size is positively associated with estrogen levels, which may, in turn, indicate higher potential fertility (Jasienska, Ziomkiewicz, Ellison, Lipson, & Thune, 2004). Consequently, men are expected to be attracted to women with relatively large breasts. Nevertheless, research on attractiveness of women's breast size is inconclusive. Some studies show that men prefer larger breasts (Furnham et al., 1998, Zelazniewicz and Pawlowski, 2011) while others indicate preferences for medium (or medium to large) size (Dixson et al., 2015, Dixson et al., 2011a) or even for small breasts (Furnham & Swami, 2007), and still others report no effect of size on attractiveness judgments (Dixson et al., 2011b, Horvath, 1979). Apart from methodological differences between studies, this mixed set of findings could be partly attributed either to cultural variation in the tested individuals (Dixson et al., 2011c, Valentova et al., 2017) or temporal variation in preferences, although a study testing several cohort samples across the 1990s did not support the latter suggestion (Tantleff-Dunn, 2001). Alternatively, the variation in preferences might be due to interactions with other parts of the body: large breasts are perceived to be more attractive in women with low waist-to-hip ratios (Furnham et al., 1998, Singh and Young, 1995). Furthermore, preferences for breast size may vary systematically across individuals. Zelazniewicz and Pawlowski (2011) found that Polish men with high sociosexuality (i.e., tendency for sexual variety) prefer larger breasts. Similarly, a study from Malaysia found that men of lower socio-economic status prefer larger breasts than their counterparts of higher socio-economic status (Swami & Tovée, 2013b).

It has been further argued that breast symmetry may serve as a marker of developmental stability. Indeed, there is some evidence showing that high breast asymmetry is associated with lower fecundity (Manning et al., 1997, Moller et al., 1995, Scutt et al., 1997) and with higher risk of breast cancer (Scutt et al., 1997). In line with this, perceptual studies show that symmetrical breasts are judged as more attractive (e.g., Dixson et al., 2011c).

Variation in breast morphology is, however, not restricted to size and symmetry—breasts also vary greatly in shape. In general, breast shape changes with age and parity, having a firmer appearance in younger adults (for brevity, we hereafter use the term “firm”, which is a tactile descriptor, even though we primarily refer to their visual appearance on which our participants' preferences were based). Later in life, due to declining firmness of the breasts' fibrous tissue, they become progressively more pendulous; this effect is amplified by many factors, such as age, breast size, parity, weight loss, or smoking (Rinker, Veneracion, & Walsh, 2010). The medical literature labels this phenomenon as breast ptosis, defined as a sagging process where the breast falls onto the chest, flattens, and nipples point downward (Rinker et al., 2010). Based on these changes, Marlowe (1998) proposed the nubility hypothesis, suggesting that breast shape could be used as a reliable marker of residual reproductive value, i.e., the expected future reproductive output of an individual, which is negatively related to age. According to this hypothesis, men's perception of breast attractiveness is expected to be primarily affected by their shape rather than size. Although this hypothesis was formulated more than 15 years ago, to date its predictions have not, to our knowledge, been directly tested.

The aim of this study was to test both preferences for breast size and breast shape. We based our predictions about size preferences on the potential fertility hypothesis (Jasienska et al., 2004) and about shape on the nubility hypothesis (Marlowe, 1998). As preferences may vary across tested populations (Dixson et al., 2011c), we collected attractiveness ratings across several populations varying in their cultural and socio-economic settings, including two African communities (Cameroon, Namibia) and two industrialized urban populations (the Czech Republic, Brazil). We expected to find preferences for firm breasts across the tested countries. In contrast, we expected men to prefer larger breasts in countries with relatively lower living standards and higher resource scarcity (here, Cameroon and Namibia) compared with men in countries with relatively higher living standards (here, the Czech Republic and Brazil). Resource scarcity is frequently associated with preferences for more corpulent bodies (e.g., Wetsman & Marlowe, 1999). As breast size is to some extent positively associated with body mass (Brown et al., 2012), preferences for larger breasts may simply reflect a generalized preference for more corpulent women in communities that experience resource scarcity.

To assess other factors that might be associated with breast preferences, we followed findings from previous research (Dixson et al., 2011c, Zelazniewicz and Pawlowski, 2011). Namely, we also tested effects of age, self-assessed attractiveness, relationship status, and sexual restrictiveness (here assessed in two ways, by self-reported number of sexual partners and by using the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, SOI-R: Penke & Asendorpf, 2008), each of which has been found to be positively associated with preferences for larger breasts.

Section snippets

Participants

The data were collected as part of several larger projects investigating cross-cultural predictors of physical attractiveness and intrasexual competition. The Brazilian sample consisted of 44 male students of the University of São Paulo (mean age = 23.4ys; SD = 3.89; range 18–34) approached on campus by local researchers (MACV and KJP). São Paulo is a large urban agglomeration with a prevailing economic reliance on industrial production, finance, and retail. Living standards range between moderate

Breast size preferences

Overall, preferences for breast size significantly varied across the four tested cultures (chi-square (6) = 23.9, p = 0.001). We thus tested preferences for breast size in each culture separately. Medium sized breasts were most preferred in Brazil (52.3%, chi-square (2) = 11.2, p = 0.004), the Czech Republic (70.2%, chi-square (1) = 7.7, p = 0.006), and Namibia, although here the effect only approached the formal level of significance (45.7%, chi-square (2) = 5.9, p = 0.054). In Cameroon, large sized breasts

Discussion

The main aim of this study was to test preferences for female breast size and shape in four different cultures. We found that, in three of the four tested cultures, medium size breasts were judged as being the most attractive. However, a substantial portion of the participants selected either large or small size as their most preferred, indicating considerable inter-individual variation in breast size preferences. In contrast, the majority of raters showed preferences for firm breasts, which

Supplementary Materials

The following is the Supplementary data to this article.

Supplementary material.

Acknowledgements

We thank all our participants for their time, Lydie Kubicová and Markéta Sobotková for their help with data collection, and Jinka Boušová for her helpful comments on previous versions of the paper. This study was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GA1505048S).

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