Here's some weird science for you.
It's also some Weird Science too. You remember that comedy from 1985 where lonely high school nerds attempt to build the perfect woman using a computer, a doll, electrodes and -- for whatever reason -- bras tied around their heads? Well, now we know why their creation, Lisa, played by actress Kelly LeBrock, was so alluring!
It was her very voluptuous ... eyebrows!
Eyebrows apparently have a lot to do with appearance, according to a study recently published by the online journal Frontiers in Psychology. Which we can't say we read regularly. Or ever. The closest thing we come to any kind of "Frontiers" is The Pioneer Woman Magazine.
Just the title of the study, by Justin K. Mogilskil of Oakland University and Lisa L.M. Welling of the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie, is enough to have brows knitting: "The Relative Contribution of Jawbone and Cheekbone Prominence, Eyebrow Thickness, Eye Size, and Face Length to Evaluations of Facial Masculinity and Attractiveness: A Conjoint Data-Driven Approach."
I see you furrowing. Hang in there.
In the introduction, they write: "Facial morphological cues (e.g., shape, color, and texture) are indicators of underlying physiology. ... From these cues, humans can accurately predict certain physical and psychological qualities (e.g., an individual's health, physical attractiveness, trustworthiness) that are significant to partner selection and social judgment. ... These qualities can be assessed by observers from facial photographs at first acquaintance, and significantly impact employment decisions, mate selection, friendship, and other key aspects of social interaction."
That's a highbrow way of saying that we read people's faces. Well, we try our best. Sometimes they just say: "Botox" and "Juvederm."
In the study, some 922 people -- or 1,844 eyes -- "brows-ed" and ranked photographs of male and female faces. The study says, "Participants were asked to rank the images within each set relative to one another twice: once according to their preference for a long-term relationship and once according to their preference for a short-term relationship. ... Participants were instructed to rank same-sex photographs according to how they believed a heterosexual person of the opposite-sex would rank them."
And the researchers used Conjoint Analysis (CA), "a multivariate, data-driven analysis" -- not to mention a lot of alphabet soup ("M = 19.49, SD = 5.36, p 0.001, d = 0.19, d = 0.12") -- in order to "assess the relative contributions of several facial shape cues to perceptions of romantic partner attractiveness and masculinity."
And this was the most interesting result -- well, to us who have spent so much of our lives tweezing, shaping, tinting, trimming, waxing and agonizing.
"Surprisingly, utility estimates revealed that thicker eyebrows were more attractive for female faces than male faces, particularly within a long-term mating context. Previous research shows that thicker eyebrows are typically perceived as more masculine and dominant ... and are more attractive in male than female faces ... making this finding unexpected."
So it's empirical and official: Women with fuller eyebrows are eye candy. It would have been nice to know before so many of us plucked ours to permanent pencil-thin proportions back in the '90s.
But even the researchers admitted this finding might have more to do with style than science: "It is possible that current and/or temporary cosmetic ... trends popular among the tested cohort are influencing this relationship. ..."
And such trends are sure to change any decade now. So don't feel browbeaten.
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jchristman@arkansasonline.com
What's in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman 'hood.
Style on 01/22/2019