Men Don’t Find Fuller Lips As Attractive As Women Do, According To This Study
In today’s society, people are more concerned with their image than ever. Lip fillers and other cosmetic enhancements have become increasingly popular, leading to a shift in beauty standards.
According to new research, men and women have different ideas of beauty. Men tend to find women with natural-looking lips more attractive, while women are drawn to fuller lips.
“Our research highlights the subjective nature of beauty and the powerful influence of social and cultural factors,” said David Alais, a study author and a professor at the University of Sydney, Australia.
“As cosmetic procedures become more accessible, it’s crucial to understand how these interventions can shape our perception and potentially lead to unrealistic beauty standards.”
The researchers recruited 32 university students for their study—16 men and 16 women. They showed the participants a series of digitally edited faces with lip sizes ranging from thinner to plumper. The participants were also asked to rate how attractive they found each image.
Each face was shown with seven different lip sizes. All participants rated each face several times. Overall, they judged 168 face images.
Then, the researchers averaged the scores to identify patterns. Ultimately, people seemed to prefer slightly plumper lips on female faces and slightly thinner ones on males.
But when the results of the study were broken down by the gender of participants, it was clear that men rated female faces with natural-sized lips as more attractive.
On the other hand, women liked plumper lips on female faces. Both men and women preferred male faces with thinner lips.
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The findings suggest that fuller lips appeal to women, possibly due to beauty trends and social influence, but they don’t exactly align with what men deem to be attractive.
During the experiment, people also gave higher scores to faces of their own gender, which indicated that they were more confident rating faces within their own social groups.
Those exposed to plumper lips were more likely to rate faces with full lips as attractive, while those shown thinner lips had a greater likelihood of giving higher ratings to faces with thinner lips. This effect occurred even when the participants were shown only lips.
The research points to how men and women view beauty differently. Plumper lips achieved by lip fillers may be trendy and fit women’s preferences, but they do not always reflect what others find most attractive. It also goes to show how social media, filters, and cosmetics culture can alter our perception of what looks good.
The rise of lip fillers has led to a phenomenon that has been coined as “lip dysmorphia,” where women believe their lips are unattractive or flawed even though they appear normal.
The new study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
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