A new study indicates that contrary to the position of social justice activists, gender differences may be very real indeed.
The study’s authors write, “We explored the time course of the two main interesting variables for the respective research question: 1) attractiveness and 2) gender, both processed on the basis of mere presentation of frontal 2D faces. Our rationale was as follows: If gender is processed earlier than attractiveness, one cannot exclude the possibility that sexual markers are already taken into account early in the processing of attractiveness. In other words, attractiveness assessment at a very early stage is highly probably gender-specific.”
Later, the authors note, “All predictor variables mentioned above, except for symmetry (which might be called a pure perceptual property) seem to be at least indirectly dependent on the antecedent processing of gender; averageness and skin, as well as cues associated with personality distribution, seem all to be based on gender-specific norms and distributions, thus, a reliable distribution of such qualities requires the successful identification and processing of the respective gender.”
In the abstract, the authors conclude, ”In sum, processing of facial attractiveness seems to be based on gender-specific aesthetic pre-processing, for instance via activating gender-specific attractiveness prototypes which show focused processing of certain facial aspects.”
One famous person noted the obvious implications:
