PsyPost shares research from Evolutionary Psychological Science that finds that dudes, like, check out each other’s pecs all the time (comparatively):
“If having a larger upper body is a male-typical attribute, then women with smaller upper bodies should be considered more feminine and therefore more attractive. Similar to men, women’s body characteristics such as their upper body size show variations,” [University of British Columbia psychologist Farid] Pazhoohi told PsyPost.
“As the variations in women upper body have never been investigated, we aimed to test the effect of both men and women upper body size on their perceived attractiveness and gazing behavior in both men and women.”
For their study, the researchers tracked the eye movements of 82 heterosexual undergraduate students as they viewed and rated the attractiveness of three male and three female 3D models, which varied in their shoulder-to-hip ratio.
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“Our study showed that men rate men with larger upper body sizes more attractive and rate women with smaller shoulders (smaller upper body) more attractive, while women preferred an intermediate size of shoulders for both men and women,” Pazhoohi told PsyPost.
The researchers also found that men dwelled longer on the chest region of male 3D models with higher shoulder-to-hip ratios, while women showed no differences in visual attention to chests of the male models.
“Gazing results showed that only men attend to variations in men upper bodies. In sum, men are more concerned with men’s upper bodies, suggesting they desire more masculine body forms for their mating success as well as in making the assessment of other men’s formidability,” Pazhoohi explained.
You can read the research here.