Worried about catching the sniffles? There's a chance that cold may sway your mate preference, suggests a new study showing that women with disease on their minds were more interested in masculine-looking men.
The finding reveals the balancing act women must play in the mating game, choosing between devoted ****, who tend to have less masculine features, and guys with good genes, who tend to have manlier traits. And environment plays a role, it seems, in which way she's swayed.
"Women are able to perceive the environment around them and are able to shift their mate preferences accordingly," study researcher Anthony Lee, of the University of Queensland, told LiveScience. "It's not a conscious decision ... women have evolved these flexible preferences and they are able to pick up on these cues."
When faced with the idea of infectious disease, women are more willing to invest in traits related to good genetics in mates, presumably as a way to help ensure healthy offspring. When faced with the idea of scarce resources, she favors good-*** traits, signs a man will stick around and help provide for their ******.
