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Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women

Body configuration is a sexually dimorphic trait. In humans, men tend to have high shoulder-to-hip ratios. Women in contrast, often have low waist-to-hip ratios (WHR); i.e., narrow waists and broad hips that approximate an hour-glass configuration. Women with low WHR’s are rated as more attractive,...

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Autores principales: Bremser, Jennifer A., Gallup, Gordon G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Research Foundation 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3268185/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22319496
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnevo.2012.00001
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author Bremser, Jennifer A.
Gallup, Gordon G.
author_facet Bremser, Jennifer A.
Gallup, Gordon G.
author_sort Bremser, Jennifer A.
collection PubMed
description Body configuration is a sexually dimorphic trait. In humans, men tend to have high shoulder-to-hip ratios. Women in contrast, often have low waist-to-hip ratios (WHR); i.e., narrow waists and broad hips that approximate an hour-glass configuration. Women with low WHR’s are rated as more attractive, healthier, and more fertile. They also tend to have more attractive voices, lose their virginity sooner, and have more sex partners. WHR has also been linked with general cognitive performance. In the present study we expand upon previous research examining the role of WHR in cognition. We hypothesized that more feminine body types, as indexed by a low WHR, would be associated with cognitive measures of the female “brain type,” such as mental state attribution and empathy because both may depend upon the activational effects of estrogens at puberty. We found that women with low WHRs excel at identifying emotional states of other people and show a cognitive style that favors empathizing over systemizing. We suggest this relationship may be a byproduct of greater gluteofemoral fat stores which are high in the essential fatty acids needed to support brain development and cellular functioning. It is interesting to note that our findings suggest lower WHR females, who are more likely to be targeted for dishonest courtship, may be better at identifying disingenuous claims of commitment.
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spelling pubmed-32681852012-02-08 Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women Bremser, Jennifer A. Gallup, Gordon G. Front Evol Neurosci Neuroscience Body configuration is a sexually dimorphic trait. In humans, men tend to have high shoulder-to-hip ratios. Women in contrast, often have low waist-to-hip ratios (WHR); i.e., narrow waists and broad hips that approximate an hour-glass configuration. Women with low WHR’s are rated as more attractive, healthier, and more fertile. They also tend to have more attractive voices, lose their virginity sooner, and have more sex partners. WHR has also been linked with general cognitive performance. In the present study we expand upon previous research examining the role of WHR in cognition. We hypothesized that more feminine body types, as indexed by a low WHR, would be associated with cognitive measures of the female “brain type,” such as mental state attribution and empathy because both may depend upon the activational effects of estrogens at puberty. We found that women with low WHRs excel at identifying emotional states of other people and show a cognitive style that favors empathizing over systemizing. We suggest this relationship may be a byproduct of greater gluteofemoral fat stores which are high in the essential fatty acids needed to support brain development and cellular functioning. It is interesting to note that our findings suggest lower WHR females, who are more likely to be targeted for dishonest courtship, may be better at identifying disingenuous claims of commitment. Frontiers Research Foundation 2012-01-30 /pmc/articles/PMC3268185/ /pubmed/22319496 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnevo.2012.00001 Text en Copyright © 2012 Bremser and Gallup Jr. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Bremser, Jennifer A.
Gallup, Gordon G.
Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women
title Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women
title_full Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women
title_fullStr Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women
title_full_unstemmed Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women
title_short Mental State Attribution and Body Configuration in Women
title_sort mental state attribution and body configuration in women
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3268185/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22319496
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnevo.2012.00001
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