Given previous research reporting correlations between face preferences and pathogen disgust (reviewed in Jones et al., 2013), we predicted that (1) participants who

scored higher on the pathogen disgust subscale of the TDDS (i.e., participants who showed the greatest concern about infectious disease) would show the strongest aversions to individuals with relatively high levels of facial adiposity and (2) this effect of pathogen disgust would be independent of the possible effects of sexual or moral disgust. Lieberman et al.’s (2011) finding that women who score high on pathogen disgust hold particularly strong negative attitudes about obese individuals suggests that pathogen disgust may be a particularly good predictor of women’s responses to facial cues of weight. However, Lee et al.’s (2013) finding that pathogen disgust more reliably predicts men’s than women’s preferences for putative health cues suggests that find more pathogen disgust may be a particularly good predictor of men’s responses to facial cues of weight. Sixty-two heterosexual couples (mean relationship duration = 18.4 months, SD = 15.1) participated in this study as part of an ongoing project investigating the relationship between mate preferences selleck screening library and choices. Other components of this project were unrelated

to the current hypotheses and were randomly interspersed among the tests reported here (i.e., were unlikely to have systematically biased

responses). Men’s mean age was 21.8 years (SD = 1.96) and women’s mean age was 21.2 years (SD = 1.94). Stimuli were full-color images of 50 male (mean age = 24.2 years, SD = 3.99 years) and 50 female (mean age = 24.3 years, SD = 4.01 years) faces with Calpain neutral expressions and direct gaze. Images were taken under standardized lighting conditions, against a constant background, were standardized on pupil position, and masked so clothing was not visible. Height and weight measurements for these men (mean height = 180.2 cm, SD = 6.62 cm; mean weight = 77.3 kg, SD = 12.4 kg) and women (mean height = 168.6 cm, SD = 6.48 cm; mean weight = 57.2 kg, SD = 11.4 kg) were used to calculate their body mass index (BMI; men: M = 23.7 kg/m2, SD = 3.13 kg/m2, range = 17.7–31.0 kg/m2; women: M = 20.1 kg/m2, SD = 3.66 kg/m2, range = 16.2–38.4 kg/m2). The male faces were rated for weight by 25 raters (15 women, 10 men; mean age = 22.54 years, SD = 5.05) in a randomized order using a one (very underweight) to seven (very overweight) scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96). A different group of 25 raters (23 women, 2 men; mean age = 24.11 years, SD = 6.94) rated the female faces for weight using the same method (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.95). Average adiposity ratings for each face (male: M = 3.83, SD = 0.82; female: M = 3.65, SD = 0.88) were positively correlated with BMI (men: r = 0.58, N = 50, p < 0.001; women: r = 0.66, N = 50, p < 0.001).