LAUSR

In their Target Article, Davis and Arnocky (2020) suggest that evolutionary theories of mate preferences can contribute to our understanding of why appearance-enhancement behaviors are seemingly ubiquitous. We support their argument that an interdisciplinary approach, in which evolutionary and other perspectives are fully integrated, will give us a more complete understanding of appearance-enhancement behaviors. We also agree that evolutionary theories of mate preferences have the potential to provide new insights into why such behaviors are so common. Here, we use the literature on women’s facial attractiveness to highlight an important limitation of this argument: uncertainty about precisely what is signalled by physical attractiveness. Davis and Arnocky (2020) suggest that women employ behaviors such as the use of cosmetics to enhance attractive facial characteristics (e.g., Russell, 2010). They suggest women engage in such behaviors primarily to increase their attractiveness to potential mates and romantic partners. Davis and Arnocky also argue that, in doing so, women exaggerate facial characteristics that have been shaped by sexual selection to advertise aspects of their underlying physical condition (Batres et al., 2019; Jones & Kramer, 2015). Davis and Arnocky’s (2020) argument complements and builds on influential evolutionary theories of facial attractiveness. However, it also raises the question of what specific aspects of women’s underlying physical condition are signalled by attractive facial characteristics. This issue bears directly on Davis and Arnocky’s proposal that evolutionary theories of mate preferences can offer new insight into why appearance-enhancement behaviors are so common (i.e., that these theories can offer new insight into ultimate explanations for such behaviors). With this point in mind, we discuss four aspects of underlying physical condition typically emphasized and considered by evolutionary theories of facial attractiveness. Our discussion highlights the inconsistent results that are typical of work on putative correlations between facial attractiveness and women’s physical condition. Although we focus on women’s facial attractiveness in our Commentary, we note here that a similar problem (inconsistent results for associations between attractiveness and physical condition) is also evident in the literature on women’s body attractiveness (Bleske-Rechek et al., 2011; Grillot et al., 2014; Jasieńska et al., 2004; Jones et al., 2018) and in work on men’s physical attractiveness (reviewed in Jones et al., 2019).