A recent study published in Evolutionary Psychological Science has found that women perceive men as more attractive when they are shown interacting with children. The research highlights how a man’s caring behavior toward children can significantly influence his attractiveness to women.
The researchers conducted this study to investigate an intriguing aspect of human attraction that has not been extensively explored: the influence of a man’s caregiving behavior toward children on his perceived attractiveness to women. This focus stems from evolutionary theories suggesting that certain traits in potential partners, such as nurturing behavior, are highly valued because they signal reliability and suitability for long-term relationships and parenting.
Parental investment theory posits that women, due to their greater biological investment in offspring (e.g., pregnancy and breastfeeding), tend to prefer partners who can provide resources and protection. However, this theory also implies that women might value traits indicative of good caregiving, as these traits would ensure better care for their children. The researchers hypothesized that men who display nurturing behavior toward children would be perceived as more attractive, especially by women who have strong nurturance motivations or a desire to have children.
“I heard from women active on dating apps that men often used profile pictures of themselves accompanied by their children (even men that were not looking for ‘a serious partner’),” said study author Peter Bos, a professor at the Institute of Education and Child Studies at Leiden University.
“I was surprised and wondered why men would do this? Could it be that women judge men as more attractive, because picture accompanied with children might signal caregiving motivation, a capacity that is very helpful in human partners given the big investment needed to raise children.”
“In classic evolutionary psychology, there is less attention to these aspects of human partner preferences, as the idea very often still is that fathers are not very reliable or useful caregivers, and that women thus would do little effort to select on these qualities.”
The study involved Dutch-speaking women who were at least 18 years old and self-identified as attracted to men. The researchers recruited 433 participants through social media platforms and networks of the researchers and their assistants. Out of these, 360 participants provided at least one valid response regarding attractiveness scores, and 314 completed the entire questionnaire.
Participants were presented with two tasks to measure male attractiveness. In the first task, they viewed pictures of men either alone or interacting with a child. In the second task, participants read vignettes that described the men’s activities, which included either caregiving or non-caregiving behaviors. Each task included 20 trials, and participants rated the attractiveness of the men on a scale from 0 (not at all attractive) to 100 (very attractive).
To ensure a balanced assessment, the researchers used different versions of each task. In one version, men were shown in a caregiving context, and in the other, they were shown in a non-caregiving context. The order of the tasks was consistent for all participants, with the picture task always presented first to keep the study’s aim implicit.
Additionally, the researchers measured the participants’ nurturance motivation using the Parental Care and Tenderness Questionnaire. This scale consists of six items that gauge the inclination to provide care and support to infants. Participants also answered questions about their desire to have children, their menstrual phase, and their use of hormonal contraceptives, which could influence their perceptions of attractiveness.
The researchers found that men depicted interacting with children were rated as significantly more attractive than those shown alone. This effect was particularly pronounced among women with a high nurturance motivation or those who had or desired to have children.
The findings provide evidence that “even very little information on personality aspects involving care affect judgments of attractiveness, and that such qualities are of fundamental importance in a species that relies on each other for survival,” Bos told PsyPost. “Kindness and care are therefore important aspect of fitness.”
Bos was surprised that “the effect was so clear! I expected a subtle effect perhaps, but it was robust. For women that scored higher on caregiving motivation themselves, it was even stronger.”
Interestingly, while the picture task showed a clear effect of caregiving context on attractiveness, the vignette task did not produce the same result. This suggests that visual cues of caregiving might have a more immediate impact on attractiveness perceptions than written descriptions of caregiving behavior. The researchers noted that the explicit information provided in the vignette task might have seemed artificial to participants, possibly explaining why it did not yield significant results.
Furthermore, the study found that women’s ratings of attractiveness varied with their menstrual cycle. Women reported being in the ovulation phase rated men higher in attractiveness overall, regardless of caregiving context. The use of hormonal contraceptives did not significantly affect attractiveness ratings in either task.
“We also found an effect of hormonal cycle, in that women around the ovulation phase rated the men more attractive, but our measure of cycle was unreliable, and this finding should therefore be interpreted with caution,” Bos noted.
As with any study, the findings come with a few caveats. “Women judged these men based on pictures, without the possibility of real contact,” Bos said. “This is different than the context on a dating app, where contact is possible. Nonetheless, this way of judging potential partners is more similar to the situation nowadays, compared to 20 years ago, when you had to meet other in real life to get in touch.”
The study’s findings open up several interesting avenues for further research. For example, investigating how men perceive women in caregiving contexts and examining the impact of different types of caregiving behaviors could provide deeper insights into the complex dynamics of attraction and partner selection.
“This was a bit of side-project, my main research is on the role of endocrinology and human caregiving and empathy,” Bos explained. “But I am currently setting up a follow-up study to see whether a similar effect is seen in men rating women. I think it could be, but the other team members are very skeptical about that.”
He added: “Don’t be fooled by online men with cute kids, check them out first! And if you are looking for a serious partner, make sure he really is motivated to care.”
The study, “Attractive Caregiving: Women’s Preference for Men that Care for Children and the Role of Nurturance Motivation and Menstrual Cycle Phase,” was authored by Peter A. Bos and Hannah Spencer.
