A recent peer-reviewed study has found that men's preferences for female breast size can be strongly influenced by their feelings of hunger and financial insecurity. Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the research suggests that attraction is not purely innate but is shaped by immediate environmental and psychological factors.
Conducted by psychologists Viren Swami and Martin J. Tovée, the study was carried out in two parts across Malaysia and the United Kingdom.
In the first part, 266 Malaysian men from varying socioeconomic backgrounds were asked to rate the attractiveness of computer-generated female figures with different breast sizes. The results revealed a clear trend: men from low-income rural areas preferred larger breasts, those from middle-income towns favored medium to large sizes, and high-income urban men preferred smaller to medium breasts.
The researchers noted that "the lower a man’s financial security, the stronger his preference for larger breast size," proposing that such preferences may be subconsciously linked to perceptions of resource availability and stability.
The second part of the study focused on the immediate physical state of hunger. In the UK, 124 male university students were divided into groups—one hungry, the other recently fed. Both viewed the same set of images. Consistently, hungry participants rated larger breasts as significantly more attractive than their satiated counterparts.
According to the study, both hunger and financial insecurity seem to trigger a similar psychological response—placing higher value on physical traits perceived to signal greater access to resources or better health.
These findings challenge the notion of fixed aesthetic preferences, highlighting instead how human attraction can adapt to personal and environmental conditions. The study concludes that temporary states like hunger can shape perceptions of beauty in ways similar to long-term socioeconomic factors, underscoring the significant role that context plays in judgments of physical attractiveness.
From an evolutionary psychology perspective, the results align with theories suggesting that traits indicating health and fertility—such as certain body proportions—may be more appealing under conditions of scarcity. This adaptive mechanism might reflect an unconscious drive toward mates perceived as better equipped for survival and child-rearing during times of need.
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