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The type of man who makes woman’s heart flutter has a lot to whether she was a daddy’s girl, according to a new study.

Women who got along well with their dads as kids are attracted to men who resemble their fathers, whereas women who had a bad father-daughter relationship do not.

Lynda Boothroyd, a psychologist at Durham University in England, and her colleagues at the University of Wroclaw and the Institute of Anthropology in Poland asked a trained anthropologist to perform facial measurements on the photographs of 15 random men as well as the photographs of the fathers of 49 Polish women participating in the study.

The anthropologist calculated 15 key proportions based on how various features—such as the lips, nose, cheekbones and brows—related to each face’s height and width. The researchers also compared the 15 random faces to each of the father’s faces to determine how closely they resembled one another.

The women then rated their childhood relationships with their fathers based on how emotionally invested they felt their dads had been in raising them and how much time their fathers had spent with them. The women were split into two groups based on how positively or negatively they rated their relationships.

Then the researchers asked the women to rate how attractive they found each of the 15 random male faces.

The women who had reported positive relationships with their fathers were much more likely to be attracted to men resembling their fathers, the researchers found. On the other hand, women with bad dad relationships did not find men who looked like their fathers appealing.

“While previous research has suggested this to be the case, these controlled results show for certain that the quality of a daughter’s relationship with her father has an impact on whom she finds attractive,” Boothroyd said in a prepared statement. “It shows our human brains don't simply build prototypes of the ideal face based on those we see around us, rather they build them based on those to whom we have a strongly positive relationship.”

Although no one yet knows for sure why females show these preferences, a woman with a great dad may choose a similar-looking mate in the hopes that he will also be a good father, the researchers wrote.

Fatherhood at First Sight: Women Can Spot Good Dads By Their faces The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos, and Bizaare Facts How Women Pick Mates vs. Flings Original Story: Women Prefer Men Who Look Like Dad

Hmm ... how Freudian. So it's not just men who are tied to the apron strings of their mothers, eh? :) Women are tied to the belt buckles of their dads too? :P :D

In jest.

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LOL Captain, you said it all!

Captain,

My instinct, experience and some readings says that it is broad general facial familiarity rather than the father-specific facial familiarity that might be linked to a daughter's or anybody's sexual or any other attractions.

I will have to see the whole data from Lynda's paper to comment specifically (the paper is still 'in press'). However, I can see two possible methodological shortcomings right away.

One, perhaps the most serious one, is lack of non-father control, and, two, just a logical one, the possibility that the partial feature of a face might not represent the effect of a total face of the father.

So there is a pretty good chance that the Freudian link might be an erroneous overstretch. But interesting anyway.

Nepe

is this a new finding? I have read similar notes years before in some hindi magazine (Sarita or something similar). In nepal, we have sayings that a girl can be happier if her man has character similar to her dad. Also, the family tie remains closer if the character of father-in-law and son-in-law is similar. On the contrary, it is not sure to have good relation among mother-in-law and daughter-in-law despite both having similar character. I have noticed the above theories are mostly true among many families in my neighborhood and relative cirlce that I have watched.

Very true.Not so long ago, I had a huge crush on someone who resembled a lot like my brother.Not to mention, my brother has got some of the same genes from my father.

Some years ago I read an article on Reader's Digest about the LOVE MAP. It was mentioned that love map is created on our head around 7 or 8 years of age.As a result , girls prefer males with more familiar traits .

Just a note of withdrawal on my earlier comment on missing non-father "control" in the experiment. I realized that I was incorrectly assuming that. However, the skepticism regarding a "part" not representing the essence of the "total" is still valid.

so most interracial marriages occur mainly because women hate their fathers huh :)

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I guess it's more of looking for dad-like traits rather than looks!

I think it makes a perfect sense, we have all heard of selfish genes, well, liking someone with your immidiate family members characterestics means your progeny will carry the trait that "looks like" your kins, only you dont have to worry about diseases with recessive traits that comes with incest...thats basically the knots and bolts of how evolution works right?