Human Mate Choice Hypothesis

There are number of hypothesis about what influences human mate choice. In the paper “Chickens prefer beautiful humans”, Ghirlanda, Jansson, and Enquist (2004) claimed that human mate preference is based on discrimination between male and female faces, which leads to a bias in the nervous system. They argued that such bias is not species-specific; therefore, an animal can develop a preference towards one animal above the other, even if it is a member of different specie. To test that, Ghirlanda et al (2004) trained chickens to discriminate between human male and female faces by rewarding them every time they have made a right choice (chicks were trained to prefer male faces, while hens were trained to prefer female faces). In subsequent tests, chickens showed preference similar to those of the university students, as chickens …show more content…
The authors concluded that obtained results mean that “nervous system bias” theory of mate preference has more support over the “mate quality” hypothesis.
In this review, I attempt to discuss Ghirlanda, Jansson, and Enquist (2004) work. I criticize the methodology and argue that the presented study does not show chicken’s preference for beautiful human faces, but in fact shows simple learning. I conclude that the area needs more research, and while the claim about choosing a partner based on experience and bias in the nervous system might be right, the presented research on chicken can have an alternative explanation.
Ghirlanda, Jansson, and Enquist (2004) showed that in the test phase, chickens pecked more beautiful face more times than less beautiful face. According to authors, the reason for it is that they learnt to discriminate between the faces and that led to biases in the nervous system to prefer a more beautiful face. However, chickens are well at discriminating visual cues in general (Eath & Stone, 1999), and