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Beyond facial width-to-height ratios bizygomatic width is highly sexually dimorphic when adjusting for allometry597.41 kB
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Journal article
Beyond facial width-to-height ratios: bizygomatic width is highly sexually dimorphic when adjusting for allometry
Biology Letters, Vol.18(10), pp.1-6
2022
Abstract
A large and ever growing literature implicates male facial width to height ratio (bizygomatic width divided by facial height) as a secondary sexual trait linked to numerous physical and psychological perceptions. However, this research is based entirely on the premise that bizygomatic width is sexually dimorphic, which recent research has called into question. Unfortunately, statisticians for the last 125 years have noted that morphological ratio measurements may engender spurious correlations and biased effect size estimates. In the current study, we find that bizygomatic width is highly sexually dimorphic (equivalent d = 1.39), even after adjusting for 92 allometric measurements, including multiple facial height and other craniofacial measurements (equivalent d = 1.07) in a sample of 6068 men and women. By contrast, facial width to height ratio (fWHR) measurements demonstrated a statistical pattern consistent with the age old argument that morphological ratio measurements may engender spurious correlations and biased effect size estimates. Thus, when avoiding facial ratio measurements and adjusting for allometry in craniofacial measures, we found strong support for a key premise in the human evolutionary and behavioural sciences that bizygomatic width exhibits male biased sexual dimorphism.
Details
- Title
- Beyond facial width-to-height ratios: bizygomatic width is highly sexually dimorphic when adjusting for allometry
- Authors
- Neil R. Caton (Corresponding Author) - The University of QueenslandBarnaby J. W. Dixson (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Legacy
- Publication details
- Biology Letters, Vol.18(10), pp.1-6
- Publisher
- The Royal Society Publishing
- Date published
- 2022
- DOI
- 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0211
- ISSN
- 1744-957X; 1744-9561
- Copyright note
- © 2022 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Organisation Unit
- Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Health - Psychology; School of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Legacy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99681395502621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Biology
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology