Men love to see beautiful women because they activate the pleasure center of the brain

Psychological experiments have shown that the image of a beautiful woman can easily activate the pleasure center of the male brain, making them excited, but plain looking women cannot do this. Further research indicates that the standards of female beauty have been formed during the long history of human evolution, and most of them are closely related to fertility.

Just as explorers need to build lighthouses to guide their course, generations of ancient men have gradually groped for external criteria for inferring female fertility and used these guidelines to better reproduce. Their brains regard women who meet these criteria as "beautiful women.". Beautiful women can easily send them to the cloud of happiness, and they can easily let them go through fire and water, competing for more survival resources for future generations. Behind all this, in fact, is the endless power of human reproduction.

Waist to hip ratio<0.7

Influenced by fashion trends, most girls are now enthusiastic about losing weight, and the slogan "Good women are no better than 100" has been widely circulated in various weight loss forums, encouraging them to embark on the path of "no thinnest, only thinner", resulting in a common occurrence of anorexia nervosa. However, is "Thin Bone Fairy" really more charming?

In an experiment, psychologists asked a group of male and female subjects to view 9 photos of women ranging from extremely thin to extremely fat, and asked them to choose the ideal female image in their minds. As a result, most women chose the image of a thinner woman, while the male subjects chose the one who was neither fat nor thin. From this result, if it is to win the favor of men, girls really do not have to be too difficult for themselves.

In fact, compared to being fat and thin, men pay more attention to the "waist to hip ratio" of women. Evolutionary psychologists have found through many experiments that women with a waist to hip ratio of less than 0.7 best meet the criteria for a man's graceful figure. There is sufficient evidence to show that a lower waist to hip ratio is a guide for women's health and fertility. Women with a higher waist to hip ratio are more likely to suffer from various diseases and are more difficult to conceive. In this sense, men believe that women with low waist to hip ratios are more beautiful, and they also focus on "genetic benefits.".

Experiments have shown that reducing the waist to hip ratio is the only way to improve your "sexual attractiveness". Instead of losing weight crazily, it's better to consult a fitness expert.

Lust, starting with dolls

This is an experiment to make many people feel disappointed about people. Evolutionary psychologists have found a large number of images that are available to both men and women. They divide the images into four groups based on their sexual attractiveness: "charming women", "ordinary women", "charming men", and "ordinary men"; Then, they recruited a group of male subjects (i.e., experimental subjects) who underwent brain MRI scans while looking at pictures. The results showed that when watching attractive women, the area of the nucleus accumbens in their brain became very active, and the area of the nucleus accumbens had long been proven to be the pleasure center of the brain. In another famous psychological experiment, after a mouse was activated by an electrode in the nucleus accumbens region, it repeatedly pressed the happy electrode with its claws until it was excited to death. Although human beings are not so good at it, men's eyes do shine at the sight of beautiful women in life, and the control of the nucleus accumbens is by no means a "floating cloud".

However, only images of attractive women can activate the pleasure center of the male brain, which is not possible with images of ordinary women, attractive men, and ordinary men. What's more, when a man is still a baby, his preference for beautiful women has already formed. In an experiment with male babies, psychologists first asked adult men to rank some images of women according to their sexual attractiveness, then presented them to the boys and recorded the time their eyes stayed on each image. Experimental results show that even boys aged 2 to 3 months can gaze at images of "attractive women" longer, especially boys aged 6 to 8 months. This experimental result proves to some extent that there is a strong genetic mechanism for men's psychological preference for beautiful women.

Beauty, strong fertility

When it comes to men's innate love for beautiful women, ordinary people generally snort with disdain: "Men are animals that use their lower body to think, and then forget about this issue.". Scientists are exploring these questions: Why do men naturally love beautiful women? Is there any secret of human evolution hidden in it?

To find the answer to the question, it is also necessary to clarify, by what standards do men judge a woman as a beautiful woman? How are these standards formed? The development of computer technology has provided great help to scientists. They invited a large number of male subjects to use software to constantly correct female faces on computer screens until they met their "beauty" criteria. After analyzing these female faces, scientists found that female faces recognized as "beautiful" by the vast majority of men must meet at least several conditions: large eyes, thin chin, plump lips, symmetrical face, and smooth and clean skin.

Scientists then combined the faces of women of different ages using computers and found that "large eyes, thin chin, and plump lips" are important clues to judge a woman's youth. In other words, male brains generally favor young women, and the "popular face" composed of female faces aged 14 to 20 years is considered the most beautiful. From a physiological perspective, this is precisely the period when women have the strongest reproductive ability.

In ancient times, symmetrical faces and smooth skin were important clues to determine a person's health. Research has found that parasites, diseases, and life stress can all cause asymmetry in a person's face. Similarly, various infections are also important causes of skin diseases. A symmetrical face and smooth skin mean that a woman has fewer infections and is less likely to develop diseases, all of which are favorable conditions for procreation.

It can be seen that the standard of beauty does not come from nowhere, but rather the psychological tendencies evolved by ancient men through natural selection from generation to generation. These tendencies help them select more fertile women, have children with them, and transmit genes. This psychological mechanism has become a primitive psychological instinct. Therefore, it is not so much beauty that activates the pleasure center of the brain in men as it is in more fertile women. "At the sight of such a woman, the male brain starts to stir up, 'Gene brothers, the opportunity for replication is here, hurry up!'"

Instinct, weakened after exposure

There are always people who have deep doubts about the research of evolutionary psychology, believing that it is seeking evidence for men's sexual activity, but in the eyes of scientists, finding the truth is the first priority. To put it inappropriately, no one likes to be sick, but it cannot stop studying diseases. If we give up looking for the cause of the disease, how can we talk about developing drugs to treat it?

Evolutionary psychologists have repeatedly emphasized that saying that a psychological tendency is evolved does not mean it is immutable. This is like saying that a person has a certain pathogenic gene, which does not necessarily mean that he will become ill. On the contrary, when he knows that he has this gene, he can increase his vigilance and take more preventive measures, thereby living a longer life.

Similarly, when a man learns that "loving beautiful women" is a primitive psychological tendency, and when encountering the temptation of beautiful women, his brain's excitability increases sharply, he can gain a bit of sober power, thereby better controlling his own behavior. The primitive psychological instinct is like a magic spell. When you don't know it, it will control you unconsciously. Once you expose it to the sun, its magic power will be greatly weakened.

(Intern Editor: Chen Hao)