Formidable Facial Structures Inform Perceptions of Men’s Ability to Protect Offspring

The identification of men motivated and able to afford protection for group members would have favored perceptual awareness toward morphological features diagnostic of their formidability. Within this calculus for coalitional decision-making could be an interest in identifying men especially capable of protecting offspring, an advantage both for men and women in identifying suitable mates and safe allies. One route through which formidability inferences emerge is facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), a facial structure that heuristically informs perceptions of men’s physical prowess based on various sexually selected components. We conducted four experiments to determine how fWHR informs perceptions of men’s parental abilities and motives. Perceivers ascribed more effectiveness in protecting offspring in high-fWHR men (Study 1) and chose them more readily for protective roles (Study 2). Inferences of men’s paternal ability tracked both configural and featural processing (Study 3) and expected motivations for protection (Study 4). Results contribute to a functional perspective of how fWHR informs perceptions of motivational costs and benefits in parenting for men.