Cross-Cultural Investigation of Male Gait Perception in Relation to Physical Strength and Speed - PMC
Previous research documents that men and women can accurately judge male physical strength from gait, but also that the sexes differ in attractiveness judgments of strong and weak male walkers. Women’s (but not men’s) attractiveness assessments of ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Key Findings
- Stronger Walkers = Perceived as Stronger & More Attractive
- Across Chile, Germany, and Russia, both men and women accurately judged stronger male walkers as physically stronger than weaker ones.
- Strong walkers were also rated as more attractive, with this effect being consistent across countries but not across sexes.
- Sex Differences in Attractiveness Judgments
- Women gave higher attractiveness ratings to strong male walkers.
- Men, interestingly, gave slightly higher attractiveness ratings to weak male walkers, although these differences were not statistically significant.
- This supports earlier findings (Fink et al., 2016) and suggests that physical strength cues influence female attraction more than male judgment of other men.
- Cultural Variation Was Minimal
- There were small cultural differences in how gait attractiveness was rated, but these were not statistically significant in most cases.
- For instance, German participants rated strong walkers most attractive, followed by Russians and Chileans.
- Walking Speed Effects
- In Germany and Russia, walking speed was manipulated (slow = 70%, fast = 130% of normal).
- Strong walkers were rated more attractive at both fast and slow speeds, indicating that attractiveness perception may depend more on gait quality than speed.
What This Suggests
- Humans, across cultures, have a universal ability to detect physical strength from gait.
- Women’s evolutionary preferences may favor physical strength, shown by their attraction to stronger gait.
- Speed may alter perception, but not drastically—the strength cues are strong enough to remain effective at different walking speeds.
