ArticleScientific reports2020
In humans, only attractive females fulfil their sexually imprinted preferences for eye colour.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Least Equal When Most Teachable: The Biodevelopmental Learning Opportunities and Outcomes Model of Gender Differences in Sexuality.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2026Review
- Do We Look at a Threatening Person's Face? The Relationship Between Perception and Observation of Walking Strangers.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2026Article
- Why humans evolved blue eyes.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Imprinting in an interspecific brood parasitic bird.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Consistency of Eye Coloration Across Different Relationship Partners.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Article
- Blue Eyes Help Men Reduce the Cost of Cuckoldry.Archives of sexual behavior · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Early exposure to parental features shapes later sexual preferences in fish, birds, and mammals. Here I report that human males' preferences for a conspicuous trait, colourful eyes, are affected by the eye colour of mothers. Female faces with light (blue or green) eyes were liked better by men whose mother had light eyes; the effect broke down in those who had felt rejected by her as children. These results, garnered on over one thousand men, complete those of a symmetrical study on one thousand women, painting a fuller picture of human sexual imprinting. Both men and women appear to have imprinted on their opposite-sex parents unless these were perceived as cold and unjustly punitive. Birds require strong attachment to sexually imprint-a constraint in place to reduce the perils of acquiring the wrong sort of information. Parents who form no bond with their offspring may fail to be recognised as appropriate parental imprinting objects. Consistent with human females being, as in most of the animal kingdom, the choosier sex, imprinted preferences were displayed by both sexes but translated into real-life partner choices solely in women-attractive women. Apparently, not all of us can afford to follow our own inclinations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.