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　　一项新的研究称，当男人们在寻求短期伴侣时会把注意力放在女人的身体上，不过，当男人们寻找长期伴侣时会把注意力集中在女人脖子以上的部位。这听起来可能属实，但这是否是石器时代的心理在起作用？

　　那些想寻找一夜情的女人可能在去酒吧时考虑戴托高型文胸，穿高根鞋，但是那些寻找长期伴侣的女人可能想把注意力集中在画眼线和口红上。至少，这看起来是一项新研究的部分成果。新研究称，男人在寻找短期伴侣时会关注女人的身材，在寻找长期伴侣时则会关注女人的脸部。对于男人来说，可能举重不应当是一个优先事务。新的研究称，女性在寻找短期和长期伴侣时，她们更加关注的是脸部而不是外形。

　　男性(在这项研究中是指大学男生)在寻找短期伴侣时关注女性身体并不太令人感到吃惊。问题是，是否正如这项研究所声称的那样，自然选择真的是形成这种倾向性的原因。

　　进行这项研究的德克萨斯州奥斯汀分校的心理学家称，女性身体通常会提供她目前繁殖能力的信息。研究报告的共同作者亚米-科费尔称：“有一些暗示只能通过女性身体传送，例如是否怀孕。男子的心理是为了解这些信息所设计的。”换句话说，那些选择一夜情伴侣的男人之所以选择关注女性身体，是因为在石器时代，他们需要确保潜在的性伴侣不是孕妇。

　　Men Look at Women's Bodies: Is Evolution at Work? 

　　A new study claims men focus on women’s bodies when they’re seeking a quick hookup, but look above the neckline for a long-term mate. It may ring true, but is it Stone Age psychology at work?

　　Women seeking a one-night stand might consider wearing a push-up bra and high heels to a bar, but those searching for a spouse might want to focus on applying eyeliner and lipstick。

　　At least, that seems to be part of the takeaway from a new study that found that men look for good bodies in short-term mates but pretty faces in long-term partners. As for men, maybe weightlifting shouldn’t be a priority. According to the study, women care more about faces than bodies for both short- and long-term relationships。

　　The fact that men (and, in this particular study, college men) were more interested in seeing a woman’s body for a one-time hookup isn’t too shocking. The question is whether natural selection really shaped that preference, as the study claims. According to the psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin who conducted the study, a woman’s body generally provides information about her current state of fertility. “There are some cues that can only be conveyed by a woman’s body, like her pregnancy status,” says Jaime Confer, who coauthored the study with graduate student Carin Perilloux and Prof. David Buss. “Men’s psychology is designed to attend to that。” In other words, men are wired to choose to view a woman’s body for a one-night stand because, back in the Stone Age, they needed to make sure that a potential sex partner didn’t already have a bump in her belly。

　　The study may provide new insight into people’s romantic preferences today, but critics say the findings may tell us more about Western values than about human biology—which may often be the case with research that attempts to assign evolutionary motives to modern behavior. Indeed, the study looked only at 375 college students on one campus, the University of Texas at Austin. Massimo Pigliucci, an evolutionary biologist and philosopher at Lehman College of the City University of New York, says that further research across cultures and time would be needed to make a compelling case for evolution’s role in the results. Moreover, Pigliucci suspects that some cultural forces are at work. “We live in a society where it’s OK for a man to look at a body, but for a woman it’s considered a little beneath her to be interested in physical appearance,” he says. “I would be surprised if that were true in a culture where there are no TV ads and where people go around naked on a regular basis。”

　　Why might men be more interested in seeing a woman’s face when marriage is an option? While 49 percent of men chose to look at a woman’s face for a one-night stand, 75 percent opted to view her face for a long-term relationship. “One possibility is that we judge people’s characters from their faces—whether they are honest, kind, and smart,” says Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard. “These matter a lot more when you’re married to someone than if you’re just having a one-night stand。”

　　While participants in the study had the option of looking only at either head or body—but not both—the real world offers us a more complete picture of people, of course. The bottom line? “Don’t neglect your face or your body,” Confer says. “It all still matters。” Being nice probably won’t hurt either。

　　(新闻周刊)

　　(解雨)