Daughters of blue-eyed fathers prefer blue-eyed men

What is it about?

In this paper we report that daughters’ preference for partners with light or dark eyes is affected by the eye colour of fathers. We asked over 1,000 women to judge the attractiveness of men as potential partners for either a stable relationship or a short affair. Each male face was shown twice, once with light (blue or green) and once with dark (brown or dark brown) eyes. Having a light-eyed father increased daughters' preference for light-eyed men for both types of relationship—an effect that depended on how good the relationship between daughter and father had been while she was growing up. In real life, too, the daughters of light-eyed fathers had a light-eyed partner more often than expected by chance. Mothers' eye colour never mattered.

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Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Why is it important?

These data show that in humans, as in birds and sheep, the visual experience of parents' traits shapes later sexual preferences.