Abstract
Previous studies have shown that human mate-choice can be influenced by
exposure to opposite-sex parent characteristics. In this study we examined whether
there are sexual-imprinting effects of fathers on their daughter’s partner-choice. To
this end our participants were asked to bring a picture of their father to the
laboratory, and next an eye-tracker was used to determine participants’ gaze
directions while they were judging male faces for attractiveness. Participants were
single, female undergraduates (n = 50, M age = 22, SD = 2.36), and they were
randomly assigned to one of two conditions. They were instructed to judge the
stimuli faces on their attractiveness while imagining they were looking either for a
short-term (ST) or a long-term (LT) relationship. After calculating percentage
differences and similarities between fathers’ faces and the stimuli pictures, the
results showed that a sub-sample, which fulfilled imprinting criteria, did rate stimuli
pictures with a high father resemblance as significantly more attractive.
