Physical exercise, female preference in corporal dimensions in men: A comparative study on eye-tracking

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to understand if there is a relationship between attractiveness andocular movement, when the variable physical exercise is introduced. This study included a sample of 30university students, all female, aged between 18 and 29 years [M = 20.60 and SD = 2.69]. The presentstudy is cross-sectional, quantitative, comparative and with a quasi-experimental design, having beencarried out in a laboratorial context. The instruments used were six different images, manipulated interms of muscularity, the SMI RED250 eye-tracker, a Likert scale to assess the attractiveness and stilla sociodemographic questionnaire. Linear combinations were performed through the MANOVA testwith a 2x2 factorial design of independent variables that maximize the differences between severalconditions of the dependent variables. As main results, we verified that in both factorial designs therewas a significant effect of the independent variables on the dependent variables, except in the variableaverage number of fixations, which only had a significant effect in the second factorial design. We canstill see that the area of the body most visualized was the chest. We conclude that the love relationship,the level of body satisfaction and the practice of physical exercise are variables that influence theocular movement and that there is a female preference regarding the chest of the male body.