ArticleFrontiers in psychology2022
Substantial but Misunderstood Human Sexual Dimorphism Results Mainly From Sexual Selection on Males and Natural Selection on Females.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Metabolic and Cardiorespiratory Differences in Incremental Upper and Lower-Body Exercise in Healthy Adults-A Cross-Over Trial.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Sexual dimorphism in the liver.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2026Review
- Experimental evidence that penis size, height, and body shape influence assessment of male sexual attractiveness and fighting ability in humans.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- The relationship between sexual dimorphism and intersex correlation: do models support intuition?Genetics · 2025Article
- A Proposal for Terminology for Clear Communication and Avoidance of Confusion in Relation to Sex, the Social Expectations of the Sexes and Gender Identity.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Sexual Dimorphism in Cardiometabolic Diseases: From Development to Senescence and Therapeutic Approaches.Cells · 2025Review
- Redefining Health-Related Fitness: The Adaptive Ability to Foster Survival Possibilities.Sports medicine - open · 2025Article
- A systematic review of the association between women's morphological traits and fertility.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- X-inactive-specific transcript: a long noncoding RNA with a complex role in sex differences in human disease.Biology of sex differences · 2024Review
- Oncogenic BRCA1,2 Mutations in the Human Lineage-A By-Product of Sexual Selection?Biomedicines · 2023Review
- Review
- Men's Facial Hair Preferences Reflect Facial Hair Impression Management Functions Across Contexts and Men Know It.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Article
- Interethnic Influencing Factors Regarding Buttocks Body Image in Women from Nigeria, Germany, USA and Japan.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The mediating role of sexually selected traits in the association of androgynous tendencies with lower sexual activeness among Chinese youths.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
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Abstract
Human sexual dimorphism has been widely misunderstood. A large literature has underestimated the effect of differences in body composition and the role of male contest competition for mates. It is often assumed that sexually dimorphic traits reflect a history of sexual selection, but natural selection frequently builds different phenotypes in males and females. The relatively small sex difference in stature (∼7%) and its decrease during human evolution have been widely presumed to indicate decreased male contest competition for mates. However, females likely increased in stature relative to males in order to successfully deliver large-brained neonates through a bipedally-adapted pelvis. Despite the relatively small differences in stature and body mass (∼16%), there are marked sex differences in body composition. Across multiple samples from groups with different nutrition, males typically have 36% more lean body mass, 65% more muscle mass, and 72% more arm muscle than women, yielding parallel sex differences in strength. These sex differences in muscle and strength are comparable to those seen in primates where sexual selection, arising from aggressive male mating competition, has produced high levels of dimorphism. Body fat percentage shows a reverse pattern, with females having ∼1.6 times more than males and depositing that fat in different body regions than males. We argue that these sex differences in adipose arise mainly from natural selection on women to accumulate neurodevelopmental resources.
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