New research finds women’s buttocks play a more stable role in male physical attraction than breasts

A recent study published in Evolutionary Psychology suggests that men fall into distinct subgroups based on how much they prioritize a romantic partner’s physical features, particularly breasts and buttocks. The research indicates that most men value both traits, but a specific subset focuses predominantly on buttocks, and no equivalent group prioritizes breasts alone. These patterns provide evidence that buttocks tend to play a more central and stable role in male physical attraction than previously assumed.

Evolutionary psychology proposes that human mate selection relies heavily on physical traits that historically signaled health, youth, and reproductive viability. In human females, breasts and buttocks act as secondary sexual characteristics that develop during puberty. According to evolutionary frameworks, these features provided ancestral males with visual cues about a potential mate’s nutritional status, developmental stability, and fertility. Much of the existing literature treats both traits as similarly important indicators of female physical attractiveness.

Mehmet Mehmetoglu, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, initiated this research to understand how individual men differ in their specific preferences. Averaging preferences across a whole population can mask important variations among individuals.

“I’ve always had the impression, both from academic reading and, even more so, from just chatting with friends, that people assume buttocks and breasts are equally important to men,” Mehmetoglu explained. “In social settings, I’ve been asked this very question so many times that I’ve actually been thinking about it for the past 10 years. I realized that there wasn’t really a specific answer to this question. I was honestly just very curious to see the results!”

To explore these preferences, Mehmetoglu analyzed survey responses from 395 Norwegian men. The participants were predominantly young adults, with an average age of about 23, and most were not in a romantic relationship at the time. The survey asked respondents to rate the importance of a partner’s buttocks and breasts on a scale from one to five, where one meant not at all important and five meant very important.

Participants also rated how much they valued general traits like sexiness and intellectuality in a mate. The survey included questions to measure broader attitudes, asking participants to rate their agreement with statements reflecting egalitarianism, or the belief in equal rights and opportunities, and materialism, the desire for possessions that impress others. Mehmetoglu used a statistical technique called latent profile analysis to group the men based on their rating patterns. This method identifies naturally occurring categories within a dataset rather than forcing data into predefined boxes.

The analysis identified four distinct subgroups of men. The largest group, which the author called Highly Body-Oriented, made up 53 percent of the sample. These men rated both breasts and buttocks as highly important, with average scores of 4.1 and 4.4 out of five, respectively. The Moderately Body-Oriented group, representing 20 percent of the participants, showed a balanced but less intense interest, giving both features an average rating of 3.2.

A third group, making up 18 percent of the sample, was classified as Buttocks-Oriented. These men showed a strong preference for buttocks, with an average rating of 4.5, but gave breasts a much lower average rating of 2.5. The final 9 percent of men formed the Body-Unoriented group, placing minimal importance on either feature, with average ratings falling below two.

The statistical models consistently detected a group that favored buttocks across various mathematical solutions, but no group emerged that favored breasts exclusively. High ratings for breasts always appeared alongside high ratings for buttocks.

“I’ll be honest and admit that I was expecting to find a distinct ‘breasts-oriented’ segment, but I didn’t!” Mehmetoglu told PsyPost. “In every model we tested, a clear buttocks-oriented group appeared, but we found that ratings for breasts always co-occurred with high ratings for buttocks. This suggests that for most men, breasts are more of a ‘complementary’ feature rather than a primary preference on their own.”

Men may derive sufficient evolutionary cues related to youth and fertility by observing the buttocks alone. “The main takeaway is how buttocks seem to be a much more central and stable cue in the male brain than breasts,” Mehmetoglu noted. “It appears that this preference is ‘wired-in’ from millions of years ago because these features signal things like youth, fertility, and health.”

The broader attitudes measured in the survey also predicted which group a man was likely to fall into. A one-unit increase in how much a participant valued sexiness on the five-point scale increased his odds of belonging to the Highly Body-Oriented group by 501 percent compared to the Body-Unoriented group. Higher levels of materialism also increased the likelihood of being in the Buttocks-Oriented group by 86 percent. Materialistic individuals tend to value visible status signals, which can include a partner’s physical attractiveness.

In contrast, egalitarian attitudes were associated with a lower focus on physical features, and a preference for intellectuality was not statistically significant in predicting membership in any specific group. A one-unit increase in egalitarianism reduced a man’s odds of being in the Highly Body-Oriented group by 63 percent, which aligns with the tendency of egalitarian individuals to downplay traditional social status hierarchies.

“It was interesting to find that these physical preferences are actually linked to a person’s values,” Mehmetoglu explained. “For example, men who held stronger egalitarian views were less likely to be in the body-oriented groups, while those who placed greater value on materialism and status gave much more importance to these physical features. It shows that our broader worldview appears to influence the strength of our mate preferences!”

Reflecting on these deep-seated drives, Mehmetoglu offered a piece of practical advice for navigating the modern dating landscape. “For the average person, this shows that men’s mating psychology is both simple and deep-seated, but also that men should maybe be aware of these instincts and remember to look for other qualities too,” he added.

As with all research, there are some caveats. The findings reflect a specific cultural context. “The sample is quite specific,” Mehmetoglu pointed out. “It’s a young sample of Norwegian men (average age 23). Since the study was done in Norway, which is a very egalitarian society, the results are best generalized to similar social contexts. We used a ‘convenience sample,’ so it might not represent every demographic perfectly.”

A convenience sample refers to a group of participants who are selected because they are easily accessible, such as university students on a local campus, rather than a randomly selected cross-section of the entire population. The study also relied on self-reported survey data using single questions to measure complex traits like materialism and egalitarianism. Future research should aim to replicate these findings using established, multi-item psychological tests to measure these broad personal values, and observe whether self-reported priorities align with actual dating behaviors.

Future studies could also expand on this foundation by tracking eye movements to observe how men view varying physical combinations. “I am planning to do a similar study in a less egalitarian society to see if those different social constraints change these preference ‘camps’,” Mehmetoglu said. “I am also really interested in that 9% ‘Body-Unoriented’ group. Since they aren’t primarily focused on buttocks or breasts, I want to find out what actually drives their attraction, whether it’s personality, intelligence, or other facial features.”

The study, “Buttocks or Breasts? Identifying Latent Subgroups in Male Preferences for Female Bodily Features,” was authored by Mehmet Mehmetoglu.