An evolutionary perspective on beautification: attractiveness, autonomy, and connectedness in men's romantic judgment across mating contexts.

INTRODUCTION: Dress can be considered a visible and flexible form of female beautification that may communicate attractiveness as well as social and relational cues. However, less is known about how men interpret dress-based beautification cues when evaluating women as potential romantic partners across different mating contexts. The present study examined whether perceived attractiveness, autonomy, and connectedness derived from female dress jointly predict men's romantic judgment and whether these associations differ between short-term and long-term relationship contexts. METHODS: A between-subjects design was used in which heterosexual male participants (N = 405) were randomly assigned to either a short-term or long-term romantic evaluation condition. They rated ten female dress stimuli on attractiveness, autonomy, connectedness, and romantic judgment, yielding 4,050 observations. Data was analyzed using cross-classified linear mixed-effects models with all continuous predictors double-centered to remove between-participant and between-stimulus mean differences. RESULTS: Relationship context moderated the associations with attractiveness and autonomy; attractiveness was more influential in short-term judgment, whereas autonomy showed a stronger association in long-term judgment. The interaction for connectedness was in the predicted direction but did not reach statistical significance. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that dress-based cues are weighed differently across mating contexts. Attractiveness, autonomy, and connectedness converge to predict romantic judgments, with varying differences depending on the mating context.