The dominant theory of facial attractiveness judgments is that they evolved to identify healthy individuals with strong immune systems; this paper finds little compelling empirical support

Does facial attractiveness really signal immunocompetence? Benedict C. Jones, Iris J. Holzleitner, Victor Shiramizu. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, October 5 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.09.003

Abstract: The dominant theory of facial attractiveness judgments is that they evolved to identify healthy individuals with strong immune systems. Here, we summarize results of recent tests of this hypothesis, concluding that it has little compelling empirical support. We then propose an alternative perspective that emphasizes the effects of lifestyle health.