People's attitudes to sexual relationships can be given away by just the look of their face, say researchers, who found that men and women look for opposites when it comes to relationships.
Researchers said that men generally preferred women they perceive are open to short-term sexual relationships, with women after longer-term matches.
The study, which was led by Durham University, reviewed 700 heterosexual participants.
The analysis of the study revealed that young men and women look for complete opposites when it comes to relationships with the other sex.
The scientists say the research, which was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, shows people can use their perceptions to make more informed partner selection depending on the type of relationship they are pursuing.
In the study, the participants were asked to judge the attractiveness and attitudes to sex of the opposite sex from their facial photographs. These perceptual judgments were then compared with the actual attitudes and behaviours of the individuals in the photographs, which had been determined through a detailed questionnaire. The people in the photographs were all in their early 20s.
The experiments found that the men and women taking part could generally judge from photographs who would be more interested in a short-term sexual relationship. In the first study sample of 153 participants, 72 per cent
of people correctly identified the attitudes from photographs more than half of the time. However, further questioning showed that the participants were not always confident in their judgments.