Men are drawn to a wider range of women when they are feeling stressed out, according to research of University of Trier in Germany.

People are usually attracted to partners with similar facial features to their own, but after a brief but stressful experience, men"s preferences changed to include a wider variety of women, the study found.

In the test itself, the men were shown a series of images on a computer screen. Some were of household objects, but others were of naked women. Some of the women"s faces had been digitally altered to resemble either the person being tested or another man in the group.

Relaxed men who took part in the study rated women on average 14% less appealing if they looked very different from themselves compared with women who looked similar. But a group of stressed men found dissimilar women 9% more attractive.

Johanna Lass-Hennemann, who led the study, said: "Men have a tendency to approach dissimilar mates and to rate these to be more pleasant when they are acutely stressed".

Scientists suspect the appeal of similar-looking partners may be linked to our tendency to have more trust in a familiar face, a factor that is important for long-term relationships. Under stress, however, the importance of pairing up with someone similar-looking seems to vanish.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/10/men-sexual-tastes-broaden-stressed?utm