fWHR (Facial Width-to-Height Ratio)
the one looksmaxxing number that claims your face leaks how aggressive you are. the science is way shakier than the threads admit.
Grounded in the research on Wikipedia: Facial width-to-height ratio; Carré & McCormick (2008), Proc. R. Soc. B; later replication/meta-analysis critiques
the setup
fWHR is one number: the width of your face across the cheekbones divided by the height from your upper lip to your brow. That's it — a width-to-height ratio. A higher number means a wider, shorter-looking face; lower means longer and narrower. Looksmaxxers treat it as a dominance score, but unlike the jaw-to-cheekbone ratios you've seen, fWHR's whole pitch is that it predicts your behavior, not just your looks.
the science
Carré and McCormick (2008) measured pro hockey players and found higher fWHR linked to more penalty minutes — born from a claim that male puberty testosterone widens the face. That paper lit the fuse. But here's the part the threads skip: big replication attempts and meta-analyses since have found the testosterone link weak-to-absent and the behavior link inconsistent. Treat fWHR as a real but heavily contested measure, not settled science.