It’s been more than four decades since Marilyn Monroe crooned “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” but the song may ring truer than anyone knew. Women who report good relationships with their fathers are likelier to find men who resemble their dads attractive, according to a British study. Researchers showed an array of photographs of men with distinctive facial characteristics to women and asked them to choose the most desirable. Those women who ranked their relationship with their fathers as “highly positive” were likeliest to choose faces with features resembling those of their dads. Women with more-distant father-daughter relationships showed no such tendency. “We don’t just decide what is handsome or pretty based on prevailing beauty standards,” says study coauthor Lynda Boothroyd, Ph.D., lecturer at Durham University, in England. Could other close, positive male relationships—say with an uncle or a grandfather—also affect whom women find attractive? While we don’t know for sure, Dr. Boothroyd points out that the results are not based on biological relationships—many women also prefer men with features similar to their adoptive fathers. —Sara J. Welch