Duh.
Someone paid good money to fund this study?
Peter M. Todd, Ph.D. and his research team from the cognitive science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, reported this earth-shattering finding in a recent edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
They’ve come to this monumental conclusion with fewer than four dozen subjects. Their study involved 26 men and 20 women. I guess since we could have told them this information without a study, it doesn’t really matter how many subjects there were.
And they were German. The study was done in Munich. And the subjects were reasonably young. Participants ranged in age from 26 to early 40’s. Not that if they included older daters the results would have changed appreciably.
Here’s how this experiment was conducted. All 46 subjects took part in speed dating — short interactions of three to seven minutes in which people chat. When the allotted time was up, they moved on to meet another dater. Afterward, participants noted from a list the people they’d like to meet again. Dr. Todd said, “Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold.” You need a Ph.D. to discover this?
Now, here’s the more interesting part: The researchers said women were aware of the importance of their own attractiveness to men, and adjusted their expectations to select the more desirable guys. However, look at how women defined “desirable.”
“Women [selected] men who had overall qualities that were on a par with the women’s self-rated attractiveness. They didn’t greatly overshoot their attractiveness,” Todd said, “because part of the goal for women is to choose men who would stay with them.”
Interesting, isn’t it, that women innately knew that if a guy was much more attractive than she, he’s liable to leave her, no doubt for a woman whose attractiveness more closely matches his. At least this is her assumption.
But, Dr. Todd added, “[The women] didn’t go lower. They knew what they could get and aimed for that level.”
Women have a sense of their attractiveness level and don’t stoop lower. “But,” you ask, “how does this explain those homely men with the beautiful women?” It could be he has a lot of money, or he treats her in a way she likes and doesn’t get from other men. He could spoil her and shower her with gifts and attention, or he could ignore her and treat her like dirt. It’s his behavior in the long run that affects her attraction to him, not his looks.
But in this experiment she wouldn’t know how he’d treat her since they met for such a brief period. She mostly had to go by appearance, and women chose men around their same level of attractiveness.
So while we know that men make their choices (at least initially) based on their physical draw to the woman, it is interesting, and perhaps ironic, that the truth is the women’s attractiveness influenced the choices for both of them.
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Comments
17 responses to “This just in: Study shows men go for women with good looks”
mmmmhhmm……to add to the blog, one of the mens magazines, I believe, did a similar study, and they concluded, that, men with an athletice physique(body builders) got more sex,(temporary, short, lived romances) than men that were not into weight lifting and exercise……
And I’ve always wondered how some homely women end up with great-looking guys.
Well, I would like to know the details of their study parameters-
Plenty of women over the age of 25 are seriously NOT into that type, and in fact have determined that many of them are…shall we say impaired?…due to steroids/etc and very into themselves in an unattractive way.
A-HAH!
Found a decent synopsis of this study, which is under peer review now:
UCLA, small groupings over 4 years, all less than 200 participants, some MUCH smaller, all students with nothing over undergraduate- so the age groupings are indeed the young women I suspected and similarly young men, with small groups tested as well, in an area of the country known to be rather obsessed with body image, at at a school not known for drawing large numbers of out-of-area students.
While useful to a point, a similarly controlled study of the general population, or of different age groupings, with much higher numbers of participants, and from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds would be much more educational and worthy of publication.
Why is the press so quick to publish these ‘results’ without including most of the data?
Really irritating, as then the general populance takes up them as some global fact to tout…
And why are they always doing these mini-studies on subjects that most of the world already knows the common-sense and obvious answers to?
I guess it’s easier to earn your chops and a shot at the tenured position this way, but what a waste of time and grant money!
Hi DG,
Yet another no brainer study, they could very well have polled a room full of high school students and gotten the same answers.
That said, I did enjoy the part about the women selecting partners on a similar level of attractiveness, and, as a female, I agree with this 100 percent. I am about a 2 on a 1-10 scale of attractiveness, so I tend to go for fellow 2s in terms of looks. Of course, being older and reasonably intelligent myself, looks aren’t what usually attract me to a man in the first place, it’s his personality and his intelligence that first draw me in, and his compassion and sensitivity over time that keep me coming back for more.
Best wishes from bookyone 🙂
I almost forgot to mention, I set up an online poll recently asking a similar question: what was/is the most important attribute when looking for a partner of the opposite sex?
Oddly enough, in my poll personality and intelligence are leading the pack, while looks are running a distant third, I’m not sure why this is. Either people are lying out their teeth to impress me, or perhaps it’s because my respondents are mostly in the over 40 group.
Best wishes from bookyone 🙂
Well that title was enough to make me spit my coffee on my monitor! Thanks for the laugh. I know it was a real study, but I’m hoping that you posted all that tongue in cheek (no pun intended) because all I can think to say is…
DUH!!
My reaction was the same as yours – when I read your title I just thought – is this any surprise? Isn’t there something more productive that studies can be made about these days without only confirming something most of us figured out for ourselves years ago?
Being as shallow as anyman,
I am only interested in good looking younger guys myself..
but then again I am not looking for some one to support me,
which is why so many good looking women settle for some
discusting looking old men..LOL
Being as shallow as anyman,
I am only interested in good looking younger guys myself..
but then again I am not looking for some one to support me,
which is why so many good looking women settle for some
discusting looking old men..LOL
LMAO!!!!! Love it!!!!! 🙂
Your commentary on the study seems to indicate that you believe women will disregard their own level of attractiveness in choosing a man if they perceive the man to be one who will spend lots of money on them. The logical extension of this is that women believe that physically attractive men are more likely to have money to spend on them. That would make for a very shallow pool that we’re all (female as well as male) swimming around in and bumping the bottom of.
Dan:
I don’t think my interpretation says that at all.
to bookyone/mady
I have heard women say there are some really cute, young, beach bums, who are more than willing to service you. Mature woman, young man relationships are supposedly very common in Europe. One therapist said, “they can screw like minks.”….how funny!…….
BookyOne said: “Oddly enough, in my poll personality and intelligence are leading the pack, while looks are running a distant third, I’m not sure why this is. Either people are lying out their teeth to impress me, or perhaps it’s because my respondents are mostly in the over 40 group.”
Actually, in this study, both the men and women filled out a questionnaire before doing the speed-dating thing. It asked them what they were looking for in a mate, such as wealth and status, family commitment, healthiness, etc. What the researchers discovered after the speed-dating round was that the men went straight for looks (above that mystical minimum level.). Women also didn’t hold to their list, but were more discriminating about who they chose, apparently.
My feeling on this is that a) it’s a small study with younger people, b) it’s a group of people who are drawn to speed-dating, which itself probably favors appearances, because you’ve got 5 minutes each, and c) given the environment, and the situation, I can completely understand why a guy would just go for broke. Nothing ventured, nothing gained in testosterone land. Besides, most men overrate their own attractiveness, which women can learn from.d) reading this blog, this attractiveness issue comes up quite a bit, leading one to believe that unless you’re a very attractive woman, you will never be ‘dateable.’ I always come away wondering why men want to date or marry at all.
and yet, despite the apparent damnation of Nature, there’s whole lot of men and women dating or married.
Thank you, DG! I thought the exact same thing when I read all that nonsense – DUH! I didnt’ even need to read further, about the size of the sample population and its parameters, to make that conclusion. It must have been a slow news day yesterday and the day before to make this a headliner on just about every news site I visited. It’ll be on the cover of Newsweek next week…
I’m saving my money for that trip to Italy. I’ve heard Italian men love to pinch women’s bottoms… 🙂
Yes, I’ve been to Italy and it’s true, Italian men love to pinch bottoms. It’s a horrible experience, designed to belittle women and assert their superiority and masculinity. It isn’t a compliment any more than a leer is a compliment.
to lulu,
ahhhh, I am sorry….