ATTRACTIVENESS

WHAT DO MEN WANT AND WHY?

Untitled Slide

• Men place particular importance on attractiveness in physical appearances as it is a clue to the woman's health and fertility

WHAT ABOUT WOMEN?

Eastwick 2011

• Recent research has suggested that women also pay attention to physical attractiveness but only in short-term mating

THE MATCHING HYPOTHESIS

Untitled Slide

• The matching hypothesis suggests individuals seek out partners whose social desirability approximately equals their own. Individual's first assess their own value in the eyes of the potential partner then select the best candidate likely to be attracted to them

WHY WORRY ABOUT MATCHING

Untitled Slide

• Opting for partners similar in social desirability to themselves rather than someone out of their league maximises the chances of relationship formation

WHAT ABOUT ASSETS?

Untitled Slide

• Matching could occur for a range of assets but it has come to be associated specifically with the appearance. Walster used the term realistic choices

Untitled Slide

• Realistic choices considers what the other person desires whether the other person reciprocates the feelings whether other desirable alternatives are available for one or both of them.
• This means people have to settle for mating within their league whether or not they want to

How could you research attractiveness is a controlled / natural setting?

THE COMPUTER DANCE

THE COMPUTER DANCE

• 177males
• 170 females
• Randomly selected
• Accomplices rated attractiveness as they collected the tickets
• Pps completed questionnaires and were told these would be used to match

WHAT DID THIS SHOW

• Regardless of their own physical attractiveness participants responded more positively to physically attractive dates
• were more likely to arrange subsequent dates if the date was physically attractive

Untitled Slide

• Factors such as personality or at intelligence did not affect liking
• This therefore does not support the matching hypothesis

What would speed dating show?

EVALUATION 1- Speed dating

• Research by Eastwick and Finkel challenges the traditional view of attraction
• Before a speed dating event participants showed traditional sex differences men emphasised physical attractiveness women resources

Untitled Slide

• However
• 30 days later judgements of appearance and resources did not influence interest instead partner preference reflected in the valuation of specific speed dating partners characteristics and romantic attraction across 17 different measures

Name 5 factors that could compensate for attractivness

EVALUATION TWO - COMPLEX MATCHING

• Hatfield and Sprecher
• People might compensate for a lack of physical attractiveness - other desirable characteristics such as charming personality, kindness, status, money
• This may explain the lack of support for MH and attractivness

What do people look for when online dating?

EVALUATION THREE - Online

• Matching may not be that important in initial attraction Taylor found no evidence that online daters decision was driven by similarities in physical attractiveness instead data showed an overall preference for attractive partners suggesting that they did not take into account their own attractiveness.

Untitled Slide

• Those that did specifically target similarly attractive individuals got more responses

So how could you measure the importance of attactivness

Evaluation 4

• If physical attractiveness is more important for males and research should show males with physically attractive partners are highly satisfied

Meltzer 2014

• Found objective ratings of wives attractiveness was positively correlated to husbands satisfaction in the first four years of marriage
• In contrast wives marital satisfaction was not related to objective ratings of husbands attractiveness

Conclusion

• this suggests females place less importance on physical attractiveness in the long term partners

Do all women therefore have to stay attractive?

EVALUATION FIVE

• Implications of sex differences if physically attractivness plays a strong role in men's long-term relationship satisfaction then women may experience increased pressure to maintain their appearance in order to maintain their relationship however both sexes also desire partners who are supportive trustworthy and warm so those with partners who displayed these qualities tend to be more satisfied