Study finds unexpected difference between attractive men and women in their selfishness.
The study showed 128 young women personality profiles of various men.
The study showed 128 young women personality profiles of various men.
Extraverts with stable, or non-neurotic personalities are particularly attractive, research finds.
However, both of these personality traits also help explain the attraction of the ‘bad boy’ to women, who also tends to be laid-back and extraverted.
Narcissist and psychopaths are seen as both extraverted and having stable, non-neurotic personalities, the study found.
Both of these contribute to the attractiveness of men with ‘dark triad’ personalities.
The ‘dark triad’ of personality factors includes narcissism and psychopathy, along with Machiavellianism.
The study’s authors write:
“Women, particularly in respect of short-term mating, may be attracted to ‘bad boys’, possessing confidence, hard-headedness and an inclination to risk-take – all accurate descriptors of Dark Triad [DT] men; all attractive to women.”
Another explanation for the attractiveness of bad boys could be their superficial charm, the authors write:
“Women may be responding to DT men’s ability to ‘sell themselves’; a useful tactic in a co-evolutionary ‘arms race’ in which men convince women to pursue the former’s preferred sexual strategy.
This ability may derive from a ‘used-car dealer’ ability to charm and manipulate, and DT-associated traits such as assertiveness.
Men with a DT personality are undoubtedly well-placed to successfully implement such a strategy.”
The conclusions come from a study in which 128 young women were shown personality profiles of various men.
One was designed to be high in dark triad personality factors.
The results showed that women saw the ‘bad boy’ as more attractive, when appearance was held constant.
Here are the authors’ quick description of the dark triad personality traits:
“Narcissism is defined by a sense of entitlement, dominance and a grandiose self-view.
[…]Machiavellians are interpersonally duplicitous, insincere and extraverted.
[…]Psychopathy consists of callousness, a lack of empathy, and
antisocial, erratic behaviour.”
The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Carter et al., 2014).
Fascinating theory as to why opposites only attract us sometimes.
Fascinating theory as to why opposites only attract us sometimes.
When people are single they are more attracted to faces that are dissimilar to their own, research finds.
But, when people are already in a relationship, they are more attracted to faces that look similar to their own.
In other words: opposites attract for single people, but not for those in a relationship.
The reason that dissimilar faces attract could be down to avoiding incest or other people with similar genes.
So, when people are single, they are automatically less attracted to faces that look like their own.
For the study people were shown images of opposite sex individuals that were digitally altered to look more or less similar to their own.
Dr Jitka Lindová, who led the study, said:
“We found that single participants, those not in relationships, rate dissimilar faces as more attractive and sexy than self-resembling faces.”
Our perception of how attractive other people’s faces are seems to change with relationship status, the findings suggest.
Dr Lindová said:
“For the first time, we have observed how our partnership status affects who we find attractive.
Our interpretation is that attractiveness perception mechanisms that give us a preference for a genetically suitable partner may be suppressed during romantic relationships.
This might be a relationship maintenance strategy to prevent us from finding alternatives to our own partner, or perhaps self-resemblance becomes more important in terms of the social support we expect receive from relatives, which are known as kinship cues.”
The explanation for avoiding similar faces could come down to avoiding incest and similar genetic structures.
The study’s authors explain:
“…incest avoidance is beneficial because it reduces the likelihood that offspring are homozygous for recessive genes carrying deleterious or even lethal mutations.
In addition to cultural incest taboos, a further mechanism to efficiently prevent mating with unknown kin is disassortative (or negative assortative) mating, for example through low attraction toward genetically similar individuals.”
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Lindová et al., 2016).
The amount of alcohol that makes the drinker themselves look more attractive to others.
Certain personality types are particularly attractive for short-term relationships — less so for the long-term.
Both better health and higher attractiveness were linked to the most attractive height and weight for females.
Both better health and higher attractiveness were linked to the most attractive height and weight for females.
Young men prefer young women of normal weight, research finds.
Flying in the face of the size zero trend, normal weight young women are seen as more healthy-looking and attractive than skinnier peers.
‘Normal’ weight for a young woman who is the average height in the US of 1.64 metres is between 50 kg and 68 kg.
This range is higher for women who are taller and lower for those who are shorter.
Dr Vinet Coetzee, the study’s first author, said:
“We often remark on how healthy or unhealthy someone looks, but it can be very difficult to say precisely how we know this.
Scientists have been trying to answer this question for decades, and have made many breakthroughs in our understanding of health and attractiveness, but until now they have tended to overlook the influence of weight.”
Researchers asked male students to rate the attractiveness and health of a group of female students.
Dr Coetzee said:
“We studied a group of young healthy students.
However, amongst this group, those students that were rated as more overweight reported more frequent and longer lasting cold and flu bouts, used antibiotics more frequently and had higher blood pressure than the students that were considered normal weight.
Even at this young age, their health was already suffering because they were overweight, and what is more, other people can spot this in their face.”
The results showed that young women whose weight was in the normal range were considered the most attractive.
Professor David Perrett, study co-author, said:
“A take home message for young people is that maintaining a normal weight benefits current health and will improve good looks.
In our study, people in the normal weight range were judged healthier and more attractive than under or overweight individuals.
This sends a strong message to all the girls out there who believe you have to be underweight to be attractive.
The people making judgments in our study were all between the ages of 18 and 26 and they did not rate underweight girls most attractive.
They preferred normal weight girls.”
The study was published in the journal Perception (Coetzee et al., 2009).
These are the traits that make a male face most attractive to a female.
These are the traits that make a male face most attractive to a female.
Women find masculine faces more attractive, research finds.
This trait can be added to the other aspects of the face that are generally considered attractive, whether for a man or a woman.
These are:
For the study of masculinity and attractiveness, heterosexual women were shown a series of faces that had been made to look more masculine.
Here is an example of a face made to look more masculine that was used in the study:
The face on the left (a) is masculinsed, whereas the face on the right (b) has a more feminine look.
Women consistently chose the masculinised face as more attractive.
Women were particularly interested in the more masculine face in the context of a short-term relationship.
The researchers were trying to see if women’s hormone levels have any effect on the type of male faces they find attractive.
Other studies have found that women prefer more masculine faces when they are fertile.
In other words: do changing hormone levels make women go for more manly men?
Professor Benedict Jones, who led the study, explained that this was not what they found:
“We found no evidence that changes in hormone levels influence the type of men women find attractive.
This study is noteworthy for its scale and scope — previous studies typically examined small samples of women using limited measures,.
With much larger sample sizes and direct measures of hormonal status, we weren’t able to replicate effects of hormones on women’s preferences for masculine faces.”
There was no evidence that fertility-related hormones like estradiol and progesterone were linked to changes in attractiveness judgements.
Previous studies suggested that the birth control pill, because it affects fertility hormones, reduces women’s attraction to masculine faces.
Again, there was no evidence of this in the current study.
All that emerged was that women thought more masculine looking men were more attractive.
Professor Jones said:
“There has been increasing concern that the birth control pill might disrupt romantic relationships by altering women’s mate preferences, but our findings do not provide evidence of this.”
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Jones et al., 2018).
All 160 females in the study agreed on the most attractive body shape or type for a man.
All 160 females in the study agreed on the most attractive body shape or type for a man.
A strong upper body is the most attractive body shape or type on men to females, research finds.
Asked to judge photos of topless men, women consistently rated the stronger looking, more muscular men as the most attractive type.
Fully 70 percent of a man’s bodily attractiveness is down to how strong he looks, the researchers found.
Contributing factors were being tall and lean, but they were easily outweighed by being stronger.
The survey of 160 women’s preferences for male body shapes and types asked them to rate sixty shirtless men whose heads were obscured, like this:
Every man’s strength was determined using weightlifting and grip strength tests.
The women could accurately tell how strong the men were by looking at them, the results revealed.
There was no evidence that men’s body types could be too pumped up — the stronger they were, the better they looked to women.
There was no evidence that some had different tastes — all 160 women preferred the stronger-looking men.
Taller men are automatically rated as physically stronger, the study’s authors explain:
“…when rating physical strength, raters are known to treat taller men as physically stronger (independently of their actual weight-lifting strength), and yet even controlling for these ratings taller men are treated as more attractive.
This suggests that women are treating lean and tall men as more attractive for reasons other than just fighting ability.”
The study’s authors invoke an evolutionary explanation for the findings:
“…evolutionary psychologists have shown that women’s mate choice mechanisms track many cues of men’s genetic quality and ability to invest resources in the woman and her offspring.
One variable that predicted both a man’s genetic quality and his ability to invest is the man’s formidability (i.e. fighting ability or resource holding power/potential).
[…]One crucial component of a man’s ability to fight is his upper body strength.”
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Sell et al., 2017).
This colour and length of hair is most attractive on a woman.
This colour and length of hair is most attractive on a woman.
Longer and lighter hair is the most attractive hair colour on Caucasian women, a study has found.
Both lighter brown hair and lighter blonde hair are seen as more attractive than darker or black hair.
Lighter hair increases men’s ratings for youth, health and attractiveness in a woman.
On the negative side, though, lighter hair was linked to worse parenting skills by men.
The researchers also noted some interesting variations:
The explanation is likely that blonder hair signals youth, since people’s hair tends to get darker until mid-life.
The study involved 110 men who rated women with hair of different colours and lengths.
The study only included Caucasian women with black, brown or blonde hair of short, medium or long length.
The results are explained by the study’s authors:
“…we found that lighter hair (blond and brown) compared to darker hair (black) is generally associated with perceptions of youth, health and attractiveness, and generally leads to more positive perceptions of relationship and parenting potential.”
The study’s authors employ an evolutionary explanation for their findings:
“Hair that is healthy and strong signifies overall physical
health, which in turn can signify one’s capability of conceiving and carrying a child.Because hair tends to be thicker, healthier, and grow more quickly in younger women (ages 16-24) than older women, one would expect that younger women would wear their hair longer than older women to provide a more perceptible and powerful signal to reproductive potential.”
The preference for blonde hair may be related to location, as men seem to prefer it more in areas where it is more common.
The study was published in The Journal of Social Psychology (Matz & Hinsz, 2017).
Only a small change in posture is enough to increase attractiveness and be more alluring.
Only a small change in posture is enough to increase attractiveness and be more alluring.
A slight arching of a woman’s back — extending her buttocks outward — makes her more alluring, research finds.
It might help to explain the mystery of why high-heeled shoes are so popular.
They cause women to arch their backs slightly to help them balance.
The study found that only relatively small changes in how much a woman’s back was arched made her look more appealing.
Mr Farid Pazhoohi, who led the study, said:
“Increased curvature increases the perception of attractiveness.”
Both men and women looking at the 3D models used in the study were found to focus their attention on the rear of the models, eye-tracking revealed.
Below, the image on the right shows an arched back.
When men and women looked at the back and side views the effect of increased attractiveness was particularly pronounced.
Mr Pazhoohi said:
“The latter highlights the unique influence of an arched back on the perception of attractiveness.
The perception of attractiveness and visual attention to the hip region suggests that lordosis or the arching of the back might signal human females’ proceptivity or willingness to be courted.
This also might explain why women wear high heel shoes and why wearing high heel shoes increases womens’ attractiveness.”
Animals such as sheep, cats, ferrets and primates adopt this curved posture, presenting the rear, to signal that they are ready to mate.
It seems that it is also an unconscious signal in humans.
The study was published in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science (Pazhoohi et al., 2017).
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