Category: Social psychology

The top trait women find attractive in men.

Helping others with no thought for yourself is more attractive than good looks for a long-term relationship.

Women rated an average-looking man giving money to a homeless person as more attractive than a better looking man who walked right past, the researchers found.

The study suggests that good looks are not everything in the dating game, especially when it comes to long-term relationships.

When women were asked about short-term relationships, though, the research revealed a weird twist — being altruistic was then a liability.

For short-term relationships women preferred a man who was not altruistic.

This could be related to the fact that darker personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy can make men more attractive in the short-term.

Clearly these type of men are not going around rescuing kittens from trees.

For the study women were shown pictures of two different men — one was more attractive than the other.

They then read different scenarios describing how each man was behaving — sometimes altruistically, sometimes not.

Being both altruistic and attractive was the mother lode, the researchers explained:

“The preference for altruistic men was also further influenced by their physical attractiveness, such that the increase in desirability of men as attractiveness increased was significantly greater when they were also altruistic.

This suggests that altruism can have an additive effect to other mate choice qualities (in this case, physical attractiveness), such that possessing both qualities has a greater effect on a man’s desirability than just a combination of their individual desirability.”

For short-term relationships, though, the better looking man was the preferred choice for women, no matter what he was pictured doing.

If you had to choose between being selfless or good-looking, then this study suggests that a generous and charitable is more attractive for long-term relationships.

The study was published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology (Farrelly et al., 2016).

Many supposed signs of attraction were not linked to liking, the extensive research found.

There are only five main body language signals that reliably indicate people like each other, research finds.

These are:

1. making eye contact,
2. smiling,
3. initiating conversation,
4. laughing,
5. and maintaining physical proximity.

These are all nonverbal signs that people are developing trust and rapport with each other.

Many supposed signs of attraction were not linked to liking, the extensive research found.

These included:

• flipping hair,
• using gestures,
• tilting the head,
• lifting the eyebrows,
• primping clothes,
• maintaining open body posture,
• or leaning in.

Some of these might come as a surprise since many articles in the media frequently link them to liking.

People may still perform these gestures when they like you, but they are not reliably related to attraction, the study found.

Dr R. Matthew Montoya, the study’s first author, said:

“There is a specific suite of behaviors associated with liking, and this same set of behaviors can be found in cultures from around the world.”

The conclusions come from a meta-analysis, which brought together the results of 54 different studies.

These all looked at how much someone likes another person and how they act towards them.

It included descriptions from hundreds of different cultures.

The results are not just relevant for romantic attraction, but for any kinds of human liking, Dr Montoya said:

“Whether we engage in these behaviors has little or nothing to do with romantic desires.

These behaviors apply when doctors interact with their patients, parents interact with their kids, or when salespeople talk to their customers.”

Acting in these ways is about increasing trust, Dr Montoya said:

“When we like someone, we act in ways to get them to trust us.

From this perspective, we engage in these behaviors to increase the degree of overlap, interdependence, and commitment to an agreement.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin (Montoya et al., 2018).

The feature is also linked to higher genetic fitness.

Longer legs make a man more attractive to women, research finds.

It’s not just about being taller, though.

Instead, it is about the ratio of leg to total height.

In other words, men with a slightly higher ratio of leg to body look more attractive to women.

The reason is that a slightly longer leg (in relation to the whole body) is a sign of genetic fitness.

For the research over 800 heterosexual women were shown a series of computer-generated images of men with slightly different leg and arm lengths.

While long arms weren’t much of a turn-on, the slightly longer leg was a winner.

The leg shouldn’t be excessively long, though, just a little bit more than normal.

Short legs are linked to heart disease, diabetes and dementia.

Very long legs are often linked to genetic problems.

The study’s authors explain their findings in evolutionary terms:

“From the perspective of evolutionary biology, attractiveness judgements reflect the biological fitness of a prospective mate (i.e. their ability to survive and reproduce in their environment), because a high-fitness mate is likely to be better able to provide resources, care, and protection, to be less likely to transmit harmful pathogens, and to pass on ‘good genes’ to the offspring.”

In case you want to check your own legs, the average leg-to-body ratio is 0.491.

The leg is measured from the hip to the ankle, then divide this by your height.

The magic number for the ‘perfect’ ratio is around 0.506.

The study was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science (Versluys et al., 2018).

These positive personality traits can make people  people look more attractive, psychologists find.

Positive personality traits — like helpfulness and honesty — make people appear physically more attractive, research finds.

Those displaying negative personality traits — like rudeness and unfairness — look physically less attractive to observers.

The finding is particularly strong for when women are evaluating men, since women place a little more emphasis on personality.

The finding helps justify those who say that ‘inner beauty’ is important.

Dr Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr., who led the research, said:

“Perceiving a person as having a desirable personality makes the person more suitable in general as a close relationship partner of any kind.”

Personality makes you attractive

For the study, participants viewed pictures of strangers and rated them for attractiveness.

Then they got some information about their personalities, and rated them again.

This mimics the way we evaluate people in real life.

First we just see them without known anything about their personality.

Then we adjust our view of them as we learn about their personality.

Those displaying positive personalities were deemed more attractive, the results showed.

It didn’t matter whether someone was in a relationship or not, or whether they were considering the person for a romantic relationship or not.

Dr Lewandowski said:

“This research provides a more positive alternative by reminding people that personality goes a long way toward determining your attractiveness; it can even change people’s impressions of how good looking you are.”

This study clearly shows that we can adjust our perception of someone’s physical attractiveness as we get more information about their personality.

The authors said that…

“…it demonstrates the substantial power of personality information, in that it is sufficient to overcome initial evaluations.”

The study was published in the journal Personal Relationships (Lewandowski et al., 2007).