Different impacts of resources on opposite sex ratings of attractiveness by men/women

iptba

I couldn't fit the full title

I just heard this being discussed on Newstalk

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(17)30315-X/fulltext

Different impacts of resources on opposite sex ratings of physical attractiveness by males and females

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.12.008

Abstract

Parental investment hypotheses regarding mate selection suggest that human males should seek partners featured by youth and high fertility.

However, females should be more sensitive to resources that can be invested on themselves and their offspring.

Previous studies indicate that economic status is indeed important in male attractiveness.

However, no previous study has quantified and compared the impact of equivalent resources on male and female attractiveness.

Annual salary is a direct way to evaluate economic status. Here, we combined images of male and female body shape with information on annual salary to elucidate the influence of economic status on the attractiveness ratings by opposite sex raters in American, Chinese and European populations.

We found that ratings of attractiveness were around 4 times more sensitive to salary for females rating males, compared to males rating females.

These results indicate that higher economic status can offset lower physical attractiveness in men much more easily than in women.

Neither raters' BMI nor age influenced this effect for females rating male attractiveness.

This difference explains many features of human mating behavior and may pose a barrier for male engagement in low-consumption lifestyles.

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It seems plausible to me.

Women do get judged more in other ways of course and unlike with salary, you can't change your age.

Wibbs

Makes sense and I can't see it changing anytime soon. Lots of history and prehistory attached to it.

TBH it's one reason why I can sometimes lose patience with men going all woe is me on the dating/attractiveness front. Yes it can be a bloody trial, but the advantages men have outweigh those of most women IMHO. If they approach it from the more positive angle. Men can take longer to work that whole family stuff out as our biological clock is ten years in reserve compared to women(my Da™ was my age, 50, when I came along*. If the guy is rich add even more of a reserve to that, all the way up to the Mick Jagger/Charlie Chaplin/Rameses the Great extreme end.

Men can also "earn" attraction points over time. Women mostly can't. Plus even on the physical side men have more leeway in general. We can lose weight more easily, or not gain it in the first place, our skin is thicker with more collagen so less prone to wrinkles and other signs of age. And even if we do wrinkle, that's far more accepted on men than on women. Hairloss and going grey isn't great, but again a helluva lot of women like both. Even the broke arsed men out there can often find women who will be into them. The arty hippie, I don't work for the maaaan types.

So yeah, it would be my humble and experience that men actually have more options in the game than they think, outside of the late teens milieu anyway. And in most cases women will agree with me on that. They have far more pressure going on. In general.

*and funny enough he reckoned it was easier at that age dealing with a baby. As he said he needed far less sleep so could deal with the nighttime stuff. He reckoned he'd have been fit for the looney bin in his twenties. I'd think similarly myself, though people differ. FWIW I didn't feel odd growing up as he was a fit bastard so...

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Makes sense and I can't see it changing anytime soon. Lots of history and prehistory attached to it.

TBH it's one reason why I can sometimes lose patience with men going all woe is me on the dating/attractiveness front. Yes it can be a bloody trial, but the advantages men have outweigh those of most women IMHO. If they approach it from the more positive angle. Men can take longer to work that whole family stuff out as our biological clock is ten years in reserve compared to women(my Da™ was my age, 50, when I came along*. If the guy is rich add even more of a reserve to that, all the way up to the Mick Jagger/Charlie Chaplin/Rameses the Great extreme end.

Men can also "earn" attraction points over time. Women mostly can't. Plus even on the physical side men have more leeway in general. We can lose weight more easily, or not gain it in the first place, our skin is thicker with more collagen so less prone to wrinkles and other signs of age. And even if we do wrinkle, that's far more accepted on men than on women. Hairloss and going grey isn't great, but again a helluva lot of women like both. Even the broke arsed men out there can often find women who will be into them. The arty hippie, I don't work for the maaaan types.

So yeah, it would be my humble and experience that men actually have more options in the game than they think, outside of the late teens milieu anyway. And in most cases women will agree with me on that. They have far more pressure going on. In general.

*and funny enough he reckoned it was easier at that age dealing with a baby. As he said he needed far less sleep so could deal with the nighttime stuff. He reckoned he'd have been fit for the looney bin in his twenties. I'd think similarly myself, though people differ. FWIW I didn't feel odd growing up as he was a fit bastard so...

Yeah there's one pretty huge difference though. 80+% of women can walk into a place and know that 80+% of the single guys there would give them a go. It's a little rarer the other way around. :P

Wibbs

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah there's one pretty huge difference though. 80+% of women can walk into a place and know that 80+% of the single guys there would give them a go. It's a little rarer the other way around. :P

Kinda B. Sure a large percentage may want a go, but quantity =/= quality.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Kinda B. Sure a large percentage may want a go, but quantity =/= quality.

Any quantity is better than one so low to be effectively zero. :P

tritium

Wibbs wrote: »

Makes sense and I can't see it changing anytime soon. Lots of history and prehistory attached to it.

TBH it's one reason why I can sometimes lose patience with men going all woe is me on the dating/attractiveness front. Yes it can be a bloody trial, but the advantages men have outweigh those of most women IMHO. If they approach it from the more positive angle. Men can take longer to work that whole family stuff out as our biological clock is ten years in reserve compared to women(my Da™ was my age, 50, when I came along*. If the guy is rich add even more of a reserve to that, all the way up to the Mick Jagger/Charlie Chaplin/Rameses the Great extreme end.

Men can also "earn" attraction points over time. Women mostly can't. Plus even on the physical side men have more leeway in general. We can lose weight more easily, or not gain it in the first place, our skin is thicker with more collagen so less prone to wrinkles and other signs of age. And even if we do wrinkle, that's far more accepted on men than on women. Hairloss and going grey isn't great, but again a helluva lot of women like both. Even the broke arsed men out there can often find women who will be into them. The arty hippie, I don't work for the maaaan types.

So yeah, it would be my humble and experience that men actually have more options in the game than they think, outside of the late teens milieu anyway. And in most cases women will agree with me on that. They have far more pressure going on. In general.

*and funny enough he reckoned it was easier at that age dealing with a baby. As he said he needed far less sleep so could deal with the nighttime stuff. He reckoned he'd have been fit for the looney bin in his twenties. I'd think similarly myself, though people differ. FWIW I didn't feel odd growing up as he was a fit bastard so...

Tbh while true I think it’s probably a bit of an oversimplification Wibbs. What’s more interesting to me is, with some exceptions, Men’s attractiveness should on average go up over time as career progresses while women’s should decline as youth and fertility declines. Or to put it another way the advantages switch around over time. Now while that probably merits an award from the society for the bleeding obvious it does explain some elements that certain groups have railed vigorously against in recent times, for example why women who leave it late to settle down struggle to find their ideal partner.

Theres been a tendency to blame flightful men for this but the reality is it’s as valid as blaming women for why a bloke can’t find a supermodel girlfriend instead of looking in the mirror at the spotty broke teenager and looking at what can be changed. Now granted men can more easily boost career than women can arrest time, but even that is limited- if youre Stacking shelves at 30 you’re probably not going to be CEO. However it’s does on average mean that a woman’s options are going to reduce as they age, which is likely hard for those who drank the ‘you can have it all’ Kool -aid

silverharp

^^^

or sarkely "where have all the good men gone?" ....you turned them down in your twenties.

Pug160

Every so often I hear a story about someone who was a nerd growing up but is now earning decent money and has an attractive woman on his arm. On this occasion he happens to be an accountant with a flash car and everything else people with a good income have. I don't tend to be that surprised when I hear it, as some men are always going to go down that route if the option for it is there. While I agree that men do have advantages over women, I do sometimes wonder if they're overblown somewhat. For example, even though it's true than men do age better in general, it seems that most couples are generally around the same age. A lot of the significant age differences would appear to be when the man has wealth/and or status. No real shock in that though.

Personally speaking, I have no real desire to look for women a lot younger, but as someone who is currently investing my fairly modest financial resources into my physical appearance, I do kind of worry about the limitations of what I'm doing. My view is that you need something that stands out if you want to attract a certain type of woman. There are still plenty of attractive women with lots going for them who live modest lives and are happy with that. All most of them presumably want is a decent man they're attracted to who at least has some ambition in life and a job.

Mister Vain

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah there's one pretty huge difference though. 80+% of women can walk into a place and know that 80+% of the single guys there would give them a go. It's a little rarer the other way around. :P

For all the advantages men have, they pretty much pale in significance compared to this. Hence why there are so many female escorts and hardly any male. You can argue the whole "quality vs quantity" thing but its a rather moot point.

Blacktie.

Mister Vain wrote:

For all the advantages men have, they pretty much pale in significance compared to this. Hence why there are so many female escorts and hardly any male. You can argue the whole "quality vs quantity" thing but its a rather moot point.

Sure if all you're looking for is sex.

Wibbs

Blacktie. wrote: »

Sure if all you're looking for is sex.

Exactly. This "women can get laid anytime they want" thing always troubled me as a thing. Yes if we look at things in hard "market terms", it is more a sellers market and women are more the sellers. Not all, but a major majority. However, let's try a thought experiment for a moment and imagine the roles were reversed. That a guy could get the attention the way women generally do. Great, but then imagine that the majority of the that attention was from women you really didn't find attractive and that if you did cop off with one, it was you that risked getting up the duff with child. It wouldn't look so great then. Put it another way; those guys who are good looking enough or socially "powerful" enough to have similar attention from women as the average woman may have from men, tend to be extremely fussy in which offers the take up. When choice goes up, people tend to up the discretion too.

Mister Vain

Wibbs wrote: »

Exactly. This "women can get laid anytime they want" thing always troubled me as a thing. Yes if we look at things in hard "market terms", it is more a sellers market and women are more the sellers. Not all, but a major majority. However, let's try a thought experiment for a moment and imagine the roles were reversed. That a guy could get the attention the way women generally do. Great, but then imagine that the majority of the that attention was from women you really didn't find attractive and that if you did cop off with one, it was you that risked getting up the duff with child. It wouldn't look so great then. Put it another way; those guys who are good looking enough or socially "powerful" enough to have similar attention from women as the average woman may have from men, tend to be extremely fussy in which offers the take up. When choice goes up, people tend to up the discretion too.

Ohh I don't disagree with any of that. I would also add that if a man says no to a woman then some people will actually question he sexual preference. "He must be gay." It certainly wouldn't be ideal but its still a lot better than being in a situation where you have little or no options. As you say, its a sellers market.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Exactly. This "women can get laid anytime they want" thing always troubled me as a thing. Yes if we look at things in hard "market terms", it is more a sellers market and women are more the sellers. Not all, but a major majority. However, let's try a thought experiment for a moment and imagine the roles were reversed. That a guy could get the attention the way women generally do. Great, but then imagine that the majority of the that attention was from women you really didn't find attractive and that if you did cop off with one, it was you that risked getting up the duff with child. It wouldn't look so great then. Put it another way; those guys who are good looking enough or socially "powerful" enough to have similar attention from women as the average woman may have from men, tend to be extremely fussy in which offers the take up. When choice goes up, people tend to up the discretion too.

When a female friend starts complaining about being dying for the ride and not taking 10 minutes to get it sorted with a decent looking guy I just can't listen any more.
Yeah it's not always purely straightforward but there's still a huge disparity. Derivative issues from which happen to be really ****ing with me right now. :P

Blacktie.

Blacktie. wrote: »

Sure if all you're looking for is sex.

This focus on sex though is part biological, part social conditioning and scarcity mentality.

I've lived in Asia where, as a white male with a good job, I'm exotic and appealing. In my ways, it's very similar to an attractive woman here. I could walk into a bar/club and know that I would easily find someone for sex. Hell, I could walk down a shopping street, and I would be approached by women looking for the "experience" of being with a foreigner.

And I enjoyed that lifestyle for a few years (on and off). Plenty of casual (shallow) sex, without any degree of intimacy, although some decent friendships arose from it.

I went from scarcity in Ireland, to much better in Australia, and then to loads of very "easy" encounters in Asia. And after a while, you just get bored. It doesn't matter how hot, sexy, beautiful, or rich they are. Sex for its own sake is really boring when it's so easily available. Most of the "player" guys I knew invariably found the same experience that I did. After a while, they wanted a lasting relationship with one person.

We think that lots of sex is wonderful. But you gotta bear in mind, that with casual sex, you get far more bad or meaningless sexual experiences, than memories worth keeping afterward.