Study: Men men go for good looks
By RANDOLPH
E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer (AP
9/3/07 - posted 5:30 PM PDT)
WASHINGTON -
Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice
for a mate, men go for good looks.
And guys
won't be surprised to learn that women are much choosier about
partners than they are.
"Just because people say they're looking
for a particular set of characteristics in a mate, someone like
themselves, doesn't mean that is what they'll end up choosing,"
Peter M. Todd, of the cognitive science program at Indiana
University, Bloomington, said in a telephone interview.
Researchers
led by Todd report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences that their study found humans were
similar to most other mammals, "following Darwin's principle
of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say
something different."
Participants
ranged in age from 26 to their early 40s and took part in "speed
dating," short meetings of three to seven minutes in which
people chat, then move on to meet another dater. Afterward,
participants check off the people they'd like to meet again, and
dates can be arranged between pairs who select one another.
Speed dating
let researchers look at a lot of mate choices in a short time, Todd
said.
In the study,
participants were asked before the session to fill out a
questionnaire about what they were looking for in a mate, listing
such categories as wealth and status, family commitment, physical
appearance, healthiness and attractiveness.
After the
session, the researchers compared what the participants said they
were looking for with the people they actually chose to ask for
another date.
Men's choices
did not reflect their stated preferences, the researchers
concluded. Instead, men appeared to base their decisions mostly on
the women's physical attractiveness.
The men also
appeared to be much less choosy. Men tended to select nearly every
woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold, Todd said.
Women's
actual choices, like men's, did not reflect their stated
preferences, but they made more discriminating choices, the
researchers found.
The
scientists said women were aware of the importance of their own
attractiveness to men, and adjusted their expectations to select
the more desirable guys.
"Women
made offers to 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"
But, he
added, "they didn't go lower. They knew what they could get
and aimed for that level."
So, it turns
out, the women's attractiveness influenced the choices of the men
and the women.
Okay, I had to say something about
this snippet of information: For those of you who are rushed, the
conclusion is: This story is complete and utter bullshit.
Let's look at the 'facts'.
1. The number of participants was
46 - 26 men and 20 women.
2. It was conducted once, in
Munich, Germany.
3. It made an appalling number of
all-encompassing pseudo-scientific conclusions.
The writer, Randolph Schmid is a
science writer for the associated press (according to the by-line)
and should have known better than to have touched this mess with a
ten foot alien probe. I'm not sure what qualifications it takes to
be an AP Science Writer, but a knowledge of statistical analysis
and any amount of common sense obviously aren't among them.
The sampling is flawed in several
ways. It consists of an extremely small number of participants - 46
people to speak for the general tendencies of over 6 billion. The
age of the participants covered only about 15 years - a pretty
narrow demographic. It was conducted in a large European city
(Germany) with, presumably, German participants. German culture
predominated in their choices. It also consisted of individuals who
were drawn to the idea of 'speed dating'. They were also most
likely in the socioeconomic class who can afford such an activity.
There was no outside sampling of other cultures, levels of
education, levels of income, etc. to even out the results.
This isn't science, it's a college
freshman's sociology class project - at BEST. That a science writer
of ANY kind would pick it up and report it - ESPECIALLY with the
facts of the study there for anyone to read - and draw any
conclusions from it, let alone conclusions that generalize for the
whole human race is mind boggling. I mean, if you work for the
National Inquirer, whose relationship with facts tends to be cold,
distant and unfriendly, then, yeah, fine. But for this to appear in
the Associated Press speaks volumes against the level of education
and deductive reasoning abilities - not to mention the judgment -
of the writer who wrote it and the editor who allowed this piece of
pseudo scientific tripe to be published.
People are screwed up enough to
have something like this glorified one-time exit poll to be passed
off as anything more than a predictible sampling of some speed
daters in Munich Germany one night, let alone as 'real science'.
