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Evolutionary theories have elucidated many behavioral phenomena in humans over the past two decades including taste preferences, pregnancy sickness, fears and phobias, parent-offspring conflict, status striving, and aggression among many others. The theories have proven especially useful in explaining the mate preferences of the each sex. Research in this area that was pioneered by David Buss led to the incipience of his Sexual Strategies Theory, which has been used successfully in numerous studies to successfully predict the mate selection preferences of both sexes. These studies have consistently shown that when evaluating a potential partner, men throughout the world place a greater degree of emphasis on physical beauty while women place greater emphasis on financial prospects. Previous studies have also demonstrated that symbols designating resource accruement can be manipulated experimentally to enhance or diminish the attractiveness of a male in a controlled environment. Our study seeks to build upon this research by seeking to establish a linear, positive relationship between a male’s attractiveness as perceived by the opposite sex and resource accruement. We utilize the popular online dating/rating website HotOrNot.com whereby users rate the “hotness” of strangers. The website is designed almost specifically for rating attractiveness, and offers a platform to obtain high N values from a naturalistic setting that should confer high external reliability. We manipulate the resources of a target male by placing him in an identical position next to three cars of vastly different monetary values that implies ownership of each car. Our results generally support the hypothesis of a positive linear relationship between a male’s attractiveness and the value of his resources.
Source: “DETERMINANTS OF MALE ATTRACTIVENESS: RATINGS AS A FUNCTION OF PERCEIVED RESOURCES” by Gregory A. Shuler (David M. McCord) Department of Psychology, Western Carolina University, Western Carolina University, University Way, Cullowhee, NC, 28723.
For more interesting factoids about the internet and relationships check out: A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire.
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