The Real Laws of Attraction

A new study reveals a surprising gap between what men and women say they want in a partner and what they actually choose.

By Karen Springen | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Feb 14, 2008

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We've all heard the adage: Men want a beautiful partner, while women want a guy who can bring home the bacon. But is it true?

In the new issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Northwestern University social psychologists Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick report that both genders initially place the greatest value on physical attractiveness, followed by personality and then earning potential.

To find out more about how we choose our mates and dates, Finkel and Eastwick invited 163 undergraduate college students to a two-hour speed-dating event. Each student spent four minutes with a dozen potential partners-and then looked at their photographs on a computer, and answered "yes" or "no" to indicate whether they'd like a date. The participants then rated their choices, based on who they found most attractive and who they thought would have the greatest earning potential. Finkel and Eastwick followed the students for a month to check on their subsequent romantic activities.

NEWSWEEK's Karen Springen spoke with Finkel and Eastwick about their research in the Northwestern Relationships Lab and about how men and women may be rethinking old questions about what they want in a mate. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Before you held your speed-dating event, you had participants state how much appearance, personality and earning potential would matter in deciding whether they wanted to see someone again. More women said earning prospects were important in an ideal romantic partner, and more men said beauty. But that's not what they ended up valuing in real life, right?
Finkel: There was a disconnect between what they said they wanted and what they actually wanted. Physical attractiveness tends to inspire desire a lot. Earning prospects tend to inspire desire a moderate amount [for both men and women].

Why do many men and women have the wrong idea about what they really value in a romantic partner?
Finkel: We all live in a culture where we're bathed in this idea that women are more interested in earning potential than men are. So when we're asked what is it we desire, we say, I'm a man; I'm more interested in beauty. That's what's sensible to them in the absence of doing a careful analysis of everyone they've ever been attracted to.

Eastwick: Men and women haven't sat down and looked at all the available evidence on all the people they've been attracted to over the course of their lives and come up with a comprehensive answer. People have theories, and those theories guide us, but they might not always be correct.

How does speed dating help you figure out what men and women want in a partner?
Finkel: Speed dating allows you to examine each person's preference across a range of potential suitors. We can look not only at what you said you preferred 10 days before the event but what you actually preferred when you met living, breathing beings. We can compare what you said was important to you and what actually was important to you.

What's the take-home message for people looking for love?
Finkel: Beware the shopping list. When you go into finding a romantic partner, don't have this list of necessary characteristics that you need. Go in with an open mind. Actually meet people face to face. Because you might find yourself surprised by the person you're attracted to. Those sex differences and mate preferences that are so reliable when people report on hypothetical ideal partners disappear when people meet living, breathing partners.

So personality really matters, too?
Finkel: It's not that looks don't matter, or earning potential doesn't matter, or personality doesn't matter. It's that they matter equally strongly for men and women. Looks are most important, personality is second and earning potential is third-at least in the first month of dating.

The short of it is she might not put up with his table manners and paunch for the money he earns, because she earns money too. Anecdotally

1. I was told years later (Nov. 2007, well after a college lady friend married) that the sort of eating in a hurry in ye olde college cafeteria is about the quickest way to lose a girl like herself. I still thank the LORD I made it home safely at the end of that weekend, because that truth really hurt, although intended to improve my dating situation in 2007.
2. A petite woman who has never seen, let alone read The Joy of Sex (which describes a variety of accommodations) is understandably going to have apprehensions about the missionary position if he is very much heavier than she is, no matter how much she thinks she loves him (1997).
3. If James Dobson's assessment of women's focus on the inside vs. the outside was correct, I have a sneaking feeling I would have dated more frequently in that Christian singles group in Washington DC between 2002 and 2006, possibly even been married by now. The country song "Guys Do It All The Time" seems more applicable instead,

Perhaps the test should be repeated at various age groups. This seems to be aimed at undergraduates. The prefrontal cortex lobe is not fully developed until age 25, yet many women marry a year or two out of college. I knew a 23-year-old bride and separately, a 22-year-old groom amongest my Christian college grad friends. I do not suppose young people, at least those who feel compelled to marry to have sex (Christians), are denying themselves the "benefits" of marriage any longer than they have to. (I should have known that was the reason... I asked a non-religious friend why so many of them were marrying so fast, and she chortled and explained our belief system to me....)

We ask young people to do a lot of things before the prefrontal cortex lobe fully matures, with potentially far reaching consequences...

1. military service
2. choosing a college major and by extension, career field
3. often, choosing a mate within one's twenties
4. having a child as young as one's twenties. and if the child seems to be prenatal abnormalities, consider abortion
5. drive, as young as 16
6. get student loans and usually a credit card, manage money

But again, how would late thirtysomethings, like me, or fortysomethings approach mate selection? I don't necessarily think the results are generalizable.

With the divorce rate being what it is, perhaps, just perhaps, the only bright side to being involuntarily single for a decade or two, or longer, is being a superior spouse by virtue of experience when finally being given the opportunity.

Anecdotally, I have just figured out in my own mind that I have to lose a lot of weight to get noticed by a woman.
1. I will be noticed from a distance and approached if I look, ummm, attractive. It implies a body mass index more like 30 than 40, and preferably more like 25.
2. Qualities like character, intelligence, personality, and humor can only be observed from social interaction not halfway across the room.
3. I am sure not every American female is an idiot but not every such American female is available or in my area.
4. I am fairly certain that educating an American idiot is not an option. Who is the more foolish, a fool, or a fool who tries to educate a fool? Perhaps the American white middle class has been so comfortable, so coddled and spoiled, and so unaccustomed to genuine problems, they invent their own crises, such as gaining 10 pounds.

I have lost nearly 50 pounds off my worst case number. That only leaves 97 more pounds to go. Persistence to my diet is the primary key. Ratcheting up the exercise over time, and keeping it up over the next year or two, is the rest of it. I didn't get it all at once nor will I lose it all at once.

But let's try expanding on the research.

Christopher Marsh
Alexandria VA

Master of Arts
Sociology
Marshall University
Huntington WV

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Posted By: cmarsh @ 06/13/2009 5:13:08 AM

The short of it is she might not put up with his table manners and paunch for the money he earns, because she earns money too. Anecdotally

1. I was told years later (Nov. 2007, well after a college lady friend married) that the sort of eating in a hurry in ye olde college cafeteria is about the quickest way to lose a girl like herself. I still thank the LORD I made it home safely at the end of that weekend, because that truth really hurt, although intended to improve my dating situation in 2007.
2. A petite woman who has never seen, let alone read The Joy of Sex (which describes a variety of accommodations) is understandably going to have apprehensions about the missionary position if he is very much heavier than she is, no matter how much she thinks she loves him (1997).
3. If James Dobson's assessment of women's focus on the inside vs. the outside was correct, I have a sneaking feeling I would have dated more frequently in that Christian singles group in Washington DC between 2002 and 2006, possibly even been married by now. The country song "Guys Do It All The Time" seems more applicable instead,
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: cmarsh @ 06/13/2009 5:02:17 AM

She might be bringing home plenty of bacon, in fact more than he is, and might not want to come home to a pig for a husband. Depends on the woman, but she is liberated from old ways if she doesn't care for them.
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Posted By: cmarsh @ 06/12/2009 6:15:14 PM

Perhaps the test should be repeated at various age groups. This seems to be aimed at undergraduates. The prefrontal cortex lobe is not fully developed until age 25, yet many women marry a year or two out of college. I knew a 23-year-old bride and separately, a 22-year-old groom amongest my Christian college grad friends. I do not suppose young people, at least those who feel compelled to marry to have sex (Christians), are denying themselves the "benefits" of marriage any longer than they have to. (I should have known that was the reason... I asked a non-religious friend why so many of them were marrying so fast, and she chortled and explained our belief system to me....)

We ask young people to do a lot of things before the prefrontal cortex lobe fully matures, with potentially far reaching consequences...

1. military service
2. choosing a college major and by extension, career field
3. often, choosing a mate within one's twenties
4. having a child as young as one's twenties. and if the child seems to be prenatal abnormalities, consider abortion
5. drive, as young as 16
6. get student loans and usually a credit card, manage money

But again, how would late thirtysomethings, like me, or fortysomethings approach mate selection? I don't necessarily think the results are generalizable.

With the divorce rate being what it is, perhaps, just perhaps, the only bright side to being involuntarily single for a decade or two, or longer, is being a superior spouse by virtue of experience when finally being given the opportunity.

Anecdotally, I have just figured out in my own mind that I have to lose a lot of weight to get noticed by a woman.
1. I will be noticed from a distance and approached if I look, ummm, attractive. It implies a body mass index more like 30 than 40, and preferably more like 25.
2. Qualities like character, intelligence, personality, and humor can only be observed from social interaction not halfway across the room.
3. I am sure not every American female is an idiot but not every such American female is available or in my area.
4. I am fairly certain that educating an American idiot is not an option. Who is the more foolish, a fool, or a fool who tries to educate a fool? Perhaps the American white middle class has been so comfortable, so coddled and spoiled, and so unaccustomed to genuine problems, they invent their own crises, such as gaining 10 pounds.

I have lost nearly 50 pounds off my worst case number. That only leaves 97 more pounds to go. Persistence to my diet is the primary key. Ratcheting up the exercise over time, and keeping it up over the next year or two, is the rest of it. I didn't get it all at once nor will I lose it all at once.

But let's try expanding on the research.

Christopher Marsh
Alexandria VA

Master of Arts
Sociology
Marshall University
Huntington WV