Duh! Men like beautiful women. (Yes, someone was paid to figure this out. Yes, we know you want that job.)
While we humans may pride ourselves on being highly evolved, most of us still behave like stereotypical Neanderthals when it comes to choosing a mate, according to research by Indiana University cognitive scientist Peter Todd.
It all boils down to this: For men, beauty is the key ingredient they seek in a woman. Women, on the other hand, are the much choosier of the sexes, leveraging their looks for security and commitment when choosing a man.
This ancient formula has served humans throughout time, with the model of choosy females reflected in most mammals. "Evolutionary theories in psychology suggest that men and women should trade off different traits in each other, and when we look at the actual mate choices people make, this is what we find evidence for," Todd said in a news release announcing his study findings. "Ancestral individuals who made their mate choices in this way--women trading off their attractiveness for higher quality men and men looking for any attractive women who will accept them--would have had an evolutionary advantage in greater numbers of successful offspring."
Not exactly politically correct? The modern-day participants in Todd's study might agree verbally they would never mimic their Neanderthal ancestors, although their actions said something quite different.
At a speed-dating session in Munich, Germany, the researchers compared what people said they wanted in a mate with what each person actually chose. Speed dating, an increasingly popular way for singles to meet, involves sessions in which men and women have numerous "mini dates" with up to 30 different people, each date lasting anywhere from three to five minutes. After every date, the men and women checked a box on a card noting whether they would like to see the other person again. Todd and his colleagues describe such speed-dating events as a "microcosm where mate choices are made sequentially in a faster and more formalized fashion than in daily life."
The study: Forty-six adults--26 men and 20 women--in the Munich speed-dating session were asked to fill out a special questionnaire beforehand assessing themselves and their ideal mate according to evolutionarily relevant traits, such as physical attractiveness, present and future financial status, health and parenting qualities.
The results: Participants stated they wanted to find someone who was like them--a socially acceptable answer. But once the sessions began, the men sought the more attractive women, while the women were drawn to material wealth and security, setting their standards according to how attractive they viewed themselves. Furthermore, while men on average wanted to see half of the women again, the women wanted to meet only a third of the men again.
The study findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 2007.
--From the Editors at Netscape
While we humans may pride ourselves on being highly evolved, most of us still behave like stereotypical Neanderthals when it comes to choosing a mate, according to research by Indiana University cognitive scientist Peter Todd.
It all boils down to this: For men, beauty is the key ingredient they seek in a woman. Women, on the other hand, are the much choosier of the sexes, leveraging their looks for security and commitment when choosing a man.
This ancient formula has served humans throughout time, with the model of choosy females reflected in most mammals. "Evolutionary theories in psychology suggest that men and women should trade off different traits in each other, and when we look at the actual mate choices people make, this is what we find evidence for," Todd said in a news release announcing his study findings. "Ancestral individuals who made their mate choices in this way--women trading off their attractiveness for higher quality men and men looking for any attractive women who will accept them--would have had an evolutionary advantage in greater numbers of successful offspring."
Not exactly politically correct? The modern-day participants in Todd's study might agree verbally they would never mimic their Neanderthal ancestors, although their actions said something quite different.
At a speed-dating session in Munich, Germany, the researchers compared what people said they wanted in a mate with what each person actually chose. Speed dating, an increasingly popular way for singles to meet, involves sessions in which men and women have numerous "mini dates" with up to 30 different people, each date lasting anywhere from three to five minutes. After every date, the men and women checked a box on a card noting whether they would like to see the other person again. Todd and his colleagues describe such speed-dating events as a "microcosm where mate choices are made sequentially in a faster and more formalized fashion than in daily life."
The study: Forty-six adults--26 men and 20 women--in the Munich speed-dating session were asked to fill out a special questionnaire beforehand assessing themselves and their ideal mate according to evolutionarily relevant traits, such as physical attractiveness, present and future financial status, health and parenting qualities.
The results: Participants stated they wanted to find someone who was like them--a socially acceptable answer. But once the sessions began, the men sought the more attractive women, while the women were drawn to material wealth and security, setting their standards according to how attractive they viewed themselves. Furthermore, while men on average wanted to see half of the women again, the women wanted to meet only a third of the men again.
The study findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 2007.
--From the Editors at Netscape
