The other men were described as stereotypical "dads": They would work hard at their job and take good care of their kids. Whenever the story featured a cad who owned a dog, women rated that man as a more suitable long-term partner than a cad who didn't own a dog. Cads with dogs were even rated slightly more attractive than dads with dogs. The researchers concluded that owning a pet signals that you're nurturing and capable of making long-term commitments.
It can also help you appear more relaxed, approachable, and happy. In a study , researchers at the University of Sussex asked about 1, women whose average age was 28 to listen to simple and complex pieces of music and rate the attractiveness of the composer. The results showed that women preferred the more complex music, and said they would choose the composer of the more complex music as a long-term partner.
In , Australian researchers studied undergrads participating in a speed-dating session, and found that mindful men tended to receive higher attractiveness ratings from women. Before the session began, 91 students were asked to fill out a mindfulness questionnaire in which they indicated how much they agreed with statements like:.
After each interaction with an opposite-sex partner, students privately indicated how "sexy" they found their partner and how much they'd like to date that person. Results showed that men were generally more drawn to physically attractive women.
Independent coders had rated the students' attractiveness beforehand. But women were generally more attracted to mindful men. A study led by researchers at the University of Alaska at Anchorage found that women are attracted to men who take what the researchers call "hunter-gatherer risks. More than undergrads filled out questionnaires about how attractive they would find a partner who engaged in certain risky behaviors, as opposed to a partner who engaged in low- or no-risk behaviors.
Hunter-gatherer risks included mountain biking, deep-sea scuba diving, and extreme rollerblading. Low- and no-risk behaviors included biking along paved paths and carefully handling chemicals in a chemistry-lab class. Results showed that women said they would be more attracted to men who engaged in hunter-gatherer risks — the kinds that were similar to risks faced by ancestral humans. Women said they would be less attracted to men who engaged in modern risks, which might seem just plain dumb.
Simply knowing that you're wearing a new fragrance can make you act more confident , and even make you seem more attractive to other people. In a small study published in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science, researchers gave one group of male undergraduates a spray with antimicrobial ingredients and fragrance oil, and provided another group with an unscented spray that didn't contain antimicrobial ingredients.
Over the next few days, the men who used the scented spray reported higher self-confidence and felt more attractive. The strange part? When a group of women were shown silent videos of the men, they found those who were wearing scented spray more attractive, even though they obviously couldn't smell them. The researchers determined that the men using the scented spray displayed more confident behavior, which in turn made them more attractive.
The smell of garlic on your breath is generally regarded as an instant romance killer. But a series of studies from researchers at Charles University and the National Institute of Mental Health in the Czech Republic and the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom suggests a different story when it comes to body odor.
In one study, eight men ate a slice of bread with cheese and 12 grams of fresh garlic; another eight ate bread and cheese without any garlic. For the next 12 hours, the men wore cotton pads under their armpits and were instructed not to use any deodorants or fragrances.
The following day, all the men returned to the lab, where 40 women sniffed the pads and rated the odor on pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and intensity. Results showed that the garlic group was rated more pleasant and attractive and less masculine and intense.
A study from UK researchers found that women find men more appealing when they do volunteer work. About 30 women looked at a picture of a man with a brief description of his hobbies, which sometimes included volunteer work. The same procedure was repeated with about 30 men looking at a picture of a woman. Everyone rated how attractive they found the person pictured for a short- and long-term relationship.
Both genders rated the person pictured as more attractive for a long-term relationship when they were described as a volunteer — but the effect was stronger for women rating men. In a study , researchers at the University of Liverpool and the University of Stirling took photos of 24 male and 24 female undergrads.
They digitally manipulated half of the images so the subjects appeared to have facial scars — for example, a line on the person's forehead that looked like the result of an injury.
Then the researchers recruited another group of about heterosexual male and female undergrads to rate all the people pictured based on attractiveness for both short- and long-term relationships.
Results showed that men with scars appeared slightly more attractive for short-term relationships than men without scars. Women, on the other hand, were perceived as equally attractive regardless of whether they had scarred faces.
A study — from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Northwestern University — suggests that we're more attracted to people who display expansive body language. In one experiment included in the study, the researchers created profiles for three men and three women on a GPS-based dating app.
Volunteers were asked to listen to a series of voices and then rate them based on their appeal, and researchers found that there was sort of a sweet spot in pitch. Men rated high-pitched voices more attractive, but only to a certain point. When the voice got too high-pitched, the attractiveness declined. By the end of the study, they concluded that in order to be most attractive, a voice should be moderately high-pitched and slightly breathy, all which reportedly signaled that the speaker had a small frame.
Weirdly, they were also able to draw comparisons between their results and results that had been already found in the animal kingdom.
There, males and females often have different pitch and tone to their voice, as they're used for different reasons. That further led the team to the conclusion that men prefer moderately high-pitched voices not only because of the physical qualities they imply, but also because they impart the idea of submissiveness and make confrontation seem unlikely. If your voice doesn't fall into the realm of "moderately high-pitched," there's no need to fear.
According to a study from the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology , women who are talking to a man they're attracted to tend to speak in a higher pitch without even realizing they're doing it. The science behind this one is pretty fascinating, and while ovulation might not be a specific trait, it is linked to some traits that men find attractive. According to a study in the journal Hormones and Behavior , men were more likely to rate women as being the most attractive when they were at the most fertile point in their menstrual cycle.
There have been a huge number of studies done on this, and there have been some fascinating discoveries. As women approach peak fertility , voices get higher in pitch, body odor changes and becomes more desirable, and it's even suspected there might be some sort of incredibly discreet change in skin or lip color — all things men have traditionally found more attractive. In , a University of New Mexico study found that fertility even seemed to impact the tips made by professional lap dancers, and another study done by researchers from the University of Gottingen in Germany got similar results.
Men were asked to watch silhouettes of women dancing and to pick out the more attractive women based only on their movements. Overwhelmingly, they choose the women who were at their most fertile, and they did the same thing when they were asked to choose the most attractive silhouettes of women simply walking.
Researchers suspect that hormonal changes that happen in the body at times of peak fertility change some things to appeal even more to men, allowing them to pick up on fertility unconsciously.
When it comes to overall body shapes, we always hear that it's the hourglass figure that's most attractive. That might not be entirely true, though, and according to research done by professors at the University of Texas , it's only the last part of the traditional trio of measurements that really matters.
Professor Devendra Singh took a look at the differences in how male and female bodies store fat, coupled with indicators of health and fertility. She found that when women have a waist to hip ratio WHR of between.
She conducted a series of experiments that not only surveyed men as to what shape they found most attractive, but also looked back through the last few decades at everything from Miss America contestants to Playboy models. The overwhelming majority of the men she surveyed agreed that the most attractive shape had to do with that magic WHR number, no matter what their age group was.
Other studies show that no matter what the actual size of a woman is, it's the ratio that's more important than the weight or build.
It was the ratio that men found most attractive. When it comes to figuring out which traits are going to be most attractive to potential partners, it's easy to focus on the physical. But studies have shown that personality traits like kindness really, truly do make a person more attractive.
One study done at the University of Westminster polled 2, male students to find out what they found most attractive. There was no body type or shape they found to be more universally attractive than any other.
When men were supplied with personality traits, though, those traits made them select a wider range of body types and sizes that they said were attractive, compared to the selections they made on physical appearance alone. Another study from a group of Chinese universities found similar results.
They took both men and women and asked them to rate the attractiveness of a series of faces based only on appearance. Two weeks later, the same group was given personality traits along with the faces, and positive traits made faces more attractive.
They even gave it a name: the halo effect. So what are some of the traits connected with an increase in physical attraction? Honesty, respectfulness, and a positive attitude. Almost all positive personality traits have been shown to have a positive impact on what men think and how attractive they view potential partners, leading some psychologists to suggest as much effort should be put into the personality component of first impressions as the physical one.
When it comes to facial features, there is a certain set of characteristics that seems to hold universal appeal.
According to the book Falling in Love: Why We Choose the Lovers We Choose , cross-cultural studies have shown a decided preference for women who have big eyes, small noses, and full lips. Another study where men looked at pictures of women from beauty pageants and college yearbooks found that women with baby faces small eyes, nose, and chin and stereotypically "sexy" women high cheekbones, brows, wide pupils, and a broad smile were consistently ranked as the most attractive regardless of race.
While cultural standards of beauty are constantly shifting, Nancy Etcoff, a Harvard brain researcher, said that our perception of what is attractive is rooted in biology, not the media. Women with "baby" features trigger a man's protective instinct, which served as an advantage in evolution. According to Etcoff, people find "average features" the most attractive.
One study mixed hundreds of photos to create a composite. As more pictures were added to the composite, the woman became more attractive to men.
While it's often thought that bigger is better when it comes to breasts, studies have found that this isn't actually the case. It turns out that men are like Goldilocks when it comes to busts: They like them neither too big nor too small.
Instead, women with the most attractive bodies are those who have medium sized breasts. This doesn't mean that men aren't attracted to larger breasts, though. A study from the s had men rate nude silhouettes. Most of them ranked the ones with medium bust lines as more attractive than those with small or large breasts. In spite of this, those same men still idealized women with larger chests, a find that was backed up by two more studies in the s. Fashion runways are dominated by slim women with small breasts, but society still seems to prefer more curves.
The bra industry supports the notion that bigger is better, which is perhaps a driving force in men idealizing larger breasts in spite of an underlying preference for medium breasts. It wasn't too long after the modern bra debuted in the early 20th century that padded bras hit the scene.
By , push-up bras, which further accentuated the breasts, became popular. The average bra size has gone up in America and England since the s, largely thanks to breast implants. Thanks to a survey conducted by dating website Zoosk. Out of the men surveyed, 89 percent said that hair is the first thing that men notice in a woman!
This find is particularly interesting since 71 percent of women surveyed said that they don't expect potential love interests to even notice their hair. According to the survey, most men prefer women to wear their hair down, and 29 percent said that they want the "sock bun" hair trend to die out. Men said that they are turned off by greasy hair, hair that has too much product in it, and hair that is dyed an unnatural color.
This backs up scientific findings, which have shown that men at least on a subconscious level look at hair as an indicator of health. Healthy women typically have lustrous hair, which from a biological standpoint indicates the ability to nurse potential offspring.
Good hair provided an evolutionary advantage, and that preference still carries over today. While the typical man is not a fan of unnatural hair colors, their aversion to body modifications does not extend to tattoos and piercings. A survey conducted by AskMen.
More than 1, men were surveyed. Out of them, 69 percent said they would be attracted to a woman with a tattoo, and 55 percent said they would be attracted to a woman with a piercing. Gil Greengross and Geoffrey Miller found in a sample of university students that general intelligence and verbal intelligence both predicted humor production ability writing captions for cartoons , which in turn predicted lifetime number of sexual partners a proxy of reproductive success. They found, however, that males showed higher average levels of humor production ability, which is consistent with the sexual selection perspective.
From these results, Greengross argues that a sense of humor evolved at least partly through sexual selection as an intelligence indicator. As a result of the interviews, the researchers speculated that the best strategy would be to give a potential date the impression that in general you were hard to get and therefore a scarce resource worth having but really enthusiastic about him or her specifically.
They tested this notion by using some of the same techniques… and found overwhelming evidence to support their hypothesis. What you talk about can matter — a lot. Emotional, personal information exchange promotes powerful feelings of connection. How effective is it? In under an hour it can create a connection stronger than a lifelong friendship. What he found was striking.
In other words, the instant connections were more powerful than many long-term, even lifelong relationships. You can read the most effective things to discuss here. When women are looking for a short-term fling, however, it may be a different story. One study conducted on college students found that women favored men for a short-term fling if they found the men attractive regardless of the content of their pickup lines.
Conscientiousness is predictive of a number of very important positive elements in life. Agreeable, conscientious people make better spouses and parents — but disagreeable, non-conscientious people have more sex partners.
The former invest in quality, and it seems like the latter make up the difference in, well, volume. Looking to settle down? Check if that person has their ducks in a row, is organized and easy to get along with. Nettle and Clegg reported that in a sample of people, men but not women with low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness tended to have a higher number of sexual partners.
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