It turns out that if you think you’re a 10, you’re probably not far off. Both men and women were pretty spot on with their self-assessments, particularly those in long-term relationships.
In addition to the 1,300 couples, Dr. Gregory Webster of Florida University and his team re-analyzed a lardmark meta-analysis study from 1988 that combined 27 previous studies measuring the attractiveness between couples with data going back as early as 1972.
“It’s possible that some aspects of attraction have changed over time, such as with the rise of online dating, where all you have at first are pictures,” Webster writes in his report. “On the flipside, the fundamentals of what humans consider to be attractive across cultures and across time are pretty consistent.”
After sifting through 52 years’ worth of data – with some studies focused on younger couples and others on long-term marriage – it turns out that couples tend to pick equally attractive partners. Birds of a feather, and all. Furthermore, researchers realized that men were better at determining their [perhaps waning] attractiveness as they aged. Not all of us can be George Clooney.
The recent aggregate data of 1,300 people showed that both men and women value attractiveness fairly equally judging both facial and bodily features, such as the classic “hourglass” figure of women or the torso size of men or even deep voices in men. On the other hand, it also shows that unattractiveness, especially for short-term relationships, is a dealbreaker.
Another interesting find is that physical attractiveness is paramount in mate selection in both men and women, followed by similarity, familiarity, and then simply put “Do you like me back?”, not at all unlike the notes we used to pass back and forth to our elementary school crush.
One of the greatest factors in a successful romantic couple is similarity in attractiveness. If you’re punching up a class, it might lead to an early knock-out. The study has shown that a man who isn’t as good looking as his woman partner will put in more effort to maintain that relationship, whereas a woman who might not look as good as her partner report more behaviors such as dieting.
As the relationship matures – and the men and women as well – the importance of attractiveness becomes less of a factor.
What does all this mean?
Procreation is the hypothesis. It might just be human to choose a more attractive mate, or at least one as attractive as you are. Generally, pleasant aesthetics tend to be a sign of good health. And for the survival of the species, the better-looking someone is, the higher the likelihood of the bloodline continuing on.
Evolutionarily speaking, it does make us wonder whether this pattern of behaviour makes the hot folk get hotter and the ugly get uglier across the generations.
But perhaps the message is this: don’t worry if you fell out of the Ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down… That is, as long as your partner did too.
Source: Science Direct
