Physical attractiveness is important in choosing whom
to date. Good looking people are not only popular targets
for romantic pursuits, they themselves also tend to flock
together with more attractive others. Does this mean then
that more attractive versus less attractive people wear
a different pair of lens when evaluating others’
attractiveness?
Columbia University marketing professor, Leonard Lee,
and colleagues, George Loewenstein (Carnegie Mellon University),
Dan Ariely (MIT) and James Hong and Jim Young (HOTorNOT.com),
decided to test this theory in the realm of an online
dating site. The site HOTorNOT.com allows members to rate
others on their level of physical attractiveness.
Lee and colleagues analyzed two data sets from HOTorNOT.com
-- one containing members’ dating requests, and
the other containing the attractiveness ratings of other
members. Both data sets also included ratings of members’
own attractiveness as rated by other members.
The results, which will be published in an upcoming issue
of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association
for Psychological Science, are revealing. Consistent with
previous research, people with similar levels of physical
attractiveness indeed tend to date each other, with more
attractive people being more particular about the physical
attractiveness of their potential dates.
Furthermore, people prefer to date others who are moderately
more attractive than them.
Compared to females, males are more influenced by how
physically attractive their potential dates are, but less
affected by how attractive they themselves are, when deciding
whom to date. Also, regardless of how attractive people
themselves are, they seem to judge others’ attractiveness
in similar ways, supporting the notion that we have largely
universal, culturally independent standards of beauty
(e.g. symmetric faces).
These results indicate that people’s own attractiveness
does not affect their judgment of others’ attractiveness.
People of different physical attractiveness levels might
instead vary the importance they place on different desirable
qualities in their dates. Lee and colleagues conducted
a follow-up speed-dating study in which more attractive
people placed more weight on physical attractiveness in
selecting their dates, while less attractive people placed
more weight on other qualities (e.g. sense of humor).
Much like the famous line from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and
Young, people find a way to love the ones they can be
with.
