How important are looks to men
How Much Do Looks Really Matter in a Relationship?
Something you may be wondering — but may be hesitant to ask — is if how you look will have an impact on your relationship. And if it does, well, how much?
Here’s the thing: Appearances do matter in relationships, but this doesn’t mean that looks are the most important aspect of intimacy.
Attractiveness is subjective, and many individuals will have different preferences and find different qualities attractive.
Many of us hear that physical appearance plays a role in relationships and jump to the conclusion that only the supermodels and famous actors of the world could have any luck in love. This couldn’t be further from the truth!
Even though looks do play a role in dating, what actually attracts a partner physically may not be what you expect.
Everyone has their own insecurities, and no one is perfect. However, there are certain physical traits that can make partners more attractive and carry some weight in your relationship.
Yes, a level of physical attraction is necessary for most people in romantic relationships. A notable exception is if you identify as asexual. Some people who identify as asexual feel romantically attracted to others without feeling sexual attraction.
However, when it comes to “looks” and “attractiveness,” the definitions are often confusing and vague, and can depend on the era, culture, and individual.
For many people, “looks” don’t necessarily refer to someone’s physical features. Many people find physical attributes like personal style, hygiene, or posture attractive, too.
It’s also important to note that sometimes attractiveness doesn’t have anything to do with your physical attributes. Attractiveness can include many things that go beyond the physical, such as:
- having a sense of humor
- having shared interests with your partner
- being kind
- having values and principals
- making your partner feel safe and happy
- being attractive to others
That’s all to say, looks aren’t the only thing that can attract you to someone.
Definitions of physical attractiveness have changed over history
Let’s explore the role “looks” play in the attractiveness equation.
On a societal level, our definition of beauty today is different than it was 500 years ago, according to research.
Most notably, in the last decade, there’s been a social media-induced phenomenon in which new standards of beauty are evolving out of the digital space.
“Snapchat dysmorphia” is a perfect example of how virtual communication has given rise to different ideals of beauty that tend to affect the nature of dating, according to one paper.
This is a phenomenon in which people who use Snapchat and other social apps develop body dysmorphic disorder. They want to look like their online selves, even though their images online don’t reflect their true appearance and have been modified using filters and visual effects.
However, some changes in beauty standards have had a positive influence, such as increasing inclusivity.
We now see many more people of color as symbols of beauty in the media. Due to the exposure effect, this increased representation may drive us to collectively recognize the beauty of different races and ethnicities in our day-to-day lives.
Researchers found that increasing people’s exposure to certain faces increased the attractiveness ratings they gave those faces.
This may suggest we’ll see interracial dating and cross-cultural attraction and acceptance more frequently.
Thus, the idea of beauty, though very real, is subject to change and can have many different effects.
Evolutionary perspective
Evolutionary scientists think that some aspects of attraction and mate choice are evolved — that is, they’re in our genes, not solely a product of our environment.
For example, researchers have found that men (straight and gay) tend to find potential mates more attractive when they show physical signs of fertility. In women, one physical attribute linked with fertility is waist-to-hip ratio.
Another is age.
In fact, age appears to be an attractiveness factor for men and women alike, with women consistently choosing to marry older men and men tending to choose younger women across dozens of cultures, according to one 2018 review.
Scientists believe that women’s evaluation of the physical attractiveness of a mate is influenced by indications of the potential mate’s genetic quality as well as the mate’s ability to protect and invest in her and her children.
One indicator of these qualities is men’s musculature, particularly in the upper body. Researchers have found it’s a feature women tend to find attractive in men.
Of course, these evolved preferences are complex and interact with other factors. Individual differences, culture, and environment also play a major role in shaping what you find attractive in a potential partner.
Personal taste
At the individual level, people can simply just have different tastes. You’ve probably heard the age-old question, “What’s your type?”
Many people find themselves attracted to a certain set of features, but what that looks like can vary from person to person.
Research shows the perception of whether someone’s face is attractive may be shaped by environment rather than genes. Furthermore, people tend to disagree about who has an attractive face as much as they tend to agree.
When it comes to physical attraction, a lot is subjective, and there’s someone for everyone.
Do looks matter to everyone?
The short answer is, it’s complicated. Research has shown that men tend to rate physical attractiveness as more critical in a potential mate than women do, on average.
Some research has shown that women tend to say they value qualities like ambition, industriousness, friendliness, and kindness more than physical appearance.
That said, this particular study concluded that, even though other qualities were more important, women reported that a minimum level of physical attractiveness was a necessity for a potential mate.
For men, looks seem to matter slightly more, on average, according to research. However, the men that were studied still valued personality traits like thoughtfulness, spontaneity, and humility.
It’s important to note that these are averages and that there can be great variation between individuals, so it’s important not to generalize about someone’s attractiveness preferences based on their gender.
Moreover, many people identify as genders other than male or female, so these research findings may not represent other genders or gender nonconforming folks and should be taken with a grain of salt.
In a relationship, personal qualities like humility and kindness may become much more important in determining the success of the relationship over time.
While looks may be important in initial attraction, what really holds a relationship together has much more to do with how two people connect on a deeper level.
You’ve probably heard of the phrase “love at first sight.” This is the idea that you can know you love someone just by laying eyes on them for that very first time. But is it actually real?
One study shows that what is known as “love at first sight” is actually just a very high level of physical attraction that people report as love in hindsight.
This might show that, at times, you might confuse love with physical attraction.
Love can begin through physical attraction — and oftentimes it does. However, physical attraction alone doesn’t make a lasting romantic relationship.
Can you love someone you’re not physically attracted to?
Yes. Romantic attraction and sexual attraction are two distinct phenomena, according to studies.
In other words, you can love someone romantically without being sexually attracted to them.
It may be less common for someone to begin a romantic relationship with someone they’re not sexually attracted to. However, many people may experience this, such as those who identify as asexual.
It’s also completely normal to lose at least some of the physical attraction toward your partner as time goes on, especially for women, according to research.
Does love make us see the person we love as more attractive?
Not only can being in love with someone make you see them as more beautiful, but just being around someone can make you see them as more attractive.
According to research, people rated faces that were more familiar as more attractive. To a significant extent, familiarity can breed attraction.
Pheromones
Like other physical attributes — height, weight, body shape, skin — pheromones may play a role in attraction for both women and men.
Pheromones are chemicals animals secrete that trigger a social response in members of the same species.
Results in this area of research are controversial. One 2015 review said that a lot of the research done to date on human pheromones wasn’t valid and that scientists had yet to identify human pheromones with certainty.
One study from 2013 applied a supposed pheromone androstadienone and other hormones from men’s sweat onto women’s upper lips. Researchers reported the women showed increased mood, focus, and sexual response as a result.
A 2019 study exposed men to the smell of estratetraenol, a hormone that is thought to be in women’s sweat and other secretions.
In response, the men showed increased brain activity in an area related to sex, among other complex reactions.
So, even though pheromones don’t qualify as “looks,” they may play a role in physical attraction.
Scientists need to do more research on human pheromones to find out more.
All in all, most romantic relationships involve some level of physical or sexual attraction. This means that “looks,” in a sense, do matter.
However, appearances are not the foundation of a relationship, and they are certainly not the main reason that a relationship will fail or succeed in the long term.
If acknowledging that appearances matter in relationships makes you uncomfortable, remember that physical appearance involves more than just looks, including health, personal habits, style, and values.
So, appearances do matter, but not always for the reasons you might think.
Men's Looks Matter More Than Women Admit, Study Shows
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Even if a guy has a great personality, a woman looking for a date still hopes he's at least a little cute, a new study suggests.
Researchers asked young women (ages 15 to 29) to choose potential dates from a series of photographs and descriptions, while the women's mothers (ages 37 to 61) were asked to select possible boyfriends for their daughters using the same information. Results showed that a man's looks influenced both groups of women more strongly than his personality profile. This held true even if a man's profile was filled with highly desirable personal qualities, such as being respectful, honest and trustworthy.
Both daughters and mothers rated the attractive and moderately attractive men as more desirable dating partners than unattractive men, said the findings, published online in March in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science.
The study suggests that women value physical attractiveness in a potential mate far more than they say they do, said study author Madeleine Fugère, a professor of social psychology at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic.
[Busted! 6 Gender Myths in the Bedroom & Beyond]
Previous research on this subject has given conflicting results. Some studies have suggested that both parents and their adult children (especially daughters) may say that personality is more important than looks in a potential mate, with these individuals typically ranking physical attractiveness lower on a list of personality characteristics. However, in real life, that's not how people seem to make these romantic decisions, Fugère told Live Science. For example, data from speed-dating research shows that a man's physical attractiveness has a strong impact on women's mate preferences, Fugère said.
So, this new study attempted to put the looks-versus-personality decision to the test in women.
Minimum level of attractiveness
In the new study, researchers looked at 80 daughters and 61 mothers. In one experiment, each woman was shown color photographs of three men. One of these men was considered "attractive"; one was considered moderately attractive," and one was "unattractive," as determined based on data from previous research.
Each photograph came with one of three trait profiles, which included personality characteristics and attributes that prior studies had determined to be one of three different levels of attractiveness to women looking for potential romantic partners. These were "highly desirable," "desirable" and the lowest-rated category, which the researchers called "moderately desirable."
The profile of the highly desirable traits contained three qualities: respectful, trustworthy and honest. The traits for desireable were friendly, dependable and mature, while the moderately desirable traits described the man as having a pleasing disposition and being ambitious and intelligent.
After looking at the three photographs and personality profiles, the women were asked to rate how attractive they found each man, how favorable they thought his personal description was and how desirable he was as a date (or, for the moms, how desirable he was as a date for their daughters).
The results showed that as long as a man was considered attractive or moderately attractive, both mothers and daughters would pick the guy who had the most desirable personality traits.
But when an unattractive male was paired with the most highly desirable personality profile, neither daughters nor mothers rated him as favorably as a potential romantic partner, compared with better-looking men with less desirable personalities.
Both young women looking for men and mothers seeking boyfriends for their daughters consider a minimum level of attractiveness to be an important criterion in a potential mate, the researchers concluded.
Looks matter to women
The study suggests that if a man is considered at least moderately attractive, then his personality matters to women, Fugère said. If a man is viewed as less than moderately attractive, it doesn't seem to matter as much to women what his personality is like, Fugère explained. [5 Myths About Women's Bodies]
But Fugère also added that "different people have different perceptions of what they consider to be moderately attractive."
In addition, the findings demonstrated that "a moderate level of attractiveness is a necessity to young women and to their moms, and they are not willing to give that up in favor of personality," Fugère said.
She explained that physical attractiveness appears to act as a gatekeeper for potential mates. If a man meets a required level of physical attractiveness, then women are willing to consider his personality characteristics, the study revealed.
However, the new findings, combined with previous research in which women have reported that personality is more important to them, suggest that women tend to underestimate the true importance they place on a man's physical attractiveness, Fugère said.
This is not true of men, she said. Men are more consciously aware — or more willing to admit — that good looks in a woman are more important to them than personality, Fugère said. Men's emphasis on looks in a mate choice may have a biological basis, because men may associate a woman's physical attractiveness with her fertility, Fugère said.
In the next stages of her research, Fugère will do a similar experiment with fathers and sons as participants (and using women's photos) to see if this study produces similar findings, she said.
She will also conduct another trial with mothers and daughters and include both positive and negative personality characteristics in the personality profiles of potential mates, because her current findings included only positive attributes, she said.
Originally published on Live Science.
Cari Nierenberg has been writing about health and wellness topics for online news outlets and print publications for more than two decades. Her work has been published by Live Science, The Washington Post, WebMD, Scientific American, among others. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in nutrition from Cornell University and a Master of Science degree in Nutrition and Communication from Boston University.
Scientists have found out what men and women are looking for in a future partner
Older women pay more attention to the appearance of a man and less to intelligence, income and other qualities that are important for young girls, scientists from Australia found.
With men, the reverse metamorphosis occurs - the external attractiveness of a partner for them gradually fades into the background over the years, and the personality begins to play a more important role.
The preferences of men and women in potential partners differ in youth, but become more similar with age, Australian experts from the Queensland University of Technology found out. They set out the details in an article in the magazine PLOS ONE .
People's preferences for sexual partners influence their decisions about sex, relationships, and having children. This, in turn, affects other aspects of society - gender roles, the level of equality, the birth rate, politics and much more. However, it remains unclear how preferences for certain traits differ between men and women and at different stages of life.
To find out what traits men and women find attractive in partners over the years, the researchers interviewed 7,325 Australians aged 18-65 registered on dating sites.
Participants in the study were asked to rate the importance of nine characteristics of a potential mate on a scale of 0 to 100.
Traits were divided into three categories — aesthetic (age, attractiveness, physical characteristics), resource (intelligence, education, income) and personal (trust, openness, emotional connection).
Statistical analysis of responses revealed similar priorities for men and women: both rated physical body, attractiveness, and all three personality traits as very important, while income was much less important. However, women rated the importance of age, education, intelligence, income, trust, and emotional connection as 9-14 points higher than men. In addition, compared to all other characteristics, men placed more importance on attractiveness and physique than women.
More interesting were the changes in preferences with age. Although men in general gave more relative importance to aesthetic characteristics than women, this gap narrowed with age - men began to be more interested in other qualities, while women paid more attention to visual attractiveness.
At the same time, mature women were less interested in the personal qualities of their partner than young women. Representatives of both sexes with age attached more importance to openness and trust.
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In general, the preferences of men and women became more and more similar with age.
“Both sexes tend to find the same things in potential partners as sexual, but at different stages of life,” the researchers note. “At different ages, men and women can differ significantly in how much importance they attach to certain characteristics.”
Differences in preferences between men and women may be related to the theory of parental investment in evolutionary psychology, says lead author Stephen White. According to this theory, females are more selective in their choice of partners because they put more effort into the survival of offspring.
Many gender differences are socialized, but some are evolutionary, explains psychologist Beatrice Alba of Deakin University.
“Men can have a large number of children because they don't have to get pregnant and breastfeed,
,” she says. “They can afford to mate with many females and also partner with younger females that have more reproductive potential over their lifetime.”
The results of the study confirm earlier findings that male and female preferences differ in potential mates, says psychologist Brendan Zitsch of the University of Queensland. However, he says a growing body of research suggests that what people say about their preferences doesn't necessarily correspond to what they actually choose.
“Basically, we don't know how significant these stated preferences are. This is an ongoing area of research,” Zitsch says.
The study involved users of online dating services, says White, so it's not worth extending the results to other groups of people just yet. Larger studies are needed to obtain data that most fully reflects the views of the population.
Is a man's appearance important to you?
#1
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#3
will be pretty pretty.
Catwalk type handsome men are not attractive - too ideal, effeminate facial features, I would say.
But faces with facial features that together form a pretty picture are very attractive - for this you don’t need to have a slender nose (in men I can’t stand such female noses at all), puffy dumpling lips, etc. I like large straight noses (not aquiline, as in the southern peoples =))), lips are not thin, and also (for me personally) - always bright eyes (gray, blue, gray-blue).
In short, everyone likes cute ones.
But everyone has their own criteria in detail, if in general (such as those described by me).
#4
Looks have never been the catalyst for my falling in love. It so happens with me that I already find beauty in someone who has interested me in other qualities. It is simply extraordinary to understand that you begin to admire until recently in such an imperfect way - simply unusual.
All supposedly "shortcomings" turn into features, into uniqueness. No wonder they say "everything that you look at with love seems beautiful." It suits me completely. I know that I will find external attraction for myself in someone who will attract me with their content. And this is much more to my liking than the conscious "choice" of an objectively handsome man. No riddle :)
#5
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#9,0003
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9000 #15
222 Toyama tokanawa
Damn, people burn, how can you take such a nickname for yourself)))) NR 8))))))))
#16
Awesome Cinderella
No, of course, I would like only a hand-written handsome man .
.. But, unfortunately, very often children look not like a husband, but like a grandfather or someone else ... So the appearance of ALL relatives (and neighbors, if anything) is important. ..)
#17
#18
Tokanava
Damn, people are burning, well, how can you take such a nickname for yourself)))) NR 8))))))))
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Yakakahi Mnurukami
Yours is also cool))))))
#22
Woman.
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#23
Pikachu .
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http://s017.radikal.ru/i424/1305/00/c27a3fdbef1d.jpg :25
#24
#25
But since she herself is not beautiful, here she is alone. It's better to starve than to eat from the garbage.
#260334
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The man immediately warned that all property was recorded on children
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Such a salary - I do not want to work
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#28
I like courageous appearance. But you can’t go far on one appearance, for me the sexual capabilities of a man are much more important. If he is small or thin or poorly standing, then no amount of the most ideal appearance will help. But if the appearance is average, but knows how to show the sky in diamonds, then I will be with this.
#29
Guest
Appearance is important for me. but pleasant! For aesthetic reasons and not only. if it so happens that a serious relationship develops into marriage, and children are born there, I want the children to be beautiful)
You just wouldn't notice him.
But in the rainy - yes-ah-ah ... the sun is a rare guest).
#31
But faces with facial features that together form a pretty picture are very attractive - you don’t need to have a slender nose for this (I can’t stand such female noses in men at all), plump lips-dumplings etc. I like large straight noses (not aquiline, as in the southern peoples =))), lips are not thin, and also (for me personally) - always bright eyes (gray, blue, gray-blue).
In short, everyone likes cute ones.
But everyone has their own criteria in detail, if in general (such as those described by me).
I also like noses that are not small, but thoroughbred... Like Lanovoy or Tikhonov, or Yuri Solomin.
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#34 9000 The man is handsome with intelligence and sense of humor
#35
new topics
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Looking for interesting cocktail recipes
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Former classmate
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#37
