This research study evaluated the benefit of male height in speed dating:
www.researchgate.net
The primary data is shown here:
The "No of women would accept height" is based on self-report of North American women's preferences when surveyed during speed dating events.
Here's what the data looks like graphed:
Primary Findings:
I think this data explains why many guys on this forum say being 6'2" makes them no more attractive than their better looking 5'10" friends. According to women's preferences, a 6'2" guy is not significantly more broadly attractive than a 5'10" man. (However, please see the caveat reviewed already as this likely does not fully tell the story.)
Implications for Heightmaxing:
Lifts are an easy looksmax. LL is controversial and obviously terrible for most men given the costs and risks. Either way, it is commonly questioned which heights of men would benefit most from lifts or LL.
To evaluate this, I graphed how much more women will consider a man (as a multiplier) based on a 2" increase in height at each increment. A 2" height increase is attainable both by LL and lifts. So, in this graph, a multiplier of 2 means twice as many women will accept men of this height if they grow 2" from their current height.
Primary Findings:
There are very few women who will accept a man below 5'7" or so. These women who accept short men will also accept taller men, and therefore have absolutely massive pools of men to choose from. So while some women exist who will consider a shorter man, a shorter man must compete against a tremendously greater number of other men to secure one of these women.
This reflects the number of other men a man must beat in order to secure a woman who accepts him for his height:
Results:
Unless you are extremely tall to appeal to that minority of women who want massive men, height is more of an elimination criteria than a criteria that will predictably make you more attractive. ie. It is very easy for a man to get cut out of the dating pool due to height (ie. being progressively sub 5'10"), but it is likely hard to get laid solely based on height unless you are very, very tall.
Height increases matter most in the 5'3" to 5'7" range and a 2" height increase can roughly double your appeal to women in this range.
A small minority of women are willing to accept short men (sub 5'8"), but because these women are also willing to accept tall men, the competition for a shorter man to get one is insane.
(PDF) The height of choosiness: Mutual mate choice for stature results in suboptimal pair formation for both sexes
PDF | Mutual mate choice is prevalent in humans, where both males and females have a say in their choice of partner. How the choices made by one sex... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
www.researchgate.net
The primary data is shown here:
The "No of women would accept height" is based on self-report of North American women's preferences when surveyed during speed dating events.
Here's what the data looks like graphed:
Primary Findings:
- 90% of women will reject a man who is 5'4" based solely on his height.
- 50% of women will reject a man who is 5'8" based solely on his height.
- 14% of women will reject a man who is 5'10" based solely on his height.
- 1.5% of women will reject a man who is 6' based solely on his height.
- Past 6'2", women begin to increase rejections of men for being too tall.
- 30% of women believe there is no such thing as a man being "too tall."
- Over 94% of women will openly reject a man solely for him being too short.
- Many Tinder studies have been done showing 6'4" fake GigaChads do better than 6' fake GigaChads - I think this is due to the fact that although extremely tall men have less broad appeal, the women who DO want very tall men want them very, very badly, so they will do anything for one. This is of course not reflected in the data.
- This is based on women's self report, not behavior, so could be inaccurate as we know women lack self awareness, but I still think it's worthwhile data and the best we have.
I think this data explains why many guys on this forum say being 6'2" makes them no more attractive than their better looking 5'10" friends. According to women's preferences, a 6'2" guy is not significantly more broadly attractive than a 5'10" man. (However, please see the caveat reviewed already as this likely does not fully tell the story.)
Implications for Heightmaxing:
Lifts are an easy looksmax. LL is controversial and obviously terrible for most men given the costs and risks. Either way, it is commonly questioned which heights of men would benefit most from lifts or LL.
To evaluate this, I graphed how much more women will consider a man (as a multiplier) based on a 2" increase in height at each increment. A 2" height increase is attainable both by LL and lifts. So, in this graph, a multiplier of 2 means twice as many women will accept men of this height if they grow 2" from their current height.
Primary Findings:
- We see from this the peak benefits of a 2" height gain are in the 5'4-5'6" range, and men in the 5'3" to 5'7" range all benefit tremendously.
- A 5'4" man will have 2.3 times as many potential female partners by gaining 2" height (imagine the personality improvement!).
- A 5'7" man will have 1.86 times as many potential female partners by gaining 2" height.
- Benefits become insignificant past 5'10". This would be reflective of the same points as above - once you are "tall enough" it seems not to matter much except perhaps for the height fetishist women who are not accounted for here.
- Below 5'1" a 2" height gain makes no difference for men as you are still too short no matter what.
There are very few women who will accept a man below 5'7" or so. These women who accept short men will also accept taller men, and therefore have absolutely massive pools of men to choose from. So while some women exist who will consider a shorter man, a shorter man must compete against a tremendously greater number of other men to secure one of these women.
This reflects the number of other men a man must beat in order to secure a woman who accepts him for his height:
Results:
- A 5' man must beat 13 other men to date a woman who will accept him for his height.
- A 5'4" man must beat 8 other men to date a woman who will accept him for his height.
- Between 5'10" and 6'4", the advantage shifts towards these tall men, and the number of male competitors per women drops below 1.
Unless you are extremely tall to appeal to that minority of women who want massive men, height is more of an elimination criteria than a criteria that will predictably make you more attractive. ie. It is very easy for a man to get cut out of the dating pool due to height (ie. being progressively sub 5'10"), but it is likely hard to get laid solely based on height unless you are very, very tall.
Height increases matter most in the 5'3" to 5'7" range and a 2" height increase can roughly double your appeal to women in this range.
A small minority of women are willing to accept short men (sub 5'8"), but because these women are also willing to accept tall men, the competition for a shorter man to get one is insane.
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