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I mentioned this study briefly in another thread, but I think it deserves attention on its own because the results are too revealing to leave as a footnote. In twenty seventeen, Madeleine A. Fugère, Caitlynn Chabot, Kaitlyn Doucette, and Alita J. Cousins conducted a study to determine how adult daughters and their mothers evaluate potential male partners when given information about both physical attractiveness and personality.
The researchers began with a straightforward question: when women and their mothers say that personality matters more than physical attractiveness, do their actual choices reflect that claim? They predicted that although the participating daughters and mothers might report valuing traits such as kindness, ambition, and reliability above physical attractiveness, the men's physical attractiveness would still influence which men they selected as desirable partners.
In the experiment, each participant, who was either a daughter evaluating potential male partners for herself or the mother of that daughter evaluating potential male partners for her daughter, reviewed a set of three profiles describing men who differed in physical attractiveness and listed personality traits. Each profile contained a color photograph of one of three Caucasian men with brown hair, light facial hair, and neutral facial expressions, taken under standardized lighting and distance conditions. The photographs, drawn from earlier research by Alita J. Cousins in two thousand three, had been pretested to confirm that they represented three distinct levels of physical attractiveness: attractive, moderately attractive, and unattractive. Each photograph was paired with a written description specifying the man's level of ambition, kindness, and reliability. The daughters rated how desirable each man would be as a male partner for themselves, and the mothers rated how desirable each man would be as a male partner for their daughters.
The results supported the researchers' prediction that stated preferences would differ from actual choices: both the daughters and their mothers said that they valued personality traits more highly than physical attractiveness, but when the daughters and their mothers were asked to make selections, they consistently chose the attractive and moderately attractive men as the most desirable male partners. Unattractive men were never rated as more desirable, even when those men were described as having the most favorable personality traits.
Fugère and her coauthors concluded that "a minimum level of physical attractiveness is a necessity for both women and their mothers and that when women and their parents state that other traits are more important than physical attractiveness, they assume potential mates meet a minimally acceptable standard of physical attractiveness" (Fugère et al., 2017). In other words, when women say that they value personality or moral character above physical attractiveness, they do so under the assumption that the potential male partner already meets the minimally acceptable standard of physical attractiveness according to their own subjective judgments.
The researchers began with a straightforward question: when women and their mothers say that personality matters more than physical attractiveness, do their actual choices reflect that claim? They predicted that although the participating daughters and mothers might report valuing traits such as kindness, ambition, and reliability above physical attractiveness, the men's physical attractiveness would still influence which men they selected as desirable partners.
In the experiment, each participant, who was either a daughter evaluating potential male partners for herself or the mother of that daughter evaluating potential male partners for her daughter, reviewed a set of three profiles describing men who differed in physical attractiveness and listed personality traits. Each profile contained a color photograph of one of three Caucasian men with brown hair, light facial hair, and neutral facial expressions, taken under standardized lighting and distance conditions. The photographs, drawn from earlier research by Alita J. Cousins in two thousand three, had been pretested to confirm that they represented three distinct levels of physical attractiveness: attractive, moderately attractive, and unattractive. Each photograph was paired with a written description specifying the man's level of ambition, kindness, and reliability. The daughters rated how desirable each man would be as a male partner for themselves, and the mothers rated how desirable each man would be as a male partner for their daughters.
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The results supported the researchers' prediction that stated preferences would differ from actual choices: both the daughters and their mothers said that they valued personality traits more highly than physical attractiveness, but when the daughters and their mothers were asked to make selections, they consistently chose the attractive and moderately attractive men as the most desirable male partners. Unattractive men were never rated as more desirable, even when those men were described as having the most favorable personality traits.
Fugère and her coauthors concluded that "a minimum level of physical attractiveness is a necessity for both women and their mothers and that when women and their parents state that other traits are more important than physical attractiveness, they assume potential mates meet a minimally acceptable standard of physical attractiveness" (Fugère et al., 2017). In other words, when women say that they value personality or moral character above physical attractiveness, they do so under the assumption that the potential male partner already meets the minimally acceptable standard of physical attractiveness according to their own subjective judgments.
