Do you like your boo to be smart and sexy, or a beautiful bimbo? Are you turned on by intelligence? Decades of research points to a collective “yes” from most of the world’s population. And it doesn’t matter whether you ask women, men, gay or trans people, they all agree that being intelligent is an attractive feature in a potential mate.
But a surprising contradiction to this well-accepted fact is raising eyebrows, with new study results published on the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin of America. They’ve got some in a panic, and others in a rage at their claims that heterosexual men are less likely to be attracted to women “smarter” than themselves.
Critics and academics have hit back online at the results of the study.
“Cue collective eye-roll,” wrote Nikki McGloster of Elite Daily in a fiery piece, concluding that “only weak men are intimidated by well-rounded, educated gals.”
Diane Barth, a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst for Psychology Today wrote “I have seen and known many men who are close to, romantically attracted to, and in long-term, successful marriages with women who outperform them—and whom they also consider smarter than themselves.”
The American study proudly professes to be the only one of its kind, which may point to how they came up with their surprising results.
Usually, people are asked to name their ideal qualities in a long term partner. Among the most popular and well established desires are good looks, physical health and humour. Intelligence is also very often ranked high on our agenda of attractive features, because it means we can earn more money, make better decisions, take better care of our offspring, and generally obtain a better quality of life.
The key difference with the American study is that the researchers didn’t ask their participants what they thought was attractive. They simply assumed intelligence would be rated highly, and what’s more, they assigned it an arbitrary definition -I.Q. scores. According to Psychologists, this is a narrow view of the word “intelligence”, which should extend to a range of abilities such as understanding, emotional intelligence and communication skills. However, this wasn’t what the researchers concerned themselves with.
They informed their male participants that in the next room they would meet a woman who was “smarter than them”, based on I.Q. tests. The findings indicated that men said they were interested in meeting these ladies when first described, but that after meeting them, displayed body language of disinterest.
So while the women that the male participants met may have been “book smart”, they may not have had other personality traits that they would find attractive.
In the context of our modern western society, it also seems a somewhat glaring oversight to have only interviewed straight men. While 105 heterosexual men were asked to participate, not one bisexual, trans or homosexual person was asked for their opinion. We did some vox pops in the community to find out what people of other genders and orientations thought about the study, and what they think is sexy.
Music by Morgan London
The study may simply highlight ongoing problems of sexism in our western society. Plenty of research has already proven that we consistently assume others to be intelligent based on nothing but appearances.
At a Universtiy in Ohio, a study was conducted where participants were asked to look at people dressed in different styles of clothing, and judge whether they thought they were intelligent or not. Males were consistently rated as smarter than women. The study concluded that “some sexism is evident in the american student environment.”
In another study undertaken by the University of Missouri, researchers found that “physically attractive” students are consistently seen more favourably in terms of intelligence, academic ability and social excellence.
Honing in on attractiveness even further, researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry concluded that a more symmetrical smile influenced how intelligent a person was judged to be.
Then take the research of two Psychologists from the University of New Mexico, who found that the funnier we are, the more intelligent we’re thought to be. Apparently, men generally score better in this area.
What does all this mean? Essentially, it means that we all make judgements about how “smart” others are by what we see and hear. We don’t usually look at someone’s credentials, then assess how attractive they are. It’s the other way round. So it’s little wonder the men in the American study reacted the way they did.
Telling a person they are about to meet someone “really smart” is like sending a message to the brain that “you’re about to meet someone beautiful and sexy”. So when they actually meet the person…perhaps they don’t match with what their imagination cooked up. Then what about all the other things that feature in attraction – similar interests, age, personality? None of these, or any other aspect of attraction, was addressed in the study.
In fact, the researchers themselves admitted that further studies needed to be done before setting anything in stone.
So for now, nothing’s confirmed. Except, perhaps, that we certainly are influenced by fashion, good looks, and are all hoping for success in long term relationships.
Great article!