There has been a good deal of buzz about a recent study published in the British Journal of Psychology.
Apparently, a study revealed that, while women found a man in a Bentley more attractive than a man in a Ford Fiesta, men were oblivious when confronted with the same choice.
Is anyone else bothered by surveys like this? It seems there is a new one every few months, they tend to codify sexuality in very stereotypical ways. Of course there are biological and evolutionary mechanisms which guide attraction. Should we study them? Sure. But as soon as results like this are published, everyone seems to say things like, "See women really are shallow when it comes to attraction." or, "See! Women are nesters, and men are the virile spawn-spreaders!"
I think instead these surveys say more about the researchers and as us as an audience than about their subjects. Perhaps we should ask things like, what makes us interested in surveys like this? What results were the researchers hoping for?
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My first year in uni I took intro psyc and it's propaganda like this that turned me against the American Psychiatric Association. I just didnt have any more interest in taking in this sort of bullshit. I havent felt more angry and sad about the state of our society as I have in psyc class.
Right. It couldn't possibly be that so many women are trained from birth to be a pretty trophy wife for a rich dude, so a guy in an expensive car would seem more likely to fulfill that expectation.
No matter what the defense from the womans side it will end up being a mine trap for her. If she says that "you could tell whether or not he's successful from his car, has insurance, ect, (I mean, he is driving around a banged up car)" she's accused of being superficial, and/or only looking for a guy who has money to pander to some cave like impulse to be taken care of by Man. if she went for the banged up one, they would accuse her of having low standards, ect. If she likes sports/nice cars (and drives one herself) and is into guys with her same interests isnt even considered. Its not like you can tell anything about the character of the eprson driving, so who isnt going to generally pick (and I'm sure they werent committed to the decisions knowing full well how superficially based they were) the one who shows better living quality. Essentially shes guilty until proven innocent in these authors eyes.
It's not so much that these studies are overwhelming the field of psychology or being produced at a highly prolific rate, but they are reported on much more frequently than other studies that are either: a) hard for the layperson to understand or b) not good for selling papers. The study itself is not so remarkable (though I can't comment on whether or not it's even good science since I can't read the full article from this computer and the abstract is iffy), but what is strange is Dr. Dunn's purported comments at the end of the Telegraph piece.
Many times when a "shock" report comes out like this, newspapers turn to an outside expert that may or may not do something related to the paper being analyzed for their literary attention-grabbing quotes. However, in this case it is the paper author himself.
The fact that a psychology researcher would belt out a casual comment like "Let's face it - there's evidence to support [the fact that women are shallower than men]" for a newspaper is very unnerving. That is not to say scientists are infallible and unbiased, but that particular comment is extremely broadbrush (not to mention lacking a desirable level of tact). At the same time, because the interview is not written in straight Q&A transcript format, the question may not have been exactly that and his answer may actually mean something else.
Let me point out that after evolutionary theory caught on in the public imagination, bigots of all creeds were quick to repackage their message in evolutionary terms and thus some scientists spend much of their careers trying to prove things like the inherent low IQ of black people or the inherent inability of women to perform complex mathematics. It is very difficult to challenge the authoritative power of science, so many fields adopt science-like terminology and processes in order to make their points. They need not prove that all black people are stupid or all women are shallow, only that those groups have an evolutionary predisposition toward stupidness or shallowness. This allows them to retain the existing power structure and dismiss intelligent people who are, say, black or female, as flukes.
Why does this matter? Because then it's possible to write off the lack of women engineers as an issue of female intelligence rather than a hostile environment or the uncooperative attitude of male colleagues. Then it's possible to justify the poverty of blacks and other minorities as a function of their race rather than environmental pressures.
There are other things I could touch upon to make this an even longer meandering screed, but I'll have to check the article out later before I make further judgments.
I've seen reports of studies like this. A man is perceived to be more attractive when he has a higher paying job, nicer car, etc. The conclusion was that women instinctively look for men who can take care of them. Man with a Bentley = man with money = man who can take care of me (?) I'm not a scientist, so I can't speak to the validity of the "findings."
I also think that these "findings" cannot speak for all women! Notice that some women really go for bikers with tattoos. Some women go for men who wear suits and ties. Some women don't go for men at all.
Remember those Cadillac commercials awhile ago? An attractive woman is driving a new Cadillac and listing her "vices": "Celebrity fashion magazines...and driving up to the men's club in one of these." Advertisers spend piles of money researching what would influence a person to purchase a product or service.
I agree that it's pretty shallow. Surface level stuff is the first thing we see about a person. Sadly, we've come to associate "stuff" with the value of a person. And in our materialistic society, there are opportunities to be shallow about *everything*! I've had my own shallow moments!
Final note: I am slightly amused that they compared a Bentley and a Festiva. Bentleys are more of a collectors item than a car. Ford Festivas are super compact, fuel efficient cars are the less-expensive end of the spectrum.
What's really interesting to me is the fact that they asked the question to begin with. It reveals the assumption on the part of the researchers that women do prefer men with money. This seems really obvious and straight-forward to me, but many people object to this and act like it's an attack on the objectivity and neutrality of researchers. So then I wonder, if they're really that neutral, then why aren't they doing studies to see if left-handed people prefer Bentley drivers more than right-handed people, or people with inny belly buttons are more biased toward the Bentley than people with outty belly buttons, etc?
What they should be doing after these studies is citing the data that point out that the greater trend for men and women alike is to partner with people with similar status, education and even looks.
And I love how one person in the comments section seems to think that being struck by beauty is less shallow than the allure of cash---Because beauty is part of the "real person TM"...yeah right.
And what about the women who just want the car and not the driver? What's the psychological explanation for that?
In my marketing text book it says that women own the majority of sports cars than men, in spite of the stereotypes of the guy drooling over the sports car. So, she may be digging the car over the guy. Then again, you may also just have a woman who says, "either which way I'm not likely to meet a decent guy (non-sexist douchbag) so I might as well go for the material thing, which is least likely to cause a decrease in the quality of my life." Also a woman may not judge a guy on his personality because so many men are unlikely to want to display it due to pressures to conform to a inhibitive (assholish) construct of masculinity so the women focus more on the material thing as they assume his personality isnt going to make much of a difference. Its something indocrinated rather than anything inherent about them. I also agree that women are raised to see things (like men) in a certain light and this also biases the results and doesnt prove anything. The author obviously wants to see things the way his biases want and he just feels a superficial "study" will allow him to be open about his assholish misogyny. He thinks he can styupidly point to the results and think it cloaks his obvious biases.
I agree that these studies are very upsetting. The other day I was watching the Discovery Channel that had a special on biological attraction. They took surveys of women on the streets and showed pictures of men, asking them to rate their attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10. They did this once without giving their yearly salary, and once including a yearly salary.
The women gave higher numbers to the stereotypically "attractive" men and lower numbers to the "average" men. However, the low salaries were then attributed to the stereotypically "attractive" men and higher salaries to the "average" men. The men with the higher salaries got rated higher this time around.
The problem is that they attributed this to "biological" reasons, that it is innate for women to seek money and a man to support her. They failed to mention that the average woman is conditioned by a sexist media and society (not to mention sometimes family and friends) to think these are the things she should be looking for.
anyways, having money is typically a sign of keeness and savvy. Who wouldnt find that attractive? I find that attractive in women also.
"anyways, having money is typically a sign of keeness and savvy. Who wouldnt find that attractive? I find that attractive in women also."
Thank you Gopher! My point exactly! And who's to say that some of the men in this study were'nt maybe telling half-truths? It sounds like most of them were! Half-truths based on what they THINK they should say to fit in with what they are TOLD they should find attractive by society!
I own my own business....and there are PLENTY of men who a) assume I am loaded (I wish) and b) find me EXTREMELY attractive as soon as they find that out!
There is nothing WRONG with that - people can be attracted to what they want...just commenting on the sexist nature of the study!
And also - men are socially conditioned to go for beauty in a woman as much as women are conditioned to go for wealth....and going for beauty is every bit as superficial! But hey...that can never be studied or critisized can it!!!
And just to be clear Gopher - that was not a critisizm of your comments, personally. Your comments just showed to me that men and women can all be attracted to different things and that this study is just basic, standard, sexist bull.
Yes, these studies seem like easy ways for the media as well as the scientific community to re-affirm gender roles as biology, despite the fact that responses can be culturally conditioned. In fact, other studies suggest that what you say to someone before giving a test can change his or her answer. For example, if you tell women and men of color that the standardized test they are taking is one that people of their socio-economic group perform well on, they will actually perform better! Just by telling them they will! So I can imagine a scenario in which women are encouraged to answer one way, and men another. But the reporting in this case does not reflect that.
Oops, I'm not quite done.
God forbid they ask women to meet these men and take into account their actual personalities.
Also, by the logic they just presented in this half-assed study, they could use battered women who stay with their abuser to prove that women naturally want to be beaten. But of course, not all women stay with their abusers, and not all women would have chosen the man with the higher salary.
It sounds like your problem is not with the study per se but rather with the reporting. That's pretty much a problem with mainstream media reporting on science in general - only the stuff that can easily be broken down into soundbites gets mentioned, and then it also gets mangled.
The entire "study" is a joke and meant to make women seem within a certain negative light and used to uphold patriarchal perspectives about the genders and excuse mens misogyny. Of course a woman would rate the guy with the Bently above that of the crapped up Fiesta! Who wouldnt? I'm sure they could dredge one up that shows the same thing about guys.
I would like to see a study showing lesbians and bisexuals and there views on both genders in the same scenario. Something to break up this female dependancy evolutionary theory claim. I would also like to see how het women perceive nice cars/ banged up cars when driven by other women. Is it along the same "findings?"