November 9, 2007
Intelligence, Ambition, Looks — But Not in that Order
“We found that men did put significantly more weight on their assessment of a partner’s beauty, when choosing, than women did … By contrast, intelligence ratings were more than twice as important in predicting women’s choices as men’s … men avoided women whom they perceived to be smarter than themselves. The same held true for measures of career ambition—a woman could be ambitious, just not more ambitious than the man considering her for a date. When women were the ones choosing, the more intelligence and ambition the men had, the better.
Women of all the races we studied revealed a strong preference for men of their own race: White women were more likely to choose white men; black women preferred black men; East Asian women preferred East Asian men; Hispanic women preferred Hispanic men. But men don’t seem to discriminate based on race when it comes to dating. A woman’s race had no effect on the men’s choices.
We found no evidence of the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women. However, we also found that East Asian women did not discriminate against white men (only against black and Hispanic men). As a result, the white man-Asian woman pairing was the most common form of interracial dating—but because of the women’s neutrality, not the men’s pronounced preference.”
Fascinating, but what explains the fact that East Asian women do not discriminate against goofy white men?
November 9th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
“what explains the fact that East Asian women do not discriminate against goofy white men?” - after working many asians over the years and hearing them joke that all white people look similar to them as some people joke asians all look similar- maybe they think you are the imported version of george clooney or brad pitt. or maybe it’s because you have $$$
November 9th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
pete: I look like a cross between Clooney and Pitt *and* I have more money than those guys combined. ;-)
November 10th, 2007 at 5:19 am
And that is why you will seldom see an asian male with a black female
November 12th, 2007 at 10:07 am
As a white male with average looks, over the course of the years in Japan people told me that I looked like whichever Hollywood star was hot at the time. Michael Douglas, Kevin Costner, Mickey Rourke, Tom Hanks, etc. I even had a vacuum cleaner salesman tell me I looked like “that guy from Titanic.” So the first post is not far off, I think.
November 12th, 2007 at 10:12 am
talkingdog: Good point, except no one has told me I look anything like either Will Smith or Denzel Washington.