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> heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height. Your impression may be biased, in part, because it's easy to mea

by freyr 11y ago

> heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height. Your impression may be biased, in part, because it's easy to measure height and create studies based around it. My friend is handsome and rather short, whereas I'm tall and average looking. Despite what the studies say, women throw themselves at him whenever we go out, and he has a ridiculous match rate on Tinder. While height may be one of many factors influencing attraction, it is in no way an overriding critical factor as your statement suggests.

enraged_camel 11y ago
>>While height may be one of many factors influencing attraction, it is in no way an overriding critical factor as your statement suggests. He didn't say overriding critical factor. He said a critical factor. Yes, short but handsome men are also attractive. But nowhere as attractive as they would be if they were taller.
- freyr 11y ago
  And tall and average-looking men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were tall and handsome. What's your point? Poor and handsome men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were rich. And rich and timid men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were confident. In real life, being handsome generally wins out over being tall, despite many men who fixate on height as a critical factor holding them back. Why is this? Maybe it's easier for someone to imagine himself as taller rather than as more handsome. You could be taller without altering the physical traits that you associate with your identity. Or perhaps most men think of themselves as handsome, whether or not they really are. > "He said a critical factor." >> "heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height." I stand by my assertion that his phrasing implies height is the critical criteria. Of course, this doesn't quite make sense grammatically.
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    Handsomeness is subjective. Height is objective. You're comparing apples and bananas.
    - freyr 11y ago
      You've arrived at my original point: we see so many studies that focus on height because height is unambiguous and so easy to measure. This "scientific proof," in turn, makes it seem like a bigger factor than it is. Handsomeness (or physical beauty) is difficult to quantify and therefore much harder to study. Yet that doesn't make it any less of a critical factor to attraction as it plays out in the real world.
wfo 11y ago
He's talking about studies and data, not "this one time my friend" stories.
- freyr 11y ago
  Absolutely, and my claim is that height gets overrepresented in studies on attraction because it's so easy to measure. This leads to borderline-absurd statements like: > heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height. In the real world, attraction is significantly more complex than this implies. It's obvious (to anyone who has observed attraction, rather than just read a study about it) that many factors are involved, most are hard to quantify, and these will underrepresented in studies and data.

by freyr 11y ago

enraged_camel 11y ago

>>While height may be one of many factors influencing attraction, it is in no way an overriding critical factor as your statement suggests. He didn't say overriding critical factor. He said a critical factor. Yes, short but handsome men are also attractive. But nowhere as attractive as they would be if they were taller.

freyr 11y ago
And tall and average-looking men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were tall and handsome. What's your point? Poor and handsome men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were rich. And rich and timid men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were confident. In real life, being handsome generally wins out over being tall, despite many men who fixate on height as a critical factor holding them back. Why is this? Maybe it's easier for someone to imagine himself as taller rather than as more handsome. You could be taller without altering the physical traits that you associate with your identity. Or perhaps most men think of themselves as handsome, whether or not they really are. > "He said a critical factor." >> "heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height." I stand by my assertion that his phrasing implies height is the critical criteria. Of course, this doesn't quite make sense grammatically.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  Handsomeness is subjective. Height is objective. You're comparing apples and bananas.
  - freyr 11y ago
    You've arrived at my original point: we see so many studies that focus on height because height is unambiguous and so easy to measure. This "scientific proof," in turn, makes it seem like a bigger factor than it is. Handsomeness (or physical beauty) is difficult to quantify and therefore much harder to study. Yet that doesn't make it any less of a critical factor to attraction as it plays out in the real world.

wfo 11y ago

He's talking about studies and data, not "this one time my friend" stories.

freyr 11y ago
Absolutely, and my claim is that height gets overrepresented in studies on attraction because it's so easy to measure. This leads to borderline-absurd statements like: > heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height. In the real world, attraction is significantly more complex than this implies. It's obvious (to anyone who has observed attraction, rather than just read a study about it) that many factors are involved, most are hard to quantify, and these will underrepresented in studies and data.