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There is a very interesting study that analyzed men and women height preference using a large speed-dating sample. The results clearly showed that being taller

by gpt5 4y ago

There is a very interesting study that analyzed men and women height preference using a large speed-dating sample. The results clearly showed that being taller increase men chances of getting a yes - no matter how tall you are, and no matter what the woman initially stated as their max ideal height! Scroll through the charts below. The entire article is worth reading due to the solid methodology that removed most biases involved in these studies. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-effect-of-male-and-female-height-on-a-the-likelihood-of-giving-a-Yes-response_fig1_236670565 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-effect-of-male-and-f...

toomuchtodo 4y ago
My favorite part (from a modern anthropological perspective) of this relationship is while there is a height/income relationship with men’s desirability, the amount of income a less attractive woman needs is an incredible multiple to be competitive with a more attractive woman. It speaks in market terms to the lizard brain of the species and what it values (not to mention that women primarily filter by physical attractiveness upfront when selecting but switch to warmth and other personality traits long term). It is the most raw, brutal marketplace experience imho. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61.4010 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61....
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  Table 5.4 and 5.5 show that income is nearly a non-factor for men selecting women. It is not a differentiating variable that men factor in at all. Whereas it is an easy lifehack for a less visually attractive man (5.4), or simply shorter man (5.5) to be selected by a woman, if they make more. I don't get the impression anything has changed since that study in 2006. I don't even think the same study could be done now given how broken online dating services have become now. A corollary of this, more related to this forum, is that this is a greater aspect of workplace gender and earning inequality than readjusting the workplace for women. Greater displacement of workers would occur if women were interested in having a lower earning man in subsidy, because many men would leave the workplace for that option. The option of unpaid household and emotional labor that is overrepresented by, and a predictable option for, women. The people interested in that role are probably a more even distribution across society.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/do-women-really-value-income-over-looks-in-a-mate/ https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/do-women-really-v... (blog post based on the same paper referenced in my parent comment) > Really what we want to do is observe people’s choices directly which is why dating websites are so useful to us. Here’s an example. What if I have a hypothesis that when choosing a mate, men care more about their potential partner’s appearance than her income and women care more about her potential partner’s income than his appearance. Imagine the following experiment. A woman/man can choose between communicating with two people. One earns $60,000 a year and is more attractive than 9 out of 10 people on the market. The other earns X dollars per year and is less attractive than 9 out of 10 people on the market. Every other observable characteristic about these two people is identical. We can use the information that tells us who individuals choose to communicate with to determine what X would have to be in order to make a woman/man prefer the less attractive person. > Researchers have done this and find that for men there is no amount of income that the woman in the bottom ten percent in terms of appearance can earn to make men prefer her over women in the top 10 percent. That is, looks really matter to men relative to income. For women though, if the man in the bottom ten percent in terms of looks earns more than $248,500, they will prefer him over the more attractive guy earning $60,000. My students often interpret this result as saying that women really care about money, but that is not what it says at all—$186,000 is a huge difference in income. If women didn’t care about looks and only cared about money, the figure would be much, much lower. This says that despite the impression that on the marriage market women really care about income, the evidence suggest that they also care about looks. They just care about income too.
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      interesting article, there is so much more to illuminate from that than just scrutinizing women's choices with curiosity and disdain, I think it is also illuminating to look at what men learn: the intimidatingly attractive woman has the same social anxieties as the woman in the bottom ten percent. the person that's beautiful on the outside, is also beautiful on the inside, despite many woman in the bottom ten percent relying on the "inner beauty" becoming their whole identity and sales pitch. the income isn't interesting and barely a factor at all, the marketable skills to potentially generate income aren't that interesting (but a common interest might be), the education to potentially generate income isn't that interesting serving only to change the social circle to meet potentially stable partners with economic prowess. so its deduces to men continuing to just try for the more visually/sexually attractive person.
bombcar 4y ago
Robert Pershing Wadlow has entered the chat. I assume at 7 feet or so you start getting more yeses just because of the novelty.

by gpt5 4y ago

toomuchtodo 4y ago

My favorite part (from a modern anthropological perspective) of this relationship is while there is a height/income relationship with men’s desirability, the amount of income a less attractive woman needs is an incredible multiple to be competitive with a more attractive woman. It speaks in market terms to the lizard brain of the species and what it values (not to mention that women primarily filter by physical attractiveness upfront when selecting but switch to warmth and other personality traits long term). It is the most raw, brutal marketplace experience imho. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61.4010 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61....

yieldcrv 4y ago
Table 5.4 and 5.5 show that income is nearly a non-factor for men selecting women. It is not a differentiating variable that men factor in at all. Whereas it is an easy lifehack for a less visually attractive man (5.4), or simply shorter man (5.5) to be selected by a woman, if they make more. I don't get the impression anything has changed since that study in 2006. I don't even think the same study could be done now given how broken online dating services have become now. A corollary of this, more related to this forum, is that this is a greater aspect of workplace gender and earning inequality than readjusting the workplace for women. Greater displacement of workers would occur if women were interested in having a lower earning man in subsidy, because many men would leave the workplace for that option. The option of unpaid household and emotional labor that is overrepresented by, and a predictable option for, women. The people interested in that role are probably a more even distribution across society.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/do-women-really-value-income-over-looks-in-a-mate/ https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/do-women-really-v... (blog post based on the same paper referenced in my parent comment) > Really what we want to do is observe people’s choices directly which is why dating websites are so useful to us. Here’s an example. What if I have a hypothesis that when choosing a mate, men care more about their potential partner’s appearance than her income and women care more about her potential partner’s income than his appearance. Imagine the following experiment. A woman/man can choose between communicating with two people. One earns $60,000 a year and is more attractive than 9 out of 10 people on the market. The other earns X dollars per year and is less attractive than 9 out of 10 people on the market. Every other observable characteristic about these two people is identical. We can use the information that tells us who individuals choose to communicate with to determine what X would have to be in order to make a woman/man prefer the less attractive person. > Researchers have done this and find that for men there is no amount of income that the woman in the bottom ten percent in terms of appearance can earn to make men prefer her over women in the top 10 percent. That is, looks really matter to men relative to income. For women though, if the man in the bottom ten percent in terms of looks earns more than $248,500, they will prefer him over the more attractive guy earning $60,000. My students often interpret this result as saying that women really care about money, but that is not what it says at all—$186,000 is a huge difference in income. If women didn’t care about looks and only cared about money, the figure would be much, much lower. This says that despite the impression that on the marriage market women really care about income, the evidence suggest that they also care about looks. They just care about income too.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    interesting article, there is so much more to illuminate from that than just scrutinizing women's choices with curiosity and disdain, I think it is also illuminating to look at what men learn: the intimidatingly attractive woman has the same social anxieties as the woman in the bottom ten percent. the person that's beautiful on the outside, is also beautiful on the inside, despite many woman in the bottom ten percent relying on the "inner beauty" becoming their whole identity and sales pitch. the income isn't interesting and barely a factor at all, the marketable skills to potentially generate income aren't that interesting (but a common interest might be), the education to potentially generate income isn't that interesting serving only to change the social circle to meet potentially stable partners with economic prowess. so its deduces to men continuing to just try for the more visually/sexually attractive person.

bombcar 4y ago

Robert Pershing Wadlow has entered the chat. I assume at 7 feet or so you start getting more yeses just because of the novelty.