7 ms·

Women Prefer Poaching

67 points by rams 17y ago

wallflower 17y ago
"Similarly, a person who has been unemployed for a long time may have a hard time finding a new job - even if they are highly skilled and qualified. Potential employers attribute wrongly the person's lack of employment to the person rather than the situation. This causes the potential employers to search more intensively for flaws or other negative characteristics that are "congruent" with or explain the person's failure and to discount the applicant's virtues." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof
- pwnix_rising 17y ago
  I hate this about human nature: the fact that resources are available to those who don't need them and denied to those who do. It seems that most people have a tendency to kick others when they're down. This is why bullying works, and it's why above-average but "beta" men go down the Sodini route. This tendency would be a prime candidate for a trait to weed out of the human species if eugenics ever gets underway.
- nopassrecover 17y ago
  It's pretty obvious one would have thought. Success is a better confirmation than alleged ability.
- mhartl 17y ago
  Social proof doesn't explain the result adequately; to wit: Conversely, men rate women as less desirable when they are surrounded by other men, compared to being alone or surrounded by other women.
  - wallflower 17y ago
    Social proof can't explain it but I've known very few individuals who have the guts to approach a party of mixed sexes (e.g. who are couples - when it's all women - you can assume they're just socializing, not dating (usually)). Actually, it doesn't matter whether it's all women or mixed - still intimidating. The times I've done it / the first twenty seconds after you have broached their airspace is among the most scary and exhilirating experiences. The more women, the better. Do not hover! For bonus points, sidle over and drag a chair loudly from one side of a room to where they are and sit down (presuming they are seated, you have most likely pulled off the icebreaker that needs no icebreaker)
- Confusion 17y ago
  That's not the most relevant Wikipedia link you could give. This is called the fundamental attribution error: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
tokenadult 17y ago
Upvoted for interesting implications. I'm not sure if the study design or sample size http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html reported here inspires confidence in the conclusion, but this would definitely be an issue worth investigating some more. I'm not sure how many men would guess this, or for that matter how many women would guess what this article says about men. I can think of one example of a woman I knew (back when I was single) who seemed to be signalling to me that she wanted me to "poach" her by telling me she had a boyfriend. But to me that was just off-putting. (I was already put off from a romantic relationship with her--I knew her strictly through studies we were both pursuing at the time.)
- pwnix_rising 17y ago
  I can think of one example of a woman I knew (back when I was single) who seemed to be signalling to me that she wanted me to "poach" her by telling me she had a boyfriend. I think you can generally assume the opposite. If a girl mentions a boyfriend, she's not romantically interested. They know that men have a visceral dislike for hearing the words "my boyfriend" from an attractive woman's mouth. It's either that or she wants you to inquire about her sister, which is a fully justified response to the mention of a boyfriend.
- llimllib 17y ago
  > I'm not sure how many men would guess this, or for that matter how many women would guess what this article says about men Really? I've always believed it to be common wisdom that some women strongly prefer men in relationships.
manish 17y ago
Looks like VC's and women have something in common.
- jacoblyles 17y ago
  The fact that someone likes you is a badge of value. Social proof. This is also why guys that go to bars with friends have a significantly lower chance of being labeled "creepy" than a guy that goes by himself.
  - wallflower 17y ago
    > being labeled "creepy I've noticed that when I go somewhere with a friend, even if just one, I feel like I can hang out forever. While, if I were to go to a bar by myself, even though that's easy to do, it's not fun - I feel über self conscious (everyone is looking at me / even though that is probably your false perception). When you go to a bar by yourself, you have to invest a lot of your energy to initially meet people (think of the times when you've been travelling and in a place where you know no one). And, on the social side, when I am out with a female friend, I feel even more confident and feel like I have license to flirt shamelessly with near everyone. I feel going out with friends can give you the support base to go out and venture. However, too many friends can devolve into the classic circle-the-wagons formation. Of course, there is the social hack of working the room that nearly always works and requires fearless action: start with one, engage him/her, offer him/her an opportunity to approach with him/her to a group or leave, engage the group confidently, wave at someone in another group, etc. Done confidently and charmingly, it is quite a feeling / to bootstrap yourself from a loner to someone other people are looking at and wondering 'who is this guy?'
biotech 17y ago
A woman can only bear a single man's child in a 9 month period. A woman with a large number of male suiters is theorectially less appealing, since the chance of successful mating (where successful -> results in offspring in the near future) is very low (assuming each man has an equal chance, it's essentially 1/(#ofSuiters) ). In reality, the energy cost of impregnating a woman is so low that it doesn't really matter that much, since he doesn't actually have to bear the child. A man can impregnate many woman in this same period of time. All of these woman have a good chance of creating offspring, so the main concern of an individual woman is finding a man who will be able to provide for her child. This is a complex requirement - it isn't necessarily sufficient to just look at a man to gauge his ability to secure resources. Also, the energy cost of becoming pregnant is extremely high for a woman. Therefore, the woman reacts based on a large number of variables. She also assumes that other woman are searching for a man based on similar requirements, so the fact that a man is surrounded by other woman increases his value as a potential mate. I realize that this simplifies things quite a bit, but I think the fundamental argument is sound.
- jacoblyles 17y ago
  Perhaps it is because the man that other women like is likely to have offspring that are also attractive. In other words, women like what other women like because other women will like it, which is evolutionarily beneficial.
- jonny_noog 17y ago
  Completely anecdotal, but kind of along similar lines: I have heard from female friends and and other less personal sources that often times women feel more comfortable around men they don't know who have an observable female partner because it indicates (if even only on a near unconscious level) that this man is most likely "safer" than a man they don't know who does not have a partner. That is, the man's female companion has "tested the water", he's likely not a serial killer, by having a partner he's demonstrating right there and then that he can commit to more than a one night stand etc.
  - TriinT 17y ago
bootload 17y ago
"... Conversely, men rate women as less desirable when they are surrounded by other men ..." I think "Flight of the Concords" got this one right (nsfw) ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wl_uQOABxg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wl_uQOABxg
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Flight of the concHords is great stuff, check out 'jenny' and 'business time' too if you have a minute or ten... and 'the humans are dead'
  - dave_au 17y ago
    "If you're into it" is also pretty sweet. For several meanings of the word. Kind of. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0
rokhayakebe 17y ago
EDIT: A simple proof to this would be to set your facebook profile to "In a relationship" and go out and add ten random beautiful women as friends. Do the same with "Single" and you will end with significantly lower amount of "accepted".
- natrius 17y ago
  That's not really proof of this. Randomly friending someone of the opposite gender is usually interpreted as a creepy attempt to pursue someone. If they're in a relationship, that motive has to be incorrect. Maybe it's someone you know from somewhere, or someone who likes your work. In that mindset, accepting the request is far more likely.
  - rokhayakebe 17y ago
    The way I understood this article is that women are more interested in guys who are not single whether they know him or not. This experiment will prove just that.
    - natrius 17y ago
      The experiment doesn't measure interest; it measures the likelihood of accepting a friend request. Accepting a friend request is not strong evidence of romantic interest due to the interactions I described.
kqr2 17y ago
This study of the "Wedding Ring Effect" (abstract only) suggests otherwise: http://www.springerlink.com/content/hn2ufdx4rruyllnc/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/hn2ufdx4rruyllnc/ The results show that women do not find men signaling engagement, or being perceived as having a partner, more attractive or higher in socioeconomic status. Furthermore, signs of engagement did not influence the women’s reported willingness to engage in short-term or long-term relationships with the men.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  Interesting. Another study with a different finding. Now there is some scope for methodological discussion about how the data were gathered and interpreted.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
lucumo 17y ago
> Across ten world regions, 57% of men and 35% of women indicated they had engaged in an attempt at mate poaching, … people who mate poach are more likely to be low in agreeableness and conscientiousness than those who do not. Interestingly, it seems that while women prefer it, they do it a whole lot less than men. And that men that are in a relationship may be more attractive, but the women they will get will on average be less nice...
- gaius 17y ago
  If you steal someone, then all you get is someone who is easily stolen. It's never worth it.
  - lucumo 17y ago
    And if you let yourself be stolen, all you get is a thief... Honesty is really a good policy here.
bravura 17y ago
"Research on human preferences does show that women rate men as more desirable when they are surrounded by other women, compared to being alone or surrounded by other men. Conversely, men rate women as less desirable when they are surrounded by other men, compared to being alone or surrounded by other women." In other words, men are undesirable in heterosexual culture. So we conclude that, if you're a guy, your only hope is to find a hot bisexual girlfriend and then surround yourself by women that she likes.
radu_floricica 17y ago
It's a pretty well know effect predicted by evolutionary psychology (and confirmed in several species). Basically, no matter what strategy female use to identify good mates it can be improved by peeking at what other female do. "Poaching" is also very cheap and relatively safe (as far as identifying goes), so it would be more popular with females/males who don't have other good criteria.
onreact-com 17y ago
Why don't submit the source instead, it's just a citation? http://www.synergy-pr.com/press/MelissaBurkley,PhD/51/800/0 http://www.synergy-pr.com/press/MelissaBurkley,PhD/51/800/0
balding_n_tired 17y ago
There's a bit about this in _The Book of Laughter and Forgetting_, roughly to the effect that women don't want handsome men, they want men with beautiful consorts.
- Psyonic 17y ago
  Crazy. I just read that book about a month ago, but certainly didn't expect to see it mentioned here. Fantastic book

67 points by rams 17y ago

"Similarly, a person who has been unemployed for a long time may have a hard time finding a new job - even if they are highly skilled and qualified. Potential employers attribute wrongly the person's lack of employment to the person rather than the situation. This causes the potential employers to search more intensively for flaws or other negative characteristics that are "congruent" with or explain the person's failure and to discount the applicant's virtues." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof

pwnix_rising 17y ago
I hate this about human nature: the fact that resources are available to those who don't need them and denied to those who do. It seems that most people have a tendency to kick others when they're down. This is why bullying works, and it's why above-average but "beta" men go down the Sodini route. This tendency would be a prime candidate for a trait to weed out of the human species if eugenics ever gets underway.
nopassrecover 17y ago
It's pretty obvious one would have thought. Success is a better confirmation than alleged ability.
mhartl 17y ago
Social proof doesn't explain the result adequately; to wit: Conversely, men rate women as less desirable when they are surrounded by other men, compared to being alone or surrounded by other women.
- wallflower 17y ago
  Social proof can't explain it but I've known very few individuals who have the guts to approach a party of mixed sexes (e.g. who are couples - when it's all women - you can assume they're just socializing, not dating (usually)). Actually, it doesn't matter whether it's all women or mixed - still intimidating. The times I've done it / the first twenty seconds after you have broached their airspace is among the most scary and exhilirating experiences. The more women, the better. Do not hover! For bonus points, sidle over and drag a chair loudly from one side of a room to where they are and sit down (presuming they are seated, you have most likely pulled off the icebreaker that needs no icebreaker)
Confusion 17y ago
That's not the most relevant Wikipedia link you could give. This is called the fundamental attribution error: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

tokenadult 17y ago

Upvoted for interesting implications. I'm not sure if the study design or sample size http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html reported here inspires confidence in the conclusion, but this would definitely be an issue worth investigating some more. I'm not sure how many men would guess this, or for that matter how many women would guess what this article says about men. I can think of one example of a woman I knew (back when I was single) who seemed to be signalling to me that she wanted me to "poach" her by telling me she had a boyfriend. But to me that was just off-putting. (I was already put off from a romantic relationship with her--I knew her strictly through studies we were both pursuing at the time.)

pwnix_rising 17y ago
I can think of one example of a woman I knew (back when I was single) who seemed to be signalling to me that she wanted me to "poach" her by telling me she had a boyfriend. I think you can generally assume the opposite. If a girl mentions a boyfriend, she's not romantically interested. They know that men have a visceral dislike for hearing the words "my boyfriend" from an attractive woman's mouth. It's either that or she wants you to inquire about her sister, which is a fully justified response to the mention of a boyfriend.
llimllib 17y ago
> I'm not sure how many men would guess this, or for that matter how many women would guess what this article says about men Really? I've always believed it to be common wisdom that some women strongly prefer men in relationships.

manish 17y ago

Looks like VC's and women have something in common.

jacoblyles 17y ago
The fact that someone likes you is a badge of value. Social proof. This is also why guys that go to bars with friends have a significantly lower chance of being labeled "creepy" than a guy that goes by himself.
- wallflower 17y ago
  > being labeled "creepy I've noticed that when I go somewhere with a friend, even if just one, I feel like I can hang out forever. While, if I were to go to a bar by myself, even though that's easy to do, it's not fun - I feel über self conscious (everyone is looking at me / even though that is probably your false perception). When you go to a bar by yourself, you have to invest a lot of your energy to initially meet people (think of the times when you've been travelling and in a place where you know no one). And, on the social side, when I am out with a female friend, I feel even more confident and feel like I have license to flirt shamelessly with near everyone. I feel going out with friends can give you the support base to go out and venture. However, too many friends can devolve into the classic circle-the-wagons formation. Of course, there is the social hack of working the room that nearly always works and requires fearless action: start with one, engage him/her, offer him/her an opportunity to approach with him/her to a group or leave, engage the group confidently, wave at someone in another group, etc. Done confidently and charmingly, it is quite a feeling / to bootstrap yourself from a loner to someone other people are looking at and wondering 'who is this guy?'

biotech 17y ago

A woman can only bear a single man's child in a 9 month period. A woman with a large number of male suiters is theorectially less appealing, since the chance of successful mating (where successful -> results in offspring in the near future) is very low (assuming each man has an equal chance, it's essentially 1/(#ofSuiters) ). In reality, the energy cost of impregnating a woman is so low that it doesn't really matter that much, since he doesn't actually have to bear the child. A man can impregnate many woman in this same period of time. All of these woman have a good chance of creating offspring, so the main concern of an individual woman is finding a man who will be able to provide for her child. This is a complex requirement - it isn't necessarily sufficient to just look at a man to gauge his ability to secure resources. Also, the energy cost of becoming pregnant is extremely high for a woman. Therefore, the woman reacts based on a large number of variables. She also assumes that other woman are searching for a man based on similar requirements, so the fact that a man is surrounded by other woman increases his value as a potential mate. I realize that this simplifies things quite a bit, but I think the fundamental argument is sound.

jacoblyles 17y ago
Perhaps it is because the man that other women like is likely to have offspring that are also attractive. In other words, women like what other women like because other women will like it, which is evolutionarily beneficial.
jonny_noog 17y ago
Completely anecdotal, but kind of along similar lines: I have heard from female friends and and other less personal sources that often times women feel more comfortable around men they don't know who have an observable female partner because it indicates (if even only on a near unconscious level) that this man is most likely "safer" than a man they don't know who does not have a partner. That is, the man's female companion has "tested the water", he's likely not a serial killer, by having a partner he's demonstrating right there and then that he can commit to more than a one night stand etc.
- TriinT 17y ago

bootload 17y ago

"... Conversely, men rate women as less desirable when they are surrounded by other men ..." I think "Flight of the Concords" got this one right (nsfw) ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wl_uQOABxg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wl_uQOABxg

jacquesm 17y ago
Flight of the concHords is great stuff, check out 'jenny' and 'business time' too if you have a minute or ten... and 'the humans are dead'
- dave_au 17y ago
  "If you're into it" is also pretty sweet. For several meanings of the word. Kind of. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0

rokhayakebe 17y ago

EDIT: A simple proof to this would be to set your facebook profile to "In a relationship" and go out and add ten random beautiful women as friends. Do the same with "Single" and you will end with significantly lower amount of "accepted".

natrius 17y ago
That's not really proof of this. Randomly friending someone of the opposite gender is usually interpreted as a creepy attempt to pursue someone. If they're in a relationship, that motive has to be incorrect. Maybe it's someone you know from somewhere, or someone who likes your work. In that mindset, accepting the request is far more likely.
- rokhayakebe 17y ago
  The way I understood this article is that women are more interested in guys who are not single whether they know him or not. This experiment will prove just that.
  - natrius 17y ago
    The experiment doesn't measure interest; it measures the likelihood of accepting a friend request. Accepting a friend request is not strong evidence of romantic interest due to the interactions I described.

kqr2 17y ago

This study of the "Wedding Ring Effect" (abstract only) suggests otherwise: http://www.springerlink.com/content/hn2ufdx4rruyllnc/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/hn2ufdx4rruyllnc/ The results show that women do not find men signaling engagement, or being perceived as having a partner, more attractive or higher in socioeconomic status. Furthermore, signs of engagement did not influence the women’s reported willingness to engage in short-term or long-term relationships with the men.

tokenadult 17y ago
Interesting. Another study with a different finding. Now there is some scope for methodological discussion about how the data were gathered and interpreted.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

lucumo 17y ago

> Across ten world regions, 57% of men and 35% of women indicated they had engaged in an attempt at mate poaching, … people who mate poach are more likely to be low in agreeableness and conscientiousness than those who do not. Interestingly, it seems that while women prefer it, they do it a whole lot less than men. And that men that are in a relationship may be more attractive, but the women they will get will on average be less nice...

gaius 17y ago
If you steal someone, then all you get is someone who is easily stolen. It's never worth it.
- lucumo 17y ago
  And if you let yourself be stolen, all you get is a thief... Honesty is really a good policy here.

bravura 17y ago

"Research on human preferences does show that women rate men as more desirable when they are surrounded by other women, compared to being alone or surrounded by other men. Conversely, men rate women as less desirable when they are surrounded by other men, compared to being alone or surrounded by other women." In other words, men are undesirable in heterosexual culture. So we conclude that, if you're a guy, your only hope is to find a hot bisexual girlfriend and then surround yourself by women that she likes.

radu_floricica 17y ago

It's a pretty well know effect predicted by evolutionary psychology (and confirmed in several species). Basically, no matter what strategy female use to identify good mates it can be improved by peeking at what other female do. "Poaching" is also very cheap and relatively safe (as far as identifying goes), so it would be more popular with females/males who don't have other good criteria.

onreact-com 17y ago

Why don't submit the source instead, it's just a citation? http://www.synergy-pr.com/press/MelissaBurkley,PhD/51/800/0 http://www.synergy-pr.com/press/MelissaBurkley,PhD/51/800/0

balding_n_tired 17y ago

There's a bit about this in _The Book of Laughter and Forgetting_, roughly to the effect that women don't want handsome men, they want men with beautiful consorts.

Psyonic 17y ago
Crazy. I just read that book about a month ago, but certainly didn't expect to see it mentioned here. Fantastic book