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I remember during my first year at college looking through a friend's high school yearbook remarking on some of the girls I thought were cute but he didn't. He

I remember during my first year at college looking through a friend's high school yearbook remarking on some of the girls I thought were cute but he didn't. He made comments that didn't have to do with their physical appearance - like "she was mean" or "she was rude". When he looked through my yearbook the same thing happened, we just switched sides. I thought it was interesting how knowing the person actually changed the assessment of how physically attractive someone was. Not overwhelmingly so but definitely enough to notice.

sevilo 12y ago
now that you mentioned it.. I remember a psychology course I took in college just a while ago mentioned that, female's evaluation of attractiveness is greatly affected by knowing the person's financial state/personality/social status etc. While male's evaluation of attractiveness is less affected by other factors. Not sure how true this theory is..
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  Those male qualities are factors that answer the question, "how well can you protect me?" Our evolutionary instincts die hard :(
- davedx 12y ago
  It's even more complex with women. Their perception of male attractiveness is also tied into where they are in their menstrual cycle. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16848141 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16848141
  - RodericDay 12y ago
    Always good to keep in mind when this kinda "evo-psych" stuff is brought up: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/06/30/mr-10-09/ http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/06/30/mr-10-09/
    - Dewie 12y ago
      evo-psych needs studies? It seems more that the armchair evo-psych people have just decided on a set of axioms beforehand that sound sufficiently "common sense" and are making deductions based on that.
      - cpr 12y ago
        Evo-* people have always pretty much relied on "just-so" stories. Evolutionary biologists who claim that feathers evolved from scales by snakes jumping off trees for millions of years are falling into the same trap.
        FD3SA 12y ago
        And thus evolutions is of course false by your perfect mathematical deduction? I recommend you broaden your understanding of science. Scientific hypotheses are always one iteration in a series of increasingly accurate models of the known universe. Evolution, being a very young science, is understandably very far behind Physics in its life cycle. This does not mean that all evolutionary theory is "nonsense" because it cannot be instantly falsified with a perfectly designed experiment in real time. The beauty of evolution, just like any other law of the universe, is that it does not care much for one's disbelief.
      - barry-cotter 12y ago
        > It seems more that the armchair evo-psych people have just decided on a set of axioms beforehand that sound sufficiently "common sense" and are making deductions based on that. You mean they're using their knowledge of humanity to make testable hypotheses to test and refine their implicit theories? Say it ain't so! Forgive the snark but armchair dismissal of evolutionary psychology from people who have never read an intro psychology textbook.
        bradleyjg 12y ago
        That'd be fair if what was being dismissed were the results of scientific studies. But what is instead being dismissed are the wildly extrapolated fancies of people who themselves who never read a peer reviewed study on evo-* but instead got it third or fourth hand, with exaggeration about what the data is suffiecient to show at every step. Then lo and behold all of sudden plain old traditional gender stereotypes are okay again because science (but please don't ask for citations). There's plenty of blame to go around for this effect, but science popularizers are probably the lead villains of the piece.
- Noxchi 12y ago
  It is true, and it's caused for evolutionary reasons. When people have sex, the woman is in a much more dangerous place than a man. Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child. The cost for a man is very low. He only needs a couple minutes to do his part in making a baby, then he can leave at any time. So with that in mind, lets say the scenario is like this: If a man impregnates a woman and he stays, the chance the baby survives to reproduction is 90%. If a man impregnates a woman and he leaves, the chance the baby survives to reproduction is 10%. So with those statistics, the man is actually in a very advantageous position. As long as he impregnates 10 or more women in his lifetime, he is ahead than if he had stayed with the same woman for all his life. Of course, the more healthy the woman, the more likely the baby is to survive even if he leaves. Beauty = healthy in evolutionary terms. If the woman is pretty, maybe she can even get another guy to raise his kids for him! So men seek beauty primarily. So for a man it is genetically superior to impregnate multiple women (which generally means not staying too close to any of them). A female on the other hand, can only have children a few times in her life. And she only gets a few shots at it. If the man leaves, her shot is very likely to end up in failure. So the woman needs to be very picky about who she has children with. She needs to judge his character, to see if he will stay with her and raise the child. And defend her, fight off aggression, etc.. So to a woman, character is more important than beauty, because that's what determines if her genes survive or not. Erotic fiction is a billion dollar industry and the vast majority of buyers are women. Manly man stories = porn for women.
  - _random_ 12y ago
    "Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child." UK has a generous protection for single mother and it completely messed up traditional marriage institution.
    - huherto 12y ago
      You are probably being down voted for the political/ideological implications of your comment. But your are pointing to a very interesting phenomena that is worth understanding. I ideologically favor having a strong social safety net. But we do need to understand what are the unintended consequences.
rasur 12y ago
This is usually put more colloquially: "x is alright, till they open their mouth" (and is not gender specific, although it's often used in that way).

sevilo 12y ago

now that you mentioned it.. I remember a psychology course I took in college just a while ago mentioned that, female's evaluation of attractiveness is greatly affected by knowing the person's financial state/personality/social status etc. While male's evaluation of attractiveness is less affected by other factors. Not sure how true this theory is..

hkmurakami 12y ago
Those male qualities are factors that answer the question, "how well can you protect me?" Our evolutionary instincts die hard :(
davedx 12y ago
It's even more complex with women. Their perception of male attractiveness is also tied into where they are in their menstrual cycle. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16848141 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16848141
- RodericDay 12y ago
  Always good to keep in mind when this kinda "evo-psych" stuff is brought up: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/06/30/mr-10-09/ http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/06/30/mr-10-09/
  - Dewie 12y ago
    evo-psych needs studies? It seems more that the armchair evo-psych people have just decided on a set of axioms beforehand that sound sufficiently "common sense" and are making deductions based on that.
    - cpr 12y ago
      Evo-* people have always pretty much relied on "just-so" stories. Evolutionary biologists who claim that feathers evolved from scales by snakes jumping off trees for millions of years are falling into the same trap.
      - FD3SA 12y ago
        And thus evolutions is of course false by your perfect mathematical deduction? I recommend you broaden your understanding of science. Scientific hypotheses are always one iteration in a series of increasingly accurate models of the known universe. Evolution, being a very young science, is understandably very far behind Physics in its life cycle. This does not mean that all evolutionary theory is "nonsense" because it cannot be instantly falsified with a perfectly designed experiment in real time. The beauty of evolution, just like any other law of the universe, is that it does not care much for one's disbelief.
    - barry-cotter 12y ago
      > It seems more that the armchair evo-psych people have just decided on a set of axioms beforehand that sound sufficiently "common sense" and are making deductions based on that. You mean they're using their knowledge of humanity to make testable hypotheses to test and refine their implicit theories? Say it ain't so! Forgive the snark but armchair dismissal of evolutionary psychology from people who have never read an intro psychology textbook.
      - bradleyjg 12y ago
        That'd be fair if what was being dismissed were the results of scientific studies. But what is instead being dismissed are the wildly extrapolated fancies of people who themselves who never read a peer reviewed study on evo-* but instead got it third or fourth hand, with exaggeration about what the data is suffiecient to show at every step. Then lo and behold all of sudden plain old traditional gender stereotypes are okay again because science (but please don't ask for citations). There's plenty of blame to go around for this effect, but science popularizers are probably the lead villains of the piece.
Noxchi 12y ago
It is true, and it's caused for evolutionary reasons. When people have sex, the woman is in a much more dangerous place than a man. Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child. The cost for a man is very low. He only needs a couple minutes to do his part in making a baby, then he can leave at any time. So with that in mind, lets say the scenario is like this: If a man impregnates a woman and he stays, the chance the baby survives to reproduction is 90%. If a man impregnates a woman and he leaves, the chance the baby survives to reproduction is 10%. So with those statistics, the man is actually in a very advantageous position. As long as he impregnates 10 or more women in his lifetime, he is ahead than if he had stayed with the same woman for all his life. Of course, the more healthy the woman, the more likely the baby is to survive even if he leaves. Beauty = healthy in evolutionary terms. If the woman is pretty, maybe she can even get another guy to raise his kids for him! So men seek beauty primarily. So for a man it is genetically superior to impregnate multiple women (which generally means not staying too close to any of them). A female on the other hand, can only have children a few times in her life. And she only gets a few shots at it. If the man leaves, her shot is very likely to end up in failure. So the woman needs to be very picky about who she has children with. She needs to judge his character, to see if he will stay with her and raise the child. And defend her, fight off aggression, etc.. So to a woman, character is more important than beauty, because that's what determines if her genes survive or not. Erotic fiction is a billion dollar industry and the vast majority of buyers are women. Manly man stories = porn for women.
- _random_ 12y ago
  "Having a baby for a woman is very costly. She needs someone to protect her while it happens and to help raise the child." UK has a generous protection for single mother and it completely messed up traditional marriage institution.
  - huherto 12y ago
    You are probably being down voted for the political/ideological implications of your comment. But your are pointing to a very interesting phenomena that is worth understanding. I ideologically favor having a strong social safety net. But we do need to understand what are the unintended consequences.

rasur 12y ago

This is usually put more colloquially: "x is alright, till they open their mouth" (and is not gender specific, although it's often used in that way).