4 ms·

The Myth of Wealthy Men and Beautiful Women

3 points by pmcpinto 12y ago

thaumasiotes 12y ago
> “Women spend a lot more time trying to look good than men do,” McClintock said. “That creates a lot of mess in this data. If you don’t take that into account then you actually see there’s a lot of these guys who are partnered with women who are better looking than them, which is just because, on average, women are better looking. Men are partnering 'up' in attractiveness. And men earn more than women—we’ve got that 70-percent wage gap—so women marry 'up' in income. You’ve got to take these things into account before concluding that women are trading beauty for money.” In other news, it turns out that after you control for height, tall men don't earn any more than short men do.
- michas 12y ago
  I am always amazed how scientists lack logical thinking ability. They tend to jump into most riddiculous conclusions drawn from the facts that can be easily explained by simpler, more reasonable hipotesis. What you point out is a perfect example of this attitude. In fact there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that women DO marry for income (famous internet "Spot the milionaire" memes being one of them :) ) Mentioned in the article is the fact, that women do spend a lot more time than man working on their attractivenes (dieting, make-up, hair-dressing), while it is also known the men are much more carieer-oriented, competing for higher positions and higher income. Those two facts alone are enough evidence to prove that "Trading beauty for wealth" is not a myth, it is a fact of life. BTW. How many top models married to handsome but poor, unemployed guys you know? Or how many male milionaries having not-so-pretty, old and overweight wife ?
- gwern 12y ago
  Another study undermined by the fallacy of controlling for an intermediate variable. Fulltext: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zn87fm4mmzkicjs/2014-mcclintock.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/s/zn87fm4mmzkicjs/2014-mcclintock.pd... / http://sci-hub.bz/3e46d909c73b1bf06a440eb0515c8c7b/mcclintock2014.pdf http://sci-hub.bz/3e46d909c73b1bf06a440eb0515c8c7b/mcclintoc... "Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection?", McClintock 2014 Table 3, pg 14: all the correlations are positive, but that also includes the female attractiveness / male SES bivariate correlations, exactly as common wisdom has it - beautiful women do tend to marry rich men. (Arguments about matching vs exchange are causal arguments, and 'controlling' is implicitly making some very strong and implausible assumptions.)

3 points by pmcpinto 12y ago

> “Women spend a lot more time trying to look good than men do,” McClintock said. “That creates a lot of mess in this data. If you don’t take that into account then you actually see there’s a lot of these guys who are partnered with women who are better looking than them, which is just because, on average, women are better looking. Men are partnering 'up' in attractiveness. And men earn more than women—we’ve got that 70-percent wage gap—so women marry 'up' in income. You’ve got to take these things into account before concluding that women are trading beauty for money.” In other news, it turns out that after you control for height, tall men don't earn any more than short men do.

michas 12y ago
I am always amazed how scientists lack logical thinking ability. They tend to jump into most riddiculous conclusions drawn from the facts that can be easily explained by simpler, more reasonable hipotesis. What you point out is a perfect example of this attitude. In fact there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that women DO marry for income (famous internet "Spot the milionaire" memes being one of them :) ) Mentioned in the article is the fact, that women do spend a lot more time than man working on their attractivenes (dieting, make-up, hair-dressing), while it is also known the men are much more carieer-oriented, competing for higher positions and higher income. Those two facts alone are enough evidence to prove that "Trading beauty for wealth" is not a myth, it is a fact of life. BTW. How many top models married to handsome but poor, unemployed guys you know? Or how many male milionaries having not-so-pretty, old and overweight wife ?
gwern 12y ago
Another study undermined by the fallacy of controlling for an intermediate variable. Fulltext: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zn87fm4mmzkicjs/2014-mcclintock.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/s/zn87fm4mmzkicjs/2014-mcclintock.pd... / http://sci-hub.bz/3e46d909c73b1bf06a440eb0515c8c7b/mcclintock2014.pdf http://sci-hub.bz/3e46d909c73b1bf06a440eb0515c8c7b/mcclintoc... "Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection?", McClintock 2014 Table 3, pg 14: all the correlations are positive, but that also includes the female attractiveness / male SES bivariate correlations, exactly as common wisdom has it - beautiful women do tend to marry rich men. (Arguments about matching vs exchange are causal arguments, and 'controlling' is implicitly making some very strong and implausible assumptions.)