Maybe you’ve heard about the attractive girl who says she wants a “nice” guy who makes her laugh, but ends up with the handsome jerk instead? Or the guy who boasts to friends that he only goes for party girls but is often seen with the geeky bookworm?
A recent study by professors at Northwestern University and Texas A&M University claims that what a person says they want in a partner is often a lot of hooey.
“Everybody has long assumed that asking people what they want in a romantic partner is sufficient,” said NU psychology professor and study co-author Eli Finkel. “People really don’t have very much introspective accuracy. They’re not very good at figuring out why they’re attracted to a partner.”
Finkel and lead author Paul W. Eastwick, a psychology professor at Texas A&M, developed a methodology for tapping into a person’s “unconscious preference” for a romantic partner.
Study participants answered questions about how important physical attractiveness is in selecting a mate and were asked for words they like or dislike — such as “romance novel” or “football.”
Then those words appeared on a computer screen, as well as words related to physical attractiveness — such as “sexy” or “hot.” They then had to quickly hit the space bar key if they saw something they liked, and not hit the key for something they disliked.
“If you are faster than I am at associating ‘sexy’ with words you like, that suggests you have an unconscious association between physical attractiveness and concepts you like,” Finkel said.
On Northwestern’s campus, several undergraduates were not surprised to learn that physical attractiveness plays a more important role in relationships than some people let on.
“I think a lot of people like to fool themselves into thinking they like people who are really funny or are really compatible with them,” said Abby Shure, 20, a junior history major.
But as researchers pointed out, even if a person says they care about looks, that doesn’t mean they’ll end up with an underwear model. Nerds have hope, the researchers contend.
Freshman Deonte Gibson, 18, agreed.
“Most likely, the first thing you focus on is the looks,” he said, “and then what else follows keeps you going.”
