Have We Discovered the Most Powerful Element of Attraction?

Have We Discovered the Most Powerful Element of Attraction?
Research into attractiveness by association.
Posted Oct 07, 2015

This post is in response to Why We Want Most What Someone Else Already Has by Malcolm Forbes and Ryan Anderson
Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
Source: Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
The phenomenon of mate copying occurs when an individual female (observer) indicates a romantic preference for a partnered male (target) over an unpartnered male. To put it bluntly: The woman likes the taken guy more than the single guy. Mate copying has been documented countless times among non-human animals, but the body of empirical data confirming its existence in humans is rapidly growing.

While there have been observations of mate copying among both males and females, there is a strong theoretical reason for believing it occurs more frequently among females. Specifically, it solves a more important adaptive problem for females than for males—getting information about a potential partner. Because men are often initially concerned with the attractiveness of a partner, they can look at a female and instantly discern a fair bit of mate-relevant information. That's often less the case for women.

Think of mate copying as the real-life equivalent of LinkedIn’s endorsement feature: By being seen as John’s partner, Amanda (his girlfriend) is implicitly endorsing him for the skill of being a competent romantic partner. This information is pretty valuable, especially to some other women. It also turns out that this endorsement carries more weight depending on your own mate-relevant profile. In other words, how desirable you are as a mate helps to determine how desirable your partner is as a mate.

There are a few principles at work here. The first is the idea that humans generally employ a mating strategy of positive assortment. This is another way of saying that “like attracts like," or, to be more specific, individual similarity on a given dimension may predict association. Studies have demonstrated that people choose others with similar education levels, age, race etc. (one study even found that people tend to marry others with similar DNA). In this case, we can say that romantically desirable people generally partner with other romantically desirable people. This makes sense: I’m sure you can think of examples of romantic partnerships where one seems to be more desirable (to the opposite sex) than the other, but you can probably think of more in which each partner is comparably desirable. Think about attractive, wealthy, high profile celebrities—they often date other attractive, wealthy, high profile celebrities.

What does this have to do with mate copying?

The social currency afforded to you by being attractive is well known. People perceived as physically attractive have a number of advantages over others, including:

Being treated more favorably in the workplace.
Being judged to be more musically competent.
Receiving more favorable treatment by juries in a courtroom.
Being perceived as less deceptive.
Being regarded as more successful in general.
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These are just a few. Attractive people have also been shown to outscore unattractive people on the dimensions of social desirability, presumed occupational status, social and professional happiness, and the likelihood that the person would marry in the future.

But it doesn’t end there. It’s good to be attractive, but what if you’re not? One thing you can do is get an attractive partner, or at least hang out with physically attractive people. Back in the 1970s, a pair of researchers conducted an experiment to examine the importance of having a physically attractive partner. Participants evaluated men who were either the boyfriend of, or unassociated with, a female; and the female was either attractive, or unattractive. Of the four conditions, the men with an attractive girlfriend were evaluated the most favorably. The men with the unattractive girlfriend were evaluated the least favorably. This was taken as evidence of how the company you keep seems to be important.

Scientific research on mate copying indicated that having a partner increases our desirability to the opposite sex, but almost all males will romantically pair (align) with a female at some point in their life. The [mate] quality of one’s romantic partner is more important than whether or not they have one.

Because physical attractiveness is an important cue for female mate-value, the perceived quality of a man’s female partner can be determined to a large extent by how physically attractive she is. Due to positive assortative mating, this can have a bearing on a man’s own mate-value. Some studies have demonstrated that mate copying effects are stronger when the female partner of a man is physically attractive than if she is less attractive or perceived as unattractive. In some research I personally conducted, a man’s mate-value was elevated simply by having physically attractive female friends.

Why We Want Most What Someone Else Already Has

Why We Want Most What Someone Else Already Has
New research confirms the wedding ring effect.
Posted Mar 06, 2015


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This post is in response to Why We Want Who We Want by Malcolm Forbes and Ryan Anderson
Article by Ryan Anderson

When we choose a romantic partner, we generally assumed that we do so independently, and come to a decision by ourselves. But this view has been challenged in the last three decades.

Among non-humans, there is a multitude of evidence suggesting that decisions about with whom one mates can often be made non-independently (1). There is also an emerging body of evidence indicating that humans also make non-independent mate choices (2).

bikeriderlondon/Shutterstock
Source: bikeriderlondon/Shutterstock
Mate copying is a broad term that describes individuals choosing a romantic partner based on information provided by others. Generally this information comes in the form of an implicit "endorsement." Consider a single woman walking into a bar and seeing two men—one standing by himself in the corner; the other with his arm around an attractive woman, presumably his girlfriend. Which man is she going to think more highly of as a prospective partner—the loner in the corner or the guy with qualities that have enabled him to get a girlfriend? These qualities may be traits like pro-sociality, kindness, a sense of humor, a luxury yacht, or anything else that might be desirable to a woman. But the point is that whatever he has would presumably carry over into a new romantic relationship—with the single woman observing him.

There is a pervasive human tendency to judge the value of something by how in demand it is. A man who has a partner must be (or must have been at some point) in demand.

This "wedding ring effect" refers to the idea that men wearing a wedding ring will, all else being equal, tend to be more romantically desirable to women than men who are not wearing a wedding ring. The reasoning is pretty simple: A man who is married is broadcasting, "Look at me: Someone thinks I’m good enough to marry, so maybe I’ve got some things going for me." People in general tend to like people who have things going for them. (An unmarried man, on the other hand, might have a number of positive traits but maybe just isn’t considered marriage material.)

The wedding ring effect has been examined by researchers a number of times. Some authors have found married men to be more romantically desirable to women than single men (3), while others have in fact discovered the opposite (4). It has been suggested that in socially monogamous societies, almost all males can be expected to romantically align (pair up) with a female at some point in their life (5). As such, being married ort engaged might not be that impressive. It may then be that the mate quality of one’s romantic partner is more important than whether or not they actually have one.

Because physical attractiveness remains an important cue for female mate-value (6), the quality of a man’s female partner is evaluated by others to a large extent by how physically attractive she is. Due to the phenomenon of positive assortative mating —the idea that people similar on dimensions, such as romantic desirability, tend to pair up—this can have a bearing on a man’s own mate-value. A number of studies have demonstrated that mate-copying effects are stronger when the female partner of a man is physically attractive than when she is perceived as less attractive than her partner, or unattractive (7).

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Further, it has recently been suggested that in addition to physical attractiveness, mate copying may also be driven by character attractiveness (8). A study in the U.K. found that mate copying only occurred when the model female (the alleged partner of the man) was smiling at the target male (9). Women preferred a man more if he was being smiled at by other women than if the other women were looking at him with a neutral expression.

In simple terms:

Women tend to be drawn to men who appear to be liked by other attractive women.
Men who are seen with a desirable woman are looked upon favorably.
Men who are looked upon favorably by a woman are seen as desirable.
Men who are seeking for a girlfriend might be well-advised to keep the company of attractive women. .

The effect of relationship status on perceived

The effect of relationship status on perceived
Sean O'Hagen1, Amanda Johnson1, Gina Lardi1, Julian Paul Keenan1
1Montclair State University, United States
Cite this article:  O'Hagen, S., Johnson, A., Lardi, G., & Keenan, J. (2003). The effect of relationship status on perceived. Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal, 31, 291-300. 

Volume 31 Issue 3 | e1248 | Published: May 2003 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2003.31.3.291 

Abstract Full TextReferences Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Author Contact
The effect of relationship availability on perceived attractiveness is a key component to social relations. Experiment 1 tested 90 female college students, having them read a vignette description of a hypothetical male who was either single, involved, or married. Participants rated the male on 5 questions pertaining to attractiveness. The results indicated that females were more attracted to single males compared to both involved and married males. No significant difference was found between the ratings of involved and married males. In Experiment 2, 127 males and females were tested employing the same instrument. The results indicated that females were less attracted to married individuals, while the male participants had no significant difference in their ratings. Although these findings show no clear support for either evolutionary or sociocultural attraction theories, they point towards striking gender differences in perceived attraction.

Why We Try to Steal Each Other's Partners

Ryan Anderson
The Mating Game

Why We Try to Steal Each Other's Partners
The principle of mate copying and how it can torpedo relationships.
Posted Aug 31, 2015

We need to discuss poaching—specifically, mate poaching, or stealing someone else’s partner (not ivory).

According to many sources, the international divorce rate has been rising, and continues to creep up year after year. It is not uncommon for a country-specific rate to exceed 50%. So it may be safer to assume that a marriage won’t last, than that it will. Are people not as committed as they once were? Are there more options these days? Do people feel the need to explore other possibilities, and if so, why?

This trend may alarm many people, but to say it is symptomatic of moral decay may not be accurate.

Finding the right romantic partner is one of our biggest challenges. Clearly, indiscriminate selection is problematic. Not just anyone will do—they need to be (generally) someone that you want to spend time with, and possibly reproduce with. Everyone on Earth today has descended from people who were able to effectively solve the puzzle of finding an appropriate romantic partner and reproducing with them. Your own parents, presumably, appealed to each other for at least some period of time, even if just moments, as did their respective parents, and their parents' parents.

This blog has previously explored the idea of mate copying—the idea that you adjust your opinion of an opposite-sex other according to their romantic history. For example, if you are a woman and your friend Jane is going out with a guy named Steve, you will probably consider that Steve has at least something going for him, romantically; after all, he appealed to Jane. Steve has something that appeals to Jane, and possibly to opposite-sex individuals in general.

To put it more simply, mate copying is basically a social popularity heuristic whereby those making choices about who to partner with "copy" the mate preferences of same-sex others.

Mate copying involves adjusting your romantic opinion of someone else, but not necessarily doing anything about it. Mate poaching, however, introduces action. Poaching involves two key elements:

Pursuit. The pursuit of someone that is already in a relationship (and the poacher knows it).
Intent. The intention to pry a person away from their partner.
Although conceptually alike, it should be stressed that there is a big difference between copying and poaching. Liking something after seeing someone else use it (copying) is reasonably normal. After all, imitation is a staple of human existence. All of us copy/mimic/emulate at some point. We might "borrow" or pay homage to someone else’s hairstyle, business strategy, or the way they dance. But seeing someone else’s wallet and then walking over and taking it (poaching), is very different from just admiring it (copying).

Have you ever had a girlfriend or boyfriend stolen from you by another? Have you ever been the object of someone else’s unsuccessful (or successful) attempt at luring you away from a partner? Or have you been the perpetrator in such a scenario? In any event, you have then experienced the phenomenon of mate poaching—an alarmingly common practice among 20-somethings, and among people in general, especially from Europe or South America. In fact, a study involving nearly 17,000 people from 53 countries found that:

Poaching is quite common in South America and in southern, eastern, and western Europe.
It’s comparatively more rare in Africa and in south, southeast, and east Asia.
Men attempt poaching much more often than women.
Poachers have similar personality characteristics, such as extraversion and disagreeableness.
There are strong social reasons not to mate poach: Trying to take someone else’s partner is dangerous—you may incur the wrath of an angry boyfriend or girlfriend and wind up getting your offense beaten out of you. You also risk becoming a social outcast if word gets around about your predatory style.

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Although indications of a willingness to commit are often considered desirable in dating, a number of studies have found that women prefer single men to men in relationships.

As with any other practice, though, if the benefits of poaching seem positive enough, it will persist. The payoff of a new mate, and, potentially, new offspring, may be compelling. And yet the risks are substantial, and the consequences potentially devastating. It's certainly not a tactic for the faint of heart.