Too good to be ‘true’? The handicap of high socio-economic status in attractive males

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Abstract

Empirical evidence concerning human mate-choice preferences suggests that females should select partners on the basis of cues to genetic quality and/or ability to contribute resources to childcare. Paradoxically, while high levels of both factors should be an attractive combination to females, they might also dissuade females from entering into a relationship with such males since, by definition, they are likely to be highly attractive to other females, and therefore might increase the likelihood that such a male may cheat or desert the relationship. If so, females should be wary of entering into long-term relationships with physically attractive, high status males as compared with males of lower physical attractiveness or status. We asked females to rate a number of different males in terms of attractiveness as a long-term partner. Females were presented with attractive, average and unattractive male faces paired with lonely-hearts advertisements implying high, medium or low socio-economic status. Highest ratings were consistently given to attractive males of medium status rather than high status. We suggest that females see physically attractive, high status males as being more likely to pursue a mating strategy rather than parenting strategy. Under particular circumstances, high socio-economic status in males can be subtly counter-productive in terms of attractiveness as a long-term partner.

Introduction

The large gender asymmetry in the costs of human reproductive biology has a profound consequence for male and female mate-choice strategies. Since the costs of reproduction are greater for females than for males, the expectation is that females should be more choosy in selecting a potential mate (Trivers, 1972). As the main limiting constraint on male reproductive success is access to females, males should be sensitive to cues of female fertility. By contrast, evolutionary principles suggest that human females will select partners on the basis of two crucial factors: cues of genetic quality and/or cues that suggest a male’s willingness and/or ability to contribute resources to childcare (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000), and there is a wealth of empirical evidence supporting the importance of these criteria in female mate-choice (Buss, 1989, Buss and Barnes, 1986, Buss and Schmitt, 1993).

Theoretically, genetic quality in males is thought to be indexed by lower levels of bilateral asymmetry (Gangestad, 1993, Gangestad and Thornhill, 1997, Thornhill and Gangestad, 1996) while this, in turn, is perceived by females as being physically attractive (Gangestad, Thornhill, & Yeo, 1994). While some studies have uncovered positive relationships between male facial attractiveness and the actual health of individuals (e.g. Henderson and Anglin, 2003, Shackelford and Larsen, 1999), there has nevertheless been some disagreement as to how real this link may be (c.f. Geary, 2005, Grammer et al., 2005, Weeden and Sabini, 2005). Soler et al. (2003) have shown a strong relationship between male facial attractiveness and semen quality but the most convincing evidence comes from Roberts et al. (2005) who have demonstrated a link between male facial attractiveness and heterozygosity in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). MHC genes play a major part in the determination of immunocompetence and these data therefore demonstrate a direct link between male genetic quality and facial attractiveness.

Given that the level of resources that parents are willing to invest in their children is likely to be a crucial factor in determining the health and likelihood of survival of those children, females should place great importance in the resources available to their potential mate (Geary, 2000). Evidence suggests that this is indeed the case. For example, Buss’ (1989) survey of mate-choice behaviour in different cultures shows that females, much more than males, place importance on the wealth and resources of their potential partner, while analyses of lonely hearts advertisements commonly demonstrate a strong female interest in the wealth and status of potential partners (e.g. Waynforth and Dunbar, 1995, Wiederman, 1993). Li, Bailey, Kenrick, and Linsenmeier (2002) investigated which characteristics were ‘necessities’ and which were ‘luxuries’ in a potential long-term partner, demonstrating that these are different for males and females. While both consider intelligence a necessity, males also consider physical attractiveness to be so while females consider income/resources as a necessity. Recently, evidence has emerged suggesting that cues which suggest a male’s willingness to invest resources in children influences perceptions of their attractiveness to females (Brase, 2006). Thus, these studies converge on the view that a potential mate’s resources are a crucial factor in mate choice for females. Indeed, Pérusse (1993) showed that higher status males copulated more frequently and had more partners than men of lower status and Hopcroft’s (2006) analysis suggests that not only is higher male income linked to a greater frequency of sexual relations but also to a greater number of biological (as opposed to step- or adopted) children.

While both males and females prefer to date and mate with physically attractive individuals (Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rottman, 1966), females appear willing to trade off attractiveness for cues to resources or resource-holding potential. This is deftly illustrated by studies of mate-choice preferences using budget allocation methodologies (e.g. Li et al., 2002, Waynforth, 2001). For example, Waynforth (2001) asked individuals to assign a limited number of ‘points’ to different qualities (including attractiveness and cues to status/resources) in a prospective partner, with points indicating the importance of that quality. Later, they were asked to assume that all members of the potential pool of partners were of equivalently high status, and to assign their budget of points among another list of qualities that included physical attractiveness. Results showed that when resource-holding potential was a given, females increased the points they assigned to physical attractiveness proportionally more than to other qualities, suggesting that they had originally ‘traded-off’ attractiveness for resources.

Waynforth (2001) also points out that females should avoid males whom they suspect may desert the relationship or be unfaithful, and it is probable that physically attractive males are more likely candidates for this type of behaviour than less attractive males. Some studies have demonstrated a direct relationship between male facial attractiveness and frequency of copulations outside of their partner relationship (Gangestad and Thornhill, 1997, Rhodes et al., 2005) while Waynforth (1999) has shown that attractive males invest more time in mating efforts, and less time in parenting efforts, than less attractive males. Further, Houston, Szekely, and McNamara (2005) provide theoretical reasons for females having to invest more in offspring fathered by attractive males than less attractive males, either because the offspring of attractive males are more valuable, or because extra parenting efforts may improve chances of retaining the mate. In addition, it also appears that females have an awareness of the possible link between male physical attractiveness and fidelity; Waynforth (2001) provides evidence for a positive relationship between male physical attractiveness and female rating of the likelihood that they would cheat. Despite this, Waynforth’s (2001) investigation failed to show any tendency for females to actually avoid forming relationships with these attractive males; his data showed that females were still willing to approach physically attractive men with a view to forming a long-term relationship. However, these data did not include male status or resources as a factor and it is possible that status is a crucial element in this decision. For females, it is clear that there are strong benefits of a long-term partnership with a physical attractive male and if these are to be outweighed by the possible risks of such a partnership, in terms of infidelity or desertion, these risks must also be strong. Speculatively, it may be that these risks are higher with males who combine both physical attractiveness and a high level of resources; that is, males who may be too good to be ‘true’.

The present study examined the relationship between male physical attractiveness and male resources in female mate-choice preferences in a more ecologically-valid manner than in previous studies. Female raters were asked to rate a number of men in terms of attractiveness as a long-term partner when each male was represented by a combination of a photograph and a short lonely-hearts advertisement that included an implied socio-economic status. Males were either attractive, average or unattractive in physical appearance and had occupations which implied high, medium or low status. Combining different levels of physical appearance and status in the same stimulus allows us to assess how the two factors interact in producing an overall attractiveness as a partner. We predicted that in general, attractive males and high status males would receive the highest ratings of attractiveness as a long-term partner. More importantly, however, we also predicted that females would demonstrate some avoidance of males who were both physically attractive and of high status.

Section snippets

Participants

The data were collected from 186 volunteer female students (mean age: 23 years; standard deviation: 6.2 years) recruited from universities and further education colleges in the north-west region of the UK. One hundred and two students were recruited from a single undergraduate psychology class while the remaining 84 students were recruited from a general induction session for a range of tertiary education programs at a different college.

Materials

A set of 60 photographs, each depicting a full-frontal

Results

Responses to the 9 target adverts from each slideshow were combined and mean ratings for each combination of appearance and status are shown in Fig. 1. All ratings were entered into a 3 (attractive vs. average vs. unattractive) × 3 (high status vs. medium status vs. low status) within-subjects analysis of variance. As well as F-values resulting from these analyses, we report the recently defined generalised eta-squared (ηg2; Olejnik & Algina, 2003) as the effect-size statistic because it is

Discussion

The simple aim of this study was to examine the interactive influences of male status and physical attractiveness on female mate-choice preferences. As expected, variable levels of physical attractiveness and status exerted strong effects on women’s ratings of men as potential long-term partners. Predictably, attractive males received the highest ratings while males of average appearance received significantly higher ratings than the unattractive males. However, a slightly different pattern

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank David Waynforth and three anonymous reviewers for helpful and constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.

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