Mates high in physical attractiveness are in short supply, which means that not all people are able to find mates who are sufficiently attractive

Mating Decisions in the Absence of Physical Attraction. Kaitlyn P. White, Peter K. Jonason & Laith Al-Shawaf. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, Sep 30 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40750-020-00152-2

Abstract

Objective: Mates high in physical attractiveness are in short supply, which means that not all people are able to find mates who are sufficiently attractive. Threshold models of mate preferences suggest that when physical attractiveness minimums are not reached, other traits possessed by a potential partner may play a lesser role in mate choice. However, few studies have sought to understand mating decisions when those minimums are not met.

Methods: In this experiment (N = 186), participants rated images of (pre-rated) unattractive opposite-sex others for long-term and short-term relationships after learning dealbreaker or dealmaker information.

Results: While participants did not find targets highly desirable or physically attractive (as a stimulus check), men were more willing than women to have casual sex, and that men and women reported similar desirability ratings towards long-term partners. Learning dealbreakers was associated with less desire for the targets than dealmakers, but women’s lack of interest was insensitive to mating context, whereas men found the target especially undesirable in the long-term context. Additionally, men were willing to consider a long-term relationship with a physically unattractive partner who possessed dealmakers, but not one who possessed dealbreakers.

Conclusions: Our discussion focuses on men and women’s mating decisions when potential partners fail to meet minimum thresholds for physical attractiveness. Future research is needed to explore the magnitude of the effect of meeting or failing to meet one’s minimum thresholds for physical attractiveness.

Discussion

Most research on mate selection has concentrated on what people view as appealing in a potential mate (Buss 1989; Confer et al. 2010; Li et al. 2002; Li and Kenrick 2006) rather than unappealing (Jonason et al. 2015, 2020a, b; Stewart-Williams et al. 2017). Parental investment theory suggests that the costs of making mating mistakes is higher for females, the sex with the greater minimum obligatory parental investment (Trivers 1972). Given this imbalance between the sexes, selection pressures may have fashioned different mating psychologies for men and women (Buss and Schmitt 1993). Research on attractiveness thresholds suggests that men consider physical attractiveness to be an essential characteristic in a prospective mate. This suggests that men will be less open to dating someone who is below average in physical attractiveness (Gangestad et al. 2006; Li et al. 2002). However, error management theory (Haselton and Buss 2000; Perilloux 2014) suggests that, whenever mating options are sub-par, men may be willing to overlook their preferences for physical attractiveness to not miss out on a reproductive opportunity, especially if the mating context is short-term and the prospective mate possesses dealmakers (Webster et al. 2020). In this study, we examined men and women’s ratings of prospective mates in both long-term and short-term contexts when these mates were physically unattractive and possessed either favorable (i.e., dealmakers) or unfavorable (i.e., dealbreakers) characteristics.

Both men and women reported low levels of interest in both short-term and long-term relationships with physically unattractive people. This supports past research suggesting that both men and women value physical attractiveness in potential mates (Buss 1989; Li and Kenrick 2006) and that men consider at least average physical attractiveness to be a crucial characteristic of a partner (Buss and Schmitt 1993; Li et al. 2002; Li and Kenrick 2006; Regan 1998a, b). Consistent with sexual strategies theory, men were more willing than women were to engage in a short-term sexual relationship (Buss and Schmitt 1993), a finding that extended even to prospective mates of low physical attractiveness (H1). This is also consistent with error management theory (Haselton and Buss 2000; Perilloux 2014) in that, even though men tend to place greater value on physical attractiveness (Buss and Schmitt 1993; Confer et al. 2010; Jonason et al. 2012b; Li et al. 2002; Regan 1998a, b), in a low risk, short-term context, men were willing to form a relationship with a physically unattractive mate to avoid missing out on a mating opportunity (Jonason et al. 2020a, b; Regan 1998a, b; Webster et al. 2020). In addition, both sexes reported lower levels of interest in prospective mates after learning that the potential mate possessed dealbreakers rather than dealmakers (H4). This was true in both the long-term and short-term mating contexts. Further, in the short-term context, men reported greater attraction than women to physically unattractive potential mates with either dealmakers or dealbreakers. However, men were only more willing than women to consider a long-term relationship with a physically unattractive person if that person possessed dealmakers.

If men are more willing to lower their standards to avoid lost mating opportunities and women maintain higher standards in mating regardless of context, men may be sensitive to contextual differences, but women should find unattractive partners undesirable regardless of context. As predicted, women were less willing than men to date physically unattractive prospective mates (H3). Women also showed low levels of interest in a physically unattractive partner no matter the mating context or information learned (H2). This may appear to contradict existing research showing that men place more of a premium on physical attractiveness than women do (Li et al. 2002), but this is likely attributable to the fact that we examined mating decisions when confronted with a physically unattractive potential partner, rather than examining differences between the sexes in the emphasis they place of various characteristics. Indeed, these findings are consistent with existing theory and research highlighting how selective women are in their mating decisions (Buss 2016). This aligns with sexual strategies theory, and perhaps also with error management theory (Haselton and Buss 2000; Perilloux 2014) in that mating mistakes for women are costly enough that the safer error for women may be to avoid any kind of relationship with an undesirable partner. Women’s selectivity across a broad range of traits and mating contexts may aid in carefully screening prospective mates and avoiding entanglements with partners of low mate value (Jonason et al. 2015).

Limitations and Conclusions

The present study is the first to evaluate dealbreakers in relationships with a standardized method for assessing interest in short-term and long-term relationships in the absence of physical attractiveness. Even so, several limitations apply. The first limitations pertain to the W.E.I.R.D. (Henrich et al. 2010) nature of the sample and the disparity between men and women in the sample. As is typical in this type of research, more women than men were willing to participate. Although we found an interaction between mating context and sex, further analysis revealed no difference between long-term and short-term ratings in men or women. This may have resulted from the small percentage of men in the sample. However, because our primary aim in this study was to evaluate dealbreakers and dealmakers in relationships, our a priori power analysis focused on dealbreaker/dealmaker effect sizes. Although our results are consistent with our hypotheses, without replication in an independent, larger sample we cannot be certain of the generalizability or robustness of our findings. However, the fact that our results are consistent with established theories enhances the trustworthiness of our results and undercuts concerns about sample size imbalance or the small—by modern standards—sample size.

Second, physical attractiveness acts as a threshold trait (Kenrick et al. 1990; Li et al. 2002) meaning that the absence of physical attraction often operates as a dealbreaker in both sexes (Jonason et al. 2015). By holding attractiveness low and constant, we (1) isolated effects for nonphysical characteristics when physical attractiveness of the potential mate is low and (2) standardized our materials (Jonason and Antoon 2019). In fact, the generally low desirability ratings may reveal just how little nonphysical qualities—no matter their valence—in a potential short-term or long-term mate influence mate choice when attractiveness falls below threshold. Future research might manipulate the attractiveness of the targets to estimate the magnitude of the effect of meeting (or not) minimum thresholds for physical attractiveness (Jonason et al. 2019).

Third, we assessed romantic interest in short-term and long-term mating contexts in relation to 10 dealbreakers and 10 dealmakers when randomly paired with one of eight photos of physically unattractive people. Each of the items may have its own, distinct effects worthy of independent investigation. We used the composite approach rather than item analyses to avoid Type 1 error inflation and so that we could say something more general about decision-making in romantic relationships (Jonason et al. 2020a, b). Therefore, further research is needed at the item-level to examine how each individual dealmaker and dealbreaker affects interest in physically unattractive partners. Moreover, other lists of dealbreakers and dealmakers might be worth considering to evaluate the generalizability of these effects.

Finally, although our picture selection process was reasonably systematic, some limitations were present. We exclusively used pictures of people who appeared to be of Caucasian ethnicity, which limits the generalizability of our findings to other ethnicities. In addition, although the pictures used were pre-rated for attractiveness by numerous independent raters from the source, the attractiveness ratings used were still subjective, as opposed to more objective indices such as fluctuating asymmetry (Little et al. 2011). However, the participants’ mean ratings of attractiveness suggest that, as we had intended, our participants considered the people in the pictures to be of below average physical attractiveness. Despite these limitations, we have provided a novel test of sex differences in mate choice as a function of relationship context and the type of information people learn as they get to know new, potential partners.

One of the most contentious areas in mate choice research is about the role and origin of physical attractiveness preferences (Li and Metzler 2015; Zentner and Eagly 2015). Arguments rage over the function, origin, and consequences of being physically attractive in and outside of mate choice contexts. Evolutionary psychologists point to the adaptive utility of a preference for physical attractiveness, whereas sociocultural models sometimes treat preferences for physical attraction as arbitrary. We decided to strip away physical attraction and learn about the mate selection process in men and women across contexts in the absence of physical attraction. In doing so, we replicated prior findings demonstrating that men are more interested in short-term relationships than women are, and the sexes reported similar desirability ratings towards long-term partners (Buss and Schmitt 1993). We also found that even when prospective mates are low in physical attractiveness, learning dealbreakers was associated with less desirability than dealmakers. Furthermore, men were more interested in pursuing casual sex with people of limited physical attractiveness, no matter what other qualities the prospective partner possessed. Compared to women, men were also more willing to form a serious relationship with prospective partners of low physical attractiveness, but only if the prospective partner possessed other desirable qualities (e.g., “This person is kind to strangers.”; “This person dresses well.”). Importantly, women’s lack of interest in physically unattractive people appeared to be insensitive to mating context. This supports past findings that women also value physical attractiveness in their mates (Li and Kenrick 2006) but, unlike men, women’s selectivity led to a lack of interest in forming a relationship with a person of low physical attractiveness, no matter what type of relationship they were seeking.