Women with higher creativity (ideational fluency) had higher mate appeal; intelligence and emotional competence did not significantly predict appeal; perceived abilities seem more relevant for attraction than measured ones

What you see is what you want to get: Perceived abilities outperform objective test performance in predicting mate appeal in speed dating. Gabriela Hofer et al. Journal of Research in Personality, May 30 2021, 104113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104113

Highlights

• Women with higher creativity (ideational fluency) had higher mate appeal.

• Intelligence and emotional competence did not significantly predict mate appeal.

• More substantial effects were found for speed-dating ratings of the same abilities.

• Controlling for physical attractiveness further reduced effects of abilities.

• Perceived abilities seem to be more relevant for attraction than measured ones.

Abstract: Are intelligent, creative, and emotionally competent people more desirable? Evolution-based theories and studies on the ideal partner suggest that they are. We aimed to assess whether verbal, numerical, and spatial intelligence, creativity, and intra- and interpersonal emotional competence are associated with higher real-life mate appeal. In speed dates, 87 women and 88 men met up to 14 members of the opposite sex (2188 observations). While only one measured ability—women’s creativity—was significantly associated with mate appeal, ability perceptions by speed-dating partners could broadly predict mate appeal. Effects of perceived and measured abilities were substantially reduced after controlling for physical attractiveness. These results suggest that the investigated abilities play a lesser role in initial attraction than proposed in the past.

Keywords: mate appealintelligencecreativityemotional competenceperceived abilitiesspeed datingperson perceptionsocial relations modeling