Although daughters and their parents rated ambition and intelligence as the most important qualities of a husband for daughters, in the concrete case, both parties chose the more attractive man

Fugère, M. A., Ciccarelli, N. C., & Cousins, A. J. (2023). The importance of physical attractiveness and ambition/intelligence to the mate choices of women and their parents. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Mar 2023. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000325

Abstract: When women make mate choices, they face potential conflict with their parents. Evolutionary theory predicts, and prior research confirms, that daughters value physical attractiveness (as a signal of genetic quality) more than their parents do when considering a partner for their daughters. However, prior research also shows that daughters and their parents value the most important traits of a mate for daughters similarly (e.g., mutual love, intelligence, etc.). We assessed self-reported mate preferences and responses to an experimental manipulation among 150 daughter–parent pairs. We varied men's physical attractiveness (more vs. less attractive) and ascribed personality characteristics (ambitious/intelligent vs. disorganized/physically fit) in a 2 × 2 independent groups design, testing 8 hypotheses evaluating the relative importance of physical attractiveness and personality traits. Self-reported ratings by both women and their parents indicated that the traits ambition and intelligence were significantly more important than physical attractiveness for a long-term mate for daughters. And, across conditions, both daughters and parents rated the ambitious and intelligent man as a more desirable dating partner than the more attractive man. However, when asked to choose the best mate for daughters, both daughters (68.7%) and their parents (63.3%) chose the more attractive man as the best long-term dating partner for daughters, regardless of his ascribed traits. Furthermore, daughters’ and parents’ choices corresponded 79% of the time. Physical attractiveness may be more important to both daughters and parents than self-reported responses suggest and actual daughter–parent conflict over physical attractiveness in chosen partnerships may be less prevalent than perceived conflict.