Men’s Social Status and Attractiveness

Abstract

Research has found that, for long-term dating, women value men with greater financial resources and higher status, while for short-term dating they value men with greater physical attractiveness. However, there are discrepant results for both long- and short-term dating. As most of the previous studies used only questionnaires, we conducted a field experiment to evaluate women’s receptivity to men’s date requests. Young male confederates who ostensibly had high, middle, or low incomes, depending on the experimental condition, asked young women walking down the street for their phone number. We found that men’s financial resources were positively associated with compliance with their request. Evolutionary theory proposing that women select men with greater resources for them and their offspring is used to explain the results.