Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae (2001) in J. Pers. Soc. Psych. put out a good meta-analysis of sex diffs in personality, spanning the globe. There was a more recent just like it, but I can't find the reference. Same overall conclusions though.

This is misleading:

With the exception of 'ideas' (F-M=-1.6), a sub-trait of Openness to Experience, none of the 30 Big-Five sub-traits show more skew towards men than do assertiveness and excitement-seeking.

There's nothing special about the way the traits are scored -- you could reverse the scores on Agreeableness and relabel it Disagreeableness. You're interested in the largest magnitude of sex diffs, not just the ones that happen to be negative due to the arbitrary scoring system.

In the Costa et al (2001) meta-analysis, the facets of Agreeableness show the largest differences -- .19, .43, .43, .38, .38, .31. Those of Neuroticism come in second -- .4, not signif, .24, .30, .23, .44. Those numbers are for US adults, but elsewhere it's Neuroticism and Agreeableness still that show the largest differences.

Girls are highly emotionally reactive, and are very kind. (Aw.)

Re: sex diffs in Extraversion -- there are places where the male-female gap is low, such as sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. We don't know if that means males are more Extraverted or females are less Extraverted -- probably males more in Africa, and females less in East Asia. That would fit with the promiscuous angle.

Something like low Extraversion (social nervousness, or inhibition, something like that) correlates with lighter eye and lighter hair color. Ever notice that there are no blond male pornstars? NSFW:

http://www.ladirectmodels.com/se...derby=ASC& Go=Go

From what I've seen, none of the famous Pickup Artists are naturally blond either.

The numbers I gave above are effect sizes or standard deviations separating the two means. I think yours must be the "t-scores" that are the raw data in the Big Five questionnaire.

There's nothing special about the way the traits are scored -- you could reverse the scores on Agreeableness and relabel it Disagreeableness. You're interested in the largest magnitude of sex diffs, not just the ones that happen to be negative due to the arbitrary scoring system.

Good point.. Should have thought of that.

there are places where the male-female gap is low, such as sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. We don't know if that means males are more Extraverted or females are less Extraverted -- probably males more in Africa, and females less in East Asia. That would fit with the promiscuous angle.

Have you read this? A worldwide study of Big-5 traits in relation to sexual behaviors like promiscuity, mate poaching, etc.

regarding your link there's a guy there named "Jarod Diamond." Found that kind of funny.

dudes shouldn't know jack about male porn stars. end of story.

"Introverted nerds don't get laid much"

Well I think you need to adjust for the effects of prostitution. I would bet that the typical thrill seeking, hypermasculine male is probably much more likely to make use of prostitution services, in comparison to an introverted/bookish kid that's built his life around acing his MCATs or getting into a top 20 MBA program....

I don't doubt that an alpha male type guy is more attractive to younger women, but realistically most guys, whether alpha or beta, aren't getting laid much up until marriage or long-term cohabitation. At that point though, your bookish A+ students have either finished their med school residency or landed that coveted banking job on Wall Street. So I would imagine that in the longterm, being high IQ and ambitious is very advantageous in attracting lots of pretty women. Who's more likely to succeed in the dating market, an investment banker or a slum dweller?

Well I think you need to adjust for the effects of prostitution. I would bet that the typical thrill seeking, hypermasculine male is probably much more likely to make use of prostitution services, in comparison to an introverted/bookish kid that's built his life around acing his MCATs or getting into a top 20 MBA program....

There are definitely a lot of things that need to be adjusted for. One that I would especially like to see incorporated into a multi-variate analysis along with sensation-seeking would be height.

While you're right that sensation-seekers are more likely to visit prostitutes, I doubt though that prostitutes would have a really sizable effect on the extrovert-introvert gap.

..IQ..

Could you cite a study? Everything I've read goes against what you're saying on that.

Who's more likely to succeed in the dating market, an investment banker or a slum dweller?

Depends how you define success.

Just to clarify on the IQ effects... it's important to separate the effects of income and status from the effects of IQ on number of mates if you want to figure out what the true causal element is. I agree with you that males higher up in the status hierarchy who are more ambitious and earn more will succeed more in the dating market...

There's a small negative correlation between sensation-seeking and verbal IQ, and also a small correlation between IQ and income (see today's post). So that might be considered one of the downsides for sensation-seekers. But my bet is that most of the effects of the two are additive. There are plenty of high-status, intelligent, extroverts and also plenty of low-status intelligent, introverts.

height

Tall guys can date a larger pool of women. So I think height correlates with more reproductive success, up to a point. A 5ft 10 inch guy has a lot more women to choose from than a a 5ft 3 guy, but I think there are diminishing returns after that. Women want a guy a few inches taller, but I never noticed that really tall guys ever had much of advantage in the dating market.

I think you make some good points. I think one benefit extroverts have is that they are likely to approach more women, date more women, and therefore more likely to end up in more relationships. Introverts that fear social interaction are going to have a much more difficult time asking a girl out.

. Women want a guy a few inches taller

the surveys i've seen is that the preference is for dudes at least 6 inches taller. i think diminishing returns really kicks in after 6'3 or so. this is of course the theoretical ideal.

Women on average are 5'4.5, men 5'9.5, in the US anyway. That's 5 inches right there.

Plus, everyone already knows that the sexual appeal of height quickly shows diminishing returns after [whatever my height is].

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun...830- 663,00.html

At least 178 centimeters according to this survey from UK dating. The ideal man is Jake Gyllenhaal (6 ft).

Another study of models from the University of Gdansk put the ideal height at at least 6 ft.

According to one study with a design sensitive to revealed preferences, the dating market advantage of male height plateaus after about 6'6, and never reverses.

This is how much more money men at each height level needed to earn annually to get the same response rate as a 5'11 guy on an Internet dating site:

5’0 = 317,000
5’2 = 269,000
5’4 = 221,000
5’6 = 175,000
5’8 = 138,000
5’10= 24,000
6’0 = -8,000
6’2 = -30,000
6’4 = -51,000
6’6 = -63,000
6’10= -63,000

The response rate goes up with height since taller man are drawing from a much larger pool, but I'm amazed that there's such a huge difference between 5'8 and 5'11. Going on this data, a slightly above average blue collar could find as much success as slightly below average doctor.

That doesn't sound crazy to me. The same study looked at occupational draws, and while lawyers were on top, fireman and military careers were next, ahead of doctor (here's another study pointing in a similar direction: attractive middle class males may actually be the hottest commodities). The study found looks were the most important variable for both men and women, and that male 10s may reap even more unusual rewards than female 10s:

In fact, the looks ratings variable has the strongest impact on outcomes among all variables used in the Poisson regression analysis. Men and women in the lowest decile receive only about half as many e-mails as members whose rating is in the fourth decile, while the users in the top decile are contacted about twice as often. Overall, the relationship between outcomes and looks is similar for men and women. However, there is a surprising “superstar effect” for men. Men in the top five percent of ratings receive almost twice as many first contacts as the next five percent; for women, on the other hand, the analogous difference in outcomes is much smaller.

(p 20)

http://designogselvfremstillelse.../10/ dating1.pdf

Going on this data, a slightly above average blue collar could find as much success as slightly below average doctor.

I don't think you can extrapolate precisely from Malloy's data to real (i.e. non-internet) life. The women have nothing to go by except height and the listed amount of money the men make. In real life things like personality and social maturity etc. play a large role, downplaying the effects of both income and appearance for men.

This is why I intentionally chose tests that measure the real-life number of sex partners for this post as opposed to studies which aim to figure out what is "attractive" or "ideal" according to interviews.

Height does play a huge role in number of partners and attractiveness to women, but we can't figure it out with precision from studies of personal ads.

I don't think you can extrapolate precisely from Malloy's data to real (i.e. non-internet) life.

i think this is correct. according to surveys no white woman would ever have sex with an asian man who makes less than $250,000 a year. i think it does happen now and then :-)

Jason,

As regards tall and superstar effect:

I remember reading in Wired or somewhere about a survey of JDate - the Jewish dating site - where a Danish Jewish guy, who was 6' 1", good looking with blonde hair and blue eyes, and who spoke 4 languages and was working in investment banking in New York - was getting about 2,000 emails a week from wannabe dates, and had been doing so for a few years...

The famous study that height affects wage only through adolescent height suggests that height affects personality. Are there studies of the correlation of height with the big five? Better yet, of adolescent height with them?

The only thing I could find was Saucier & Goldberg, "What Is Beyond the Big Five?" which claimed very little correlation between height and the big five, but it wasn't the point of the paper. It would be nice to know the correlation with the subfactors of extroversion.

The famous study that height affects wage only through adolescent height suggests that height affects personality.


The follow-up to that study showed that this is entirely accounted for by prior childhood IQ. Apparently people with higher IQs also just have earlier growth spurts.


This is why I intentionally chose tests that measure the real-life number of sex partners for this post as opposed to studies which aim to figure out what is "attractive" or "ideal" according to interviews.


I don't disagree that the online and speed dating experiments have their own limitations, but IMO they are the best current designs for uncovering revealed preferences. Most of the findings build on and support previous research theory and findings.

One thing I am adamant about though is that while number of female sex partners tells us a lot about the goals and behavior of men with certain traits, it tells us little about the wants of females. (See my comments in this post) Traits like unemployment may increase sex partners because females find it a superior male trait to employment, or because it gives men more time to invest in mating effort, which, I think, is the biggest determinate. Similarly I would assume men with more sensation-seeking have more partners primarily just b/c they invest more in mating effort.


...according to surveys no white woman would ever have sex with an asian man who makes less than $250,000 a year

To clarify, in surveys white women say they would never ever pass up a date just because of something like race. In experiments where we can monitor their behavior in courtship attempts (speed dating/online dating), we find that race is a huge variable for women of every ethnicity.

Monetary equivalents were a clever device with the data, but it doesn't tell us that individual women never date men of other races, only that same-race preferences and specific race biases loom as a huge variable in female choice.

To clarify, in surveys white women say they would never ever pass up a date just because of something like race. In experiments where we can monitor their behavior in courtship attempts (speed dating/online dating), we find that race is a huge variable for women of every ethnicity.

i know about those studies, but that's not what i'm talking about. a different survey just *asked* women to place a race-premium in terms of how much more money a man would have to make all things controlled if he was outside of her race for her to date him. white women gave ridiculously high figures for asians (the lowest premium was for hispanics, with blacks in the middle). i am skeptical in real life that an asian man would really have to bank on the order of hundreds of thousands more in salary make him equally attractive.

btw, this is the best study (final draft of a working paper that's been circulating) re: race preferences that i've seen.

Z, agreed, that's the paper discussed in the Slate link above. Do you know the study where women reported that amount? It sounds like the online dating paper I linked above (the number in that paper is $247,000), but that isn't a self-reported number, it's a reflection of their actual behavior.

It sounds like the online dating paper I linked above (the number in that paper is $247,000).

sounds about right.

i think the lack of realism is part of the reason why younger people are more race conscious than older in the study above too. i don't think that their dismissal of different goals for males and females by analogizing with age works because of that, older people don't perceive the game the same because the clock is ticking and they'll be open to suboptimal outcomes because that's the best they'll ever get within the time span of a human life. if you lived forever you're going to hook up with that multi-billion dollar perfect 10 who has a personality to die for because everyone has bad judgment at some point over an infinite span. but at 30 people start realizing that they'll die before they meet The One.

Apparently people with higher IQs also just have earlier growth spurts.

Isn't that the exact opposite of Rushton's whole life history thing? I haven't read much into his work because it seems overly theoretical and presumptive given the current available data, so my understanding of his view might be skewed.

Similarly I would assume men with more sensation-seeking have more partners primarily just b/c they invest more in mating effort.

This might be correct, but a few lines of evidence seem to go against it:

1) Sensation-seekers find more feminine (less mannish looking) women to be more attractive (link.) This suggests to me that they're going after (and getting) the prettier girls. Additionally, women on the fertile stage of their periods are much more into masculine sensation seekers.

2) As I allude to in my post, (McCoul & Haslam 2001) has a paragraph summarizing studies which suggest that sensation-seeking is not *only* an impetus to seeking mates, but also intrinsically attractive to women.

3) It's not just sex, it's relationships too. More than one third of women report dating men who had more sexual experience/partners than they would have liked. (Herold & Millhausen 1999) Considering the established biases towards reporting of socially desirable/acceptable facts about oneself, this is probably an underestimate.

4) In studies which examine women's preferences, regardless of the technique (be it through watching videos of different men flirting with women, or through questionnaire), there is a preference shown for extraversion. I think that the table in my post provides pretty strong evidence that what they really like about these men is their assertiveness and sensation-seeking.

it doesn't tell us that individual women never date men of other races, only that same-race preferences and specific race biases loom as a huge variable in female choice.

i'm not sure it tells us that. all these women have to go by is appearance (which includes 'race'), income, and reported height. what they're going to do is *stereotype* the men based on these factors, and these factors will appear to account for *all* of the variance in women's preferences, as opposed to the more modest role they likely play in real life. i also believe there are independent lines of evidence which go against the findings of that study in regards to the effect of race on women's preferences.

replace *all* with *way more* in the previous comment.

Sensation-seekers find more feminine (less mannish looking) women to be more attractive (link.) This suggests to me that they're going after (and getting) the prettier girls.

"Prettier" yes, but there are also attractive females with more masculine faces. These guys seem to be going for a particular type of attractiveness, one that signals girliness (= fertility).

That's interesting, since if you're a sensation-seeker whose strategy is to have many kids by many women, you want low resistance on their part. You figure the manlier women would give it up more easily, but they would also be less fertile (for example, the most fertile women are around 5' - 5'2, and tall women are much less so).

The trade-off has been resolved in favor of choosing girls with higher fertility than higher likelihood of letting the guy hit it. News you can use, sensation-seeking readers! (Of course, I always knew girly girls were where it's at...)

You probably also have to control for income levels in women as well.

Upper Middle class to wealthy women can afford single motherhood without much strain, so they'd prefer as mates and fathers to their children, sensation-seeking, extraverts who will "love em and leave em."

Lower middle class women NEED a provider in the home if they will achieve economically, they can't afford nannies and the like. So in that grouping, extraverted "love em and leave em" types won't necessarily be preferred.

whiskey, lower income brackets have higher rates of divorce, infidelity, unprotected sex, and STDs.

The follow-up to that study showed that this is entirely accounted for by prior childhood IQ. Apparently people with higher IQs also just have earlier growth spurts.

Thanks!
I'd heard of that study, but hadn't realized it addressed the adolescent effect. If I read it correctly, the residual effect of height is entirely adult and not adolescent.

But I'm not sure I'd say "just have earlier growth spurts." That may be, but the effect suggests to me that nutrition is still a factor in IQ. Though I find it hard to imagine that professionals give their children better nutrition than managers.

The same study looked at occupational draws, and while lawyers were on top, fireman and military careers were next, ahead of doctor

It seems like women want a guy that's financially stable and pulls a decent income, but other traits might assume precedence once a threshold income level is reached. So firemen and airforce pilots might possess the traits women desire (strength, masculinity, good looks) and make enough money to justify themselves as a decent provider.

^Me.

Extroverted guys also probably tend to be more confident and masculine, which is an appealing trait.

whether alpha or beta, aren't getting laid much up until marriage

lol, I knew several players in college who slept with lots of women (more than 50). Someone who isn't getting laid much up until marriage probably does not fit the definition of an 'alpha' that the PUA community would use.

One of the obvious difficulties of using online dating responses to evaluate what people find important is that there are important characteristics that can only be reliably interpreted after meeting someone. Suppose a woman wanted someone who was kind, trustworthy, tall, wealthy and witty, and she valued all these things equally (as best we can describe it). Her best search heuristic online might be to filter for tall and wealthy and proceed from there to evaluate the other characteristics in person. Claims regarding kindness, wit or trustworthiness would be too easy to fabricate. Obviously men can lie about height and wealth, too, but because those are quantifiable and verifiable lying is easier to catch and carries a higher price.
In another environment where she could evaluate other characteristics things she might proceed differently.

In my view, the type of macho alpha personality that makes a man good with women probably also makes a man prone to massive exaggeration/lying on sexual experience. I don't doubt alphas are better with women, but even they struggle a lot more than you might think (or more than they let on). They just don't admit it..... The main advantage to being an alpha is that you have a lot of women interested in you, so it's relatively not too hard to get a date.

I don't know what is intended by the vague and undefined term "alpha male", but if the meaning is dominating or assertive or jock type guys i just want to point out that that's not what sensation-seeking entails.

McGraw, your last point I think is closer to the truth than any unknown commodity to us. Very insightful. Volume indeed is key if "closing" is super important to you versus "closing on quality [girls]."

i think this is correct. according to surveys no white woman would ever have sex with an asian man who makes less than $250,000 a year. i think it does happen now and then :-)

It happens if she is trailer and has no other options, he makes 230, or some combo thereof.

That's a joke (sort of). Seriously, and this is not meant to stir up trouble, just to see what you guys think:

I have the opinion that Asian guys, and in particular east asian types, are objectively [much] worse looking than Caucasians and even blacks. I'd like to hear your opinions as well, but let's say this is right. Is it because most of these types come from formerly class/caste systems with harems over time and their relative and extreme rich vs. poor positions in the population got them hotter women? I mean, I really feel strongly about this. Women from all cultures fit guys fancy --- this isn't about them. I have seen somewhat attractive Indians and Chinese, but they are black swans. I would rate an overwhelming majority of the guys I've seen to be on average, 3 out of 10. There are a lot of considerations, they tend to be shorter, worse athletes and thus less fit, etc.

I'm just wondering if you've ever talked about this. To make it clear, this isn't a personal attack on anyone.

Or possibly, women don't look for long-term relationships anymore. Why would they? They have their own middle class incomes, and therefore can select on sensation, testosterone, height, status, power, etc. rather than the attributes of being a good husband, provider, etc.

Middle/Upper class women might be more likely to want a sensation and thrill than a steady mate. Income allowing them the hot guy they know will leave and still allow for raising the kid alone (or with nannies, etc).

I have the opinion that Asian guys, and in particular east asian types, are objectively [much] worse looking than Caucasians and even blacks

You say this like it's a novel concept - like everyone doesn't already think this. From the Columbia study:

For male partners, our main finding is that Asians generally receive lower ratings than men of other races. In fact, when we run the regressions separately for each race, we find that even Asian women find white, black, and Hispanic men to be more attractive than Asian men. Given that Asian men were the group that other races expressed strongest preference against, and that Asian women expressed
the least preference against other races, the results in Table 6 suggest that attractiveness may play an important role in the determination of racial preferences, especially those against Asian men. We similarly find that female Asian partners are consistently rated as less attractive, though we also find that black females receive significantly lower ratings relative to whites. As above, we find that when these regressions are run separately for each race, even Asian men find white, black, and Hispanic women to be more attractive than Asian women.

Don't think this includes south Asian men though. I'd think they are somewhere between whites and asians in attractiveness - depending on where in south asia they are from.... The women however are generally better looking than either whites or asians (in my opinion)

I guess I wasn't sure that everyone had admitted it. Black females can be attractive but have major problems with their hair, as has been discussed (and in modernity can be fixed).

Depending on how far south you go, you have caucasians in "South India". I wouldn't consider them "white" really, but I think they are more fairly grouped than other ones, like the term "white". You do seel large variation from East to West in Africa, but I don't think you see such astounding variation (esp. when considering attractiveness) than you see in what come to be considered "whites" in America (Europeans).

Eniola, are you saying Indian women are the best looking, then? I find it hard to defend that (obviously it's a preference) because it seems like walking into a trap. There is FAR more variation and so many different types of good looks as stated in Europe than there are in South Asia, even if we give you Thai and Philippines. The latter are very mixed, but the former only occupy a small place in diversity of look that Europeans have, in my opinion. All of these can look very attractive while being different all the while.

Thanks for the thoughts --- these are interesting.

"Problems with hair"
Everyone has problems with hair. I think the global concensus is that the ideal hair balance for women is long head hair, long curly eyelashes, and medium thickness for eyebrows and no hair anywhere else. Not one group of women achieves all of these without some modern help. And generally, if you live among your own race, your hair problems are easy to take care of and considered normal.

Body hair: asian and black women have it best. white and indian women need to shave their legs and arms pretty much daily. They also often have upper lip hair. Although this may sound gross to other less hairy races, getting rid of this is considered part of normal hygiene.

Eyelashes and brows: black women have it best. Asians paint on their brows and routinely wear fake eyelashes or eyelash extensions. White and Indian women have too much brow hair and pluck almost daily as well. Eyelashes also tend to be straight and not curly, so much effort is spent on lash curlers and mascara.

Head Hair: all races but black have it best here, as they can all grow long hair. Black women hence depend on extensions and braids for the long hair look. In majority black countries, it is also considered normal to wear hair extensions – it’s a popular fashion accessory. The effort is generally periodic.


Most attractive women

Don't think this is possible to determine. I think it depends on individual preference for body parts.

So for example a man that says 100% attraction is facial would probably be more attracted to asian women than one who says 50% face, 25% upper body, 25% lower body. I would say most men on this board, when discusssing female attractiveness focus 90% on face.

[this isn't going to be another place where you repeat the same comment over and over again.]

Edited By Siteowner

Eniola, you're clearly a woman. Only a woman would dare say that 90% of attractiveness is face ... that is not a masculine point of view. Now, I don't disagree that it is the most objectively obvious and quantifiable, so if that's your point, I agree. But guys are way more willing to give up in face for body if it's right. In general, the choice of 6-face and 9-body versus 9-face and 6-body is a question not even worth asking a man. I'm not sure why (we could discuss) but that's just how it is.

I agree that if you live among your race then it's no issue. That's exactly what we are not talking about here though; we're comparing groups in a US style setting.

Two other random notes:

1) Only if you're a big believer in neoteny are asian faces more attractive.

2) Plenty of black women have upper lip hair. I see it almost daily. If this is from mixture with "whites" fine, but then you must be willing to bestow advantages on blacks that whites have given them through mixing as well. I've read that 70% of "blacks" have mixing and 10% of blacks are more than 50% "white" --- whatever each of these two words mean.

Cheers,
Booker T

9-face and 6-body

Is that even possible, though? A 6 body will reflect itself in sagginess/fatness in the face.

Celeb examples would be good. Best I can think of is maybe Hayden Panettierre (sp?) before she toned up.