On a scale of 1 to 3, the importance men gave to good looks rose from 1.50 to 2.11. But for women, the importance of good looks in men rose from 0.94 to 1.67. In other words, women in 1989 considered a man’s looks even more important than men considered women’s looks 50 years earlier.
Women caring more about how men look, I think, is a symptom of a good development that's taken place over the past 50 years. Women are far more financially independent now than they were back then, and they don't have to care as much about whether their man makes a lot of money. So they're able to focus less on earning potential and more on things like physical attractiveness. Sure, it'd be nice if they focused more on philosophical ability or the ability to dance in novel ways, but all in all it's an improvement.
3 comments:
No, I don't see what the evo-psych hypothesis is either.
Attractiveness is sometimes an indicator of health (for example, the guy goes to the gym on a regular basis, and perhaps because of that interest in health, also goes to the doctor.)If he stays healthy, he can stay in the work force longer. We all know by now that research indicates better-looking people tend to get better jobs and make more money...so the emphasis on attractiveness does not mitigate the interest in earning potential--from an evolutionary fitness standpoint, the ability to help me take care of my children to the point where they can produce my grandchildren. I think the evolutionary stuff is influenced by the cultural stuff. We look for things on this gut level, but have more cultural sophistication about how it works, maybe.
Yeah, I'm on board with the view that what counts as attractive is heavily influenced by selection pressures. But it's hard to see how a change in the perceived importance of attractiveness over a 50-year period relates to any hypothesis in evolutionary psychology.
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