The larger the wallet, the more attractive? How do Russian women look for a chosen one?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Psychologists have confirmed that the wallet is the most attractive part of a man. But if we ignore the material factor, then the most attractive qualities of a man in the eyes of Russian women are loving, courageous, charming, pure, happy, sincere, independent, acting as a leader. Thin and fat are not too quoted. And such qualities are absolutely unacceptable: optional, feminine, indifferent, does salon manicure and pedicure, dyes hair, applies varnish to nails.

Sociologists and social anthropologists have been trying for the last twenty years to study the criteria for the attractiveness of men (studies on the criteria for the attractiveness of women are more than a hundred years old). Some of the results of these works are described in the article by psychologist Daria Pogontseva "The modern idea of women about a handsome man" ("North Caucasian Psychological Bulletin", No. 10, 2012).

The larger the wallet, the more attractive

C. Chu, R. Hardaker, J. Lycett in 2007, studying one of the most common cross-cultural jokes that "a man's beauty is directly proportional to the size of his wallet," confirmed this phenomenon, explaining it by the genetic tasks of a woman - to raise offspring.

In their study, women assessed the attractiveness (attractiveness - emotional attraction, sympathy, erotic attractiveness) of the external appearance of the men shown in the photographs. The pictures were divided into two groups: the first were men with an attractive appearance, and the second were men who did not have such an appearance. Further, information on the size of their bank account and salary level was added to the photos with men with non-attractive appearance (all information was significantly inflated), while in the photo with men with attractive appearance, information was also added about the size of their bank account and the level of salaries, however, all information has been distorted and reduced. As a result, women rated men based on information about their economic wealth: the higher the wealth, the higher the assessment of the attractiveness of their appearance.

The attractiveness of athletes is important for their status in the game

Another group of scientists (J. Park, A. Baank, M. Willing) put forward the assumption that the most beautiful are athletes. Based on the results of previous studies, it has been noted that athleticism is a sexually selected trait that signals genetic quality. More prestigious sports are those that more signal gender-specific traits (eg, strength, endurance, agility). The authors also put forward the idea that if there are differences between different sports, then there may be differences depending on the role of the players within a certain direction, depending on their status and role in the game.

In their study, they asked women to evaluate the attractiveness of athletes' appearance. In the first part of the study, women assessed athletes and non-athletes. It turned out that women athletes were rated as more attractive. In the second part of the experiment, the women evaluated only the athletes, but all the photographs indicated the position of the athletes in the game. It should be noted that there are 4 positions in football: goalkeeper, defender, midfielder (midfielder) and striker (forward). There is also a captain and one of the players who coordinates the work of the team on the field (usually the most experienced or simply the best player). In their research, it was found that goalkeepers, forwards and team captains receive the highest marks. Thus, when assessing the attractiveness of the external appearance, not only the indicator of athleticism (athleticism) is important, but also the role of the athlete in the team.

Slender, clean, courageous

However, the problem of the attitude of women towards men who take care of themselves is still not considered, how important the category of grooming is in order to evaluate a man as handsome. To do this, we interviewed 100 women aged 15 to 30, who were asked to assess the gender identity of a handsome man, and also asked to answer the questions of the author's questionnaire, which included 14 questions aimed at identifying ideas about whether a man should be well-groomed, and exactly how a handsome man should take care of himself (visit beauty salons, spa treatments, the ability to dress fashionably).

At the first stage, we identified the gender identity of a handsome man (this technique offers a classic set of characteristics describing masculine identity: analytically thinking, strong physical, possessing leadership qualities). It was found that the majority of the participants ascribed to a handsome man a masculine, polytypical, gender identity (78%), less often androgynous gender identity (18%), there were also participants who ascribed a feminine gender identity to a handsome man (4%).

At the same time, the majority of women (98%) noted that a handsome man should be well-groomed.

At the next stage, we identified those characteristics that women significantly more often attribute to a handsome man (on a descending scale, on a 10-point scale they scored from 6, 7 to 5, 9): loving, courageous, charming, pure, happy, sincere, independent, acting as a leader with leadership qualities, physically strong, able to wear a suit / tuxedo. But the characteristics that most of the study participants consider not acceptable for a handsome man (also on a descending scale, scored from 2, 3 to 1, 3 on a 10-point scale): optional, feminine, indifferent, unnatural, makes hair masks, looks after skin around the eyes, makes a salon manicure, does a salon pedicure, dyes hair, applies varnish to nails for health or aesthetic purposes.

We also asked the girls to describe the figure of a handsome man. As a stimulus material, we used images of a male body developed by K. Yager. This stimulus material includes 9 images of the male body, which correspond to different indicators of BMI (body mass index - the ratio of height to weight) and correlate with the WHO indicators from "underweight" to "third degree obesity". The participants were asked to choose an image of a figure that most closely corresponded to their idea of the figure of a handsome man. Further, we carried out an analysis that showed that there is a direct correlation between the age of the study participants and the idea of a handsome man: the older the study participants, the more weight they attribute to a handsome man.

Women assigned the handsome man a BMI range from figure # 2 to figure # 5. About 11% of women described the man as having a normal weight (the lower limit of the norm on the verge of depletion), 74% chose the physiological norm, about 15% of women indicated the figure "with pre-obesity."

Also, older participants in the study were less likely to endow a handsome man with such characteristics as clean, knows how to dress fashionably, knows how to select and use accessories, and more often attribute such characteristics as self-sufficient and analytical thinking.