In fact, we know from previous research that a man's attractiveness does matter in all aspects of life. Just recently it was found that almost all Fortune 500 CEO's are NOT bald when about 35% of men in the population are indeed bald.
We also know factually that those same Fortune 500 CEO's are likely to be significantly taller than their counterparts in the real world.
Facial attractiveness in men doesn't pay off for them like it does women, however. Attractive men don't earn significantly more than unattractive men. Attractive men don't accumulate significantly more wealth than the unattractive.
What About Romance?
In romantic attraction however, things are different.
In short, the data suggest that whether you're a man or a woman, being attractive is just as good for your romantic prospects and, to a lesser extent, so is being a good earner.
For a month, the romantic lives of study participants were scrutinized, including their prospects within and outside of a speed-dating event.
What people said and did in choosing romantic partners were two different matters.
"True to the stereotypes, the initial self-reports of male participants indicated that they cared more than women about a romantic partner's physical attractiveness, and the women in the study stated more than men that earning power was an aphrodisiac," said Paul Eastwick, lead author of the study and graduate student in psychology in the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern.
But in reality men and women were equally inspired by physical attraction and equally inspired by earning power or ambition.
"In other words good looks was the primary stimulus of attraction for both men and women, and a person with good earning prospects or ambition tended to be liked as well," said Eli Finkel, assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern. "Most noteworthy, the earning-power effect as well as the good-looks effect didn't differ for men and women."
Participants' preferences based on their live romantic interactions contrasted with the ideal sex-differentiated preferences that they reported 10 days before the speed-dating event.
"We found that the romantic dynamics that occurred at the speed-dating event and during the following 30-day period had little to do with the sex-differentiated preferences stated on the questionnaires," said Finkel.
Everybody Lies?
House M.D. says that, "Everybody Lies," and while that is true, it may not completely answer why men and women say that they want one thing in a partner and then head straight to beauty instead.
Sometimes people THINK they want something/someone, but of course that's just the teeny part of the brain that actually thinks. The nonconscious part of the brain isn't wired to think or be interested in astronomy or geography.
The speed dating methodology gave the researchers an opportunity not available to earlier generations of researchers to compare stated romantic preferences with actual choices participants made about a series of potential partners.
The discrepancy between what people did and said in this dating situation fits with other research that shows that people often do a poor job explaining why they do things, often referring to accepted cultural theories to explain their own behavior.
The speed-dating methodology allowed the Northwestern researchers to move beyond the abstract world of romantic ideals to see how people actually rated a number of flesh-and-blood people regarding physical attractiveness, ambition and earning power.
"If you were to tell me that you prefer physically attractive romantic partners, I would expect to see that you indeed are more attracted to physically attractive partners," said Eastwick. "But our participants didn't pursue their ideal in this way. This leads us to question whether people know what they initially value in a romantic partner."
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