From eternity women have been tagged as the more romantic gender. Even today the stigma stands about who is more romantic in a relationship and the answer is mostly, the woman! But a new study shows that we might have been underestimating a woman’s attention to detail.
What’s it all about?
A study was conducted in Australia where 400 volunteers were asked to evaluate the attractiveness of strangers from the opposite sex from their pictures.
But here’s the catch:
- They were shown blurry pictures, with unclear facial features and. a clear photo of the same person
- The order of these two types of pictures was randomized. While some saw the blurry one first the other saw the clear one
“When people have only incomplete information about a potential partner, they must make inferences about their desirability, leading to possible errors in judgment,” – the researchers found.
The focus of the study was to understand how people “balance the risks” of these misjudgments.
The following were the potential risks:
- Regrettable mating behavior when overestimating attractiveness
- Missing valuable opportunity when underestimating attractiveness
So, away from the theories and technicalities…
What did the study reveal?
To start with, the results showed that on average, men tend to overestimate the attractiveness of a woman at a glance while for women the scenario is quite the opposite!
The research also found that some differing “nuanced biases”. While most male volunteers could be seen overestimating the attractiveness of unattractive women( but not unattractive women); female volunteers expressed bias towards attractive men(but not unattractive men).
Why these deductions were tagged “important finding” by researchers, they also added that they were broad quantitative analyses that need further research to conclude why these first impression biases exist in the first place!
Anyhow, this newfound information can definitely become topics of couch talks or living room discussions. Don’t you agree?
