August 13, 2009
Do Single Women Seek Attached Men?
To investigate [the hypothesis], the researchers quizzed male and female undergraduates — some involved in romantic relationships, some unattached — about their ideal romantic partner.
Next, each of the experimental subjects was told that he or she had been matched by a computer with a like-minded partner, and each was shown a photo of an attractive person of the opposite sex. (All the women saw the same photo, as did all the men.) Half of the subjects were told that their match was already romantically involved with someone else, while the other half were told that their match was unattached. Then the subjects were all asked how interested they were in their match.
To the men in the experiment, and to the women who were already in relationships, it didn’t make a significant difference whether their match was single or attached. But single women showed a distinct preference for mate poaching. When the man was described as unattached, 59 percent of the single women were interested in pursuing him. When that same man was described as being in a committed relationship, 90 percent were interested. The researchers write:
According to a recent poll, most women who engage in mate poaching do not think the attached status of the target played a role in their poaching decision, but our study shows this belief to be false. Single women in this study were significantly more interested in the target when he was attached. This may be because an attached man has demonstrated his ability to commit and in some ways his qualities have already been ‘‘pre-screened” by another woman.
I'm probably missing something, but wouldn't a successful poach indicate that the man's commitment was less than credible?
Posted by Robin Varghese at 05:27 PM | Permalink
Comments
Ah, Robin, but a successful poach will only indicate that the man has finally found the real thing—namely, her! Call it hope, or delusion. Both seem necessary in the mate finding business. :)
Posted by: Namit | Aug 13, 2009 6:04:08 PM
Cool Robin!!! But, wow, there is so much wrong with this.
Mainly -- if some of the men and women in the experiment were attached, others unattached, shouldn't we know if the attached or unattached ones predominantly opted for the photo of the "match" designated as attached? People of both genders who think of themselves as attached can have freer fantasy lives than the unattached. And this was speculative, was it not? It wasn't an introduction service these researchers were running? So the subjects were invited to fantasize, not given a choice that even might have real life consequences, since the photos pertained to exactly nothing, actually. Whom you feel attracted to, and how far you will, in truth, go to get that person are rather different matters. So I don't think this experiment suggests that Oklahoma college girls -- and by extension all women -- are aspiring homewreckers. Rather, it suggests that girls, as research subjects, come a little cleaner than boys in the fantasy department.
And, if it is true that women don't mind breaking up a couple to serve themselves, then the nature of the commitment they perceive in that couple might matter, too. Could these merciless women be positing a distinction between "dating" and "married for 15 years"? Sounds to me like the experiment didn't make that distinction. As Cyra McFadden, the inimitable author of _The Serial_ had a character quip: "Clearly, it was time to get a lover. The only question was -- whose?"
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Aug 13, 2009 7:08:08 PM
I'm probably missing something, but wouldn't a successful poach indicate that the man's commitment was less than credible?
Logically .. yes, but two less obvious explanations occur to me:
1) where mates are concerned women are competitive with each other
2) Oscar Wilde's line about the triumph of hope over experience
Also, this is about the assessment of attractiveness without need for action, rather than actual approaches (mating behaviour).
Posted by: bandicoot | Aug 13, 2009 9:04:12 PM
"Rather, it suggests that girls, as research subjects, come a little cleaner than boys in the fantasy department."
So some of the men lied when they said they found the attached woman unattractive?
Why?
Posted by: Sagredo | Aug 14, 2009 1:03:39 AM
No, Sagredo -- but I see what you mean and how you concluded that. It was not about attractiveness but interest in pursuit -- more women than men indicated they would be interested to pursue the "attached" person. To my reading, WOULD BE is the operative phrase, in that everyone was asked to say what they might just be interested to do. They were not offered introductions, or instructed to craft a plan. Effectively, the subjects were being asked to speculate about behavior that was not going to take place -- sounds like a fantasy to me. This is not the firmest basis for assessing the actual potential of the women subjects to poach a mate, and what I am suggesting is that maybe the women knew they were being asked to speculate, not strategize. And, that maybe the men took the experiment more literally, showing a preference for the least complex option.
Very funnily, the spokesperson for the research team says she doesn't quite know what to make of her findings. Well, I don't either -- but if she's just guessing, then we can guess, too.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Aug 14, 2009 2:19:50 AM
So the potential of an unattached woman to poach a mate is not related to fantasies of poaching a mate?
What of the attached women (for whom, like the men, the attachment of the target made no difference), were they also taking the experiment more literally? Do they also show a preference for the least complex option?
Posted by: Sagredo | Aug 14, 2009 4:16:14 AM
From the paper:
"Participants were seated in an individual computer cubicle and were told..."
"Participants were told..."
"Next, the computer supposedly..."
One wonders, why does anyone walking in to a psychology experiment ever believe anything they're told anymore?
Posted by: Sagredo | Aug 14, 2009 4:22:31 AM
It was Samuel Johnson who described a second marriage as "the triumph of hope over experience." But I'll bet Oscar had some good thoughts on this topic, too!
Posted by: Faze | Aug 14, 2009 7:13:10 AM
Faze, Oscar Wilde was shown Niagara Falls, a honeymoon destination in those years, whereupon he remarked that it must be the first but by no means the keenest disappointment of American married life. While that observation is never attributed to Dr. Johnson, the hope-over-experience remark is often attributed to Oscar Wilde -- sometimes by me! Thanks for the note.
Sagredo, people often fantasize about doing things that would repel them in real life; part of the safety and freedom of a fantasy is that it will in all likelihood never be enacted. This is not to say one fantasizes about what one does not want, only to say that one would not necessarily act to realize a fantasy scenario, because there would be tremendous inhibition involved, even distaste.
Here's what I mean. Fantasy: an athletic competition rival gets a badly twisted knee. Fantasy: the fiance of your heart's desire falls off K-2. Reality: you would intervene to prevent these things happening, because they are actually pretty awful. Besides, you want to win fair and square, and cannot wish to be the beneficiary of anyone else's tragic loss.
I don't know enough about the mindset of subjects in experiments like these, or enough about experiment design, to know how this should have been done. But this sounds like an experiment in which not only the subjects were fantasizing.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Aug 14, 2009 11:05:48 AM
Elatia:
The article links directly to the study. At page 4 of the study, a chart lays out the results, which are as follows:
- Single men are slightly more attracted to single women than they are to attached women.
- Single women are /overwhelmingly/ more attracted to attached men than they are to single men (this is the notable finding pointed out in the article).
- Attached men are slightly more attracted to attached women than to single women (an interesting inversion of the preferences of single men, but probably not statistically significant).
- Attached women are significantly more attracted to single men than to attached men (also an interesting inversion relative to single women and also relative to attached men, but again, perhaps not statistically significant).
- Overall, men are more interested in the targets than women are (not surprising).
- Overall, single subjects seem to be about equally interested in the targets as attached subjects.
I think the article's position is pretty sound, given these findings: if they are statistically significant, the overwhelming preference among single women for attached men is the most salient finding, and points to some underlying psychological factor at work among single women.
Of course, any man who has spent time single and attached, and noticed the amount of attention he gets from other women in one state as opposed to the other, should find nothing about these results surprising.
Posted by: Picador | Aug 14, 2009 2:24:47 PM
After posting the summarized findings, I realized that they suggest a very funny love-rectangle in the heterosexual marketplace: the arrows of predominant desire run from single men, to single women, to attached men, to attached women, to single men. And so the human comedy continues!
Posted by: Picador | Aug 14, 2009 2:27:04 PM
It all makes perfect sense to me.
Posted by: Carlos | Aug 14, 2009 4:01:06 PM
So, here is what I want to know: How many women would think that an "attached" man, by being attracted now to another women. is not worth his salt in terms of commitment? You know the saying, 'Once a cheater always a cheater'. Anybody studied the veracity of that hypothesis?
Posted by: kb | Aug 14, 2009 5:10:14 PM
All this interesting nonsense could have been averted if only all the (heterosexual) men and women in the world had used the Gale-Shapley algorithm to solve the Stable marriage problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem)...Alas,there doesn't seem to be any global integrated system which could have implemented a practical/approximate version of this in reality..
Posted by: Manisha Verma | Aug 14, 2009 9:18:26 PM
Hilarious, Picador! Yes, Carlos -- it does sound life-like, even humdrum.
People fantasize more about those whom they probably can't have than those whom they easily could. That's one way you know you're having a fantasy and not making a plan. Attached people are of course more comfortable flirting, amongst themselves and occasionally with unattached others -- NOTHING need happen, and much needs not to happen. An unattached person who flirts too hard has nowhere to hide; attached persons who do the same can retreat into the attachment -- redraw the magic circle. Picador, you may receive more attention from women when you are paired off because that makes you safer. It certainly doesn't make the women who flirt with you ill-intentioned for indulging in a fun activity that has real limits. I think those Oklahoma researchers need to read Updike.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Aug 14, 2009 9:19:45 PM
"People fantasize more about those whom they probably can't have than those whom they easily could."
Elatia, is this the second or the third of your alternative explanations for the results? I feel like you're defending the honour of single women, or something...
But in any case, this guy is just a photograph. They can't have him anyway. Why is the unavailable attached man more attractive than the unavailable single man?
Posted by: Sagredo | Aug 15, 2009 2:54:04 AM
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