You're right, the ad industry did catch on to this a long time of ago. I also remember how in high school you'd date based on your friends' expectations, and learn to eschew your initial impressions of people. That makes me think that there might be hope in this world for independent thought, after all.

I think we have our initial impressions about someone attractiveness, but adjust it automatically based on perceived norms and expressed opinion. I'm not saying that women are engineered to compete for me. I'm saying that as a social animal, we take a lot of hints and clues from the people and society around us.

It's a pretty common thing taught in most dating websites and "playa" manuals targeted to guys too. Make friends with attractive women and have them hang around you at bars and other social situations. I have colleagues into that stuff and swear that it works. I'm not into the bar dating/hookup scene myself, so can't tell.

From my personal experience, this is totally true. Not that it's impossible to avoid this behavior, but it does take a certain level of maturity, which most people develop only much later in life.

Perhaps, but this is totally true for men too, as any woman who has ever been "shown off" by a boyfriend to his buddies knows.

I'm pretty sure both sexes do this. Especially in high school. It's foolish to imply it's just a females-with-males phenomenon.
Furthermore, it's ridiculous to assume that physical "attractiveness" is something fixed and readily quantifiable. It's not. You can be attracted/attractive to one person and not another. That's what we mean when we talk about someone being our "type." It's also how we can come to see someone we love as attractive or even beautiful even if no one else thinks so, or find someone who's conventionally attractive downright repugnant if they, for example, act like a complete asshole all the time.

I can't believe someone actually got paid to do this "study".
I'm so in the wrong line of work...

I love this website, but I think the poster got a little too bent out of shape about this study. As far as I can tell from what she posted about it, the study does not claim that women are compelled to compete with each other for a man's attention or steal men from each other. What it's saying is that when selecting a mate human beings (and in this study women in particular) are influenced by social pressures. When we're looking for someone to date or eventually marry a part of us wants our peers to approve of our selection. That's what the study shows. Yes, it seems like a very obvious conclusion. But the study isn't saying that women are attracted to a particular man because he is with another woman and they feel compelled to take him. If the rest of the study actually suggested that there's a natural "man-stealing" inclination in women the poster should have been clearer about that.

this is totally true for men too, as any woman who has ever been "shown off" by a boyfriend to his buddies knows

No, it's the bedrock of patriarchy.

Not that it's impossible to avoid this behavior, but it does take a certain level of maturity

Men don't really get beyond this behavior.

Samhita was extrapolating based on her thoughts and experiences and they're generally right.

Women find men more attractive if other women find them attractive too.

I've noticed this too, but I agree, this explaination isn't right:

Yes and of course this must be because women are competitive for men's attention and they don't just want a man, they want your man.

I always figured it was because women are not shallow enough: either women aren't inherently so attracted by looks as men or, more likely, women are not as encouraged by society to develop an appreciation for male beauty as men are "encouraged" to "appreciate" female beauty (to the point where objectification is encouraged). The problem then is how do you sort out whom to approach, e.g., in a bar? You can't get to actually know everyone, can you?

For us men it's easy: biology or more likely society has taught us how to be shallow and make that initial assortment based on looks. However, women are not allowed to be shallow in the same way as men are -- so how else do you pick out something or someone if not by looks? By "recommendation": if someone else is attracted to a given guy, he's more likely to be a good catch, nu?

BTW ... I know that men also fall into this trap of finding women attractive based on what other men find attractive (and this whole conversation is quite heterosexually biased, FWIW), but it seems to me that it occurs less often that way 'round, 'cause society (and there are certain invariants here about waist/hip ratio that may be chalked up to biology) at large lays out clearer "standards" for what is considered attractive in a woman ...

So I would say that maybe women tend to find men more attractive if specific other women find them attractive whereas men find women more attractive if society at large finds their body type more attractive ... because in our society men are "supposed" to be attracted physically to women, but women are "supposed" to find men, at some level, un-attractive (c.f. Berke Breathed who blames this dichotomy on cockroaches).

There are only two types of research (sic) in the social sciences:

1) Carrying out a study to confirm what everybody already knows.

2) Public psychotherapy.

I'm at a loss to explain why *any* social science researcher gets paid, Dr. Ben Jones included.

Hey, don't go tarring all social science researchers with the same brush. A lot of social scientists are working to improve relationships within communities, or improve conditions in prisons or schools, or to help people get health care they need. I know people working on each of these issues. Social scientists are the ones who can convince hospitals to change procedures, so Hmong people feel more comfortable, for example. The "boring" studies aren't the ones that make it into mainstream media, though.

In any case, I'm totally not buying the "women aren't physically attracted to men, so they look for cues from other women" theory, either. Although I usually end up liking guys with lots of female friends, I'm pretty good at figuring out who I'm attracted to, all by myself.

Ok so then what does it say about me if I allow my gay male best friend's opinion to sway me? For example if he points out something attractive about a man that I normally wouldn't have noticed? Does that mean i want to turn gay men straight? Or does that mean I want to turn into a gay man? I'm confused.

I know that my opinions are influenced by what other people think. I could be wrong here, but I think that's how society works. This would be a better experiemental design:

Do the same experiment on both men and women, and mix up the genders of the people being judged and those with the smiles/bored/neutral faces. I suspect they would find that we're influenced by what other people think and that the effect is not strongly gendered...

... but I'm not a social scientist.

DT, I think you're right, but I don't think they need to do any research to prove that we are heavily influenced, regardless of gender. Just look at our celebrity-cult culture!

I was watching the golden globes the other night, when it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't actually sexually attracted to any of the celebrities I was seeing on television. I wondered if there was something wrong with me, but then remembered that I just have my own style, my own tastes.

Still, if you asked me what I thought was beautiful or attractive, I would point you right back at these celebrities.

It's just something I've noticed over the years, that beauty/attraction and sexual desire don't necessarily go hand in hand. I know David Beckham is muy guapo...but the idea of sleeping with him makes me laugh, and then yawn.

It's just something I've noticed over the years, that beauty/attraction and sexual desire don't necessarily go hand in hand

In undergrad, a few of us were trying to delineate some of these concepts, but we got bogged down in what word to use for what idea.

Anyway, using my termonology, we distinguished between "sexy", "attractive", etc. For example, a person you'd want to have sex with, based solely on their physical attributes, would be "sexy". A person who you would pick out at some distance as having good looks (and hence, if you were shallow, would move in closer to see about getting to know the person better) would be, obviously, "attractive".

While many would conflate "sexy" and "attractive", even if my friends and I disagreed on the termonology, we felt that they were distinct, albeit correlated. For instance, there was this one girl in my dorm who was mondo attractive, but not, IMHO, sexy -- as physically appealing as she was, I somehow couldn't imagine myself in bed with her. OTOH, the first girl I really dated wasn't particularly attractive, but she was very sexy: I wouldn't seek her out in a crowd or from a distance, but, um, things happened upon hugging her or even being near her.

In general (and this seemed to transcend gender and sexuality, but it still may involve certain socially influenced constructs about sexual attractiveness), the people we found to be sexy but not attractive were those who maybe were a little plump, whereas the people we found attractive but not sexy were maybe a little thin. But this was a generality not a universality: I had a major crush on a girl at some point in grad school whom I found to be sexy but not necessarily attractive, and she was very much on the thin side ...

"So I think it is a pretty big leap to say that women happen to find men more attractive when other women do."

I'm with you there.

I've never understood the claim that what people find attractive is dictated by what other people find is attractive (via tv, movies, magazines, etc.)

My brother and I grew up together in the same house, watched the same tv shows and movies, and yet we have remarkably dissimilar preferences in women.

DT, I suspect that you are right. This looks like a run-of-the-mill case of social referencing. The lack of proper controls (looking at female and male faces, having females and males smile or look bored, etc) is what makes this case seem exceptional.

It's funny, actually, when I read this the part that caught my eye was "bored or neutral." Maybe I've been listening to too much Pink, but my mind immediately went to "oh, that girl doesn't like him because he's being a jackass. That gives me a negative opinion of him."

So for some of us at least -- it might just mean we're inherently trusting of other women's judgment. Yay sisterhood! :)

What a strange article.

I remember a guy in his forties, not especially attractive by conventional standards, really kind of obnoxious. And partly to belittle him, partly to flatter him, the women in my social group made a running joke out of him having a cute butt. The meme took off and developed a life of its own and, sure enough, he became something of a sex symbol.

Social referencing is very important. I am simultaneously thought of as a wild and crazy party animal and an uptight prude in different social circles, and people make prejudgments of me based on those impressions.

What on earth does any of this have to do with gender? Haven't these researchers heard of word of mouth marketing? It works on the same principle. If five friends say a movie is good, it will be qualitatively better than if five friends say it's bad. The experience is subjective and can therefore be manipulated. Perceived beauty is no different than any other comparably intersubjective standard.

Cheers,

TH

Uh, there's no accounting for taste. I have friends who die for skinny dudes, musical dudes, sporty dudes, blazingly handsome dudes...sure, they're "attractive", but that doesn't stir any competition in my soul. They're just not what I'm attracted to. This is great, because they can pimp me some mens (a.k.a. introduce me, yeesh, what were you thinking?) without any time-wasting judging. Of course, we usually agree on the arrogant, unattractive ones.