Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence concerning this article should be address to: Andrea L. Andrea L. Do men value physical attractiveness in a mate more than women? Scientists in numerous disciplines believe that they do, but recent research using speed-dating paradigms suggests that males and females are equally influenced by physical attractiveness when choosing potential mates.
Nevertheless, the premise of the current work is that sex differences in the importance of physical attractiveness are most likely to emerge in research on long-term relationships. Accordingly, the current work drew from four independent, longitudinal studies to examine sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness for trajectories of marital satisfaction. Whereas husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive husband.
These findings strengthen support for the idea that gender differences in self-reported preferences for physical attractiveness do have implications for long-term relationship outcomes. Keywords: sex differences, physical attractiveness, evolutionary psychology, marriage, mate preferences.
Biologists e. The goal of the current research was to reconcile this disagreement. In pursuit of this goal, the rest of this introduction is divided into four sections. The first section reviews theoretical and empirical work suggesting that partner physical attractiveness is more important to men than it is to women. The second section describes recent research that questions this position.
The third section distinguishes between sex differences in preferences for short-term versus long-term partners to more closely evaluate the data on sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness for relationships. Evolutionary psychologists were among the first to propose that men and women differ in their preference for physically attractive mates.
