Stressed men fancy bigger women....

[SardineQueen]

Can anyone explain to me what a useful purpose of this study might be?

BBC

To sell more breast enlargements? Bum enlargements? No?

To meet this particular ideal I think you can do it quite cheaply with some cakes!

Seriously though I read it and all I got was that for some reason it is important to understand what sort of women men fancy. But why? To what purpose?

you could ask 'why' to any scientific or anthropological study.

doesnt have to have a strikter meaning or a deeper purpose, we just want to know.

Its just a nugget of information friom research, whats not to like?. Fwiw it fits empirical observations and sociobiological theses, so its corroboration.

Why is it important to know what sort of women men fancy, but not what sort of men women fancy?

The whole tone of the thing left my nose somewhat out of joint. But I can't quite put my finger on why.

People carrying out research usually do so for a reason, I think?

Whatmeworry I don't understand this bit "Fwiw it fits empirical observations and sociobiological theses" can you expand? Which sociobiological theses are you referring to? Which empirical observations, made by who, when and why?

I think the statistically higher body-confidence of non-white women who aren't skinny, and lower reporting of a preference for skinny women in non-white men, seems like a lost marketing opportunity.

Imagine if all women's body confidence could be controlled and exploited by Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, etc how much more dosh could be made?

Hmm.

It's published in an open access journal.

Maybe they're serious scientists who've just sold out to the bbc to boost their 'impact' rating, but I suspect they're twits.

As you say, it seems peculiar and a bit naff. If they could put it to a good use, that'd be lovely, but I am sceptical.

I remember reading a study that reviewed the "pin-ups" of various decades comparing the financial state of the USA.

Apparently in times of recession men find women with sharper features, smaller eyes etc more attractive, and in more affluent times they prefer baby faces, big eyes.

Psychologists seemed to think It had something to do with the level of protection a woman could be afforded. In times of crisis men are attracted to women who look like they are independant, strong willed self survivalists, in safer times men prefer a babyish face that they can protect and care for.

I'll see if I can dig it out.

^^ That's what i was referring to re empirical studies, also one that showed that poat WW2 there has a huge return to curves whereas Size Zero bay-doll looks were popular in the 1920s, 1960s and the last decade or so (the Good Years till 2008).

Sociobiologists believe that people change their view as to what is attractive according to overall conditions, hence the mother earth figurines of early times (a general preference for women with ample fat reserves in poorer cultures)

Thats why to me this research merely confirms stuff that was known empirically or via theory.

I do think its important we know thsese things, even if they upset various beliefs, in todays world there is a worrying tendency to deny truth when it is uncomfortable..

Hm. It's written up very nicely (PloS One is one of the better open access journals!!) but the photographs of women that were used for doing this study (you can find them at Swami et al., Pers Indiv Diff 2008; 44:563-72) are really horrible IMO. They are all dressed in a nasty leotard-and-tights combo that makes them look almost naked, their legs are spread wide apart, and their arms spread wide too, so they're spreadeagled, only standing up so that all their lumps and bumps hang downwards. Their faces are blacked out by a black circle so they're just bodies. They look like meat, or dolls - not like people.

How any man could find any of these images attractive I have no idea. They are depersonalising, objectifying, yes maybe they have the veneer of "an objective scientific approach" but these are so abstracted they have hardly any relation to reality, or any generalisability.

These findings will be of principal interest to manufacturers of porn and lads mags. I don't think they're generalisable to actual human sexual interactions, or have much relevance to factors driving evolution of the brain, which is I think what they are really interested in.

("they" at the end of my last sentence = "the authors of the study") - based on a quick search for other publications they have co-authored

whatme, I don't think it's 'truth' - you can research something, and even demonstrate it, but this only means it's been demonstrated by you, in those specific conditions.

I do not honestly see how you could research this without the stated interests becoming tangled up with all sorts of social conditioning. That's not a criticism of the authors - I imagine they are aware - but I think it's a bit of a misunderstanding of how science works to generalize from these studies and make universal claims like 'men find this' or 'in times of stress, men do this'.

We don't - and cannot - know that.

We can only work out that men from these samples do this, or that.

Because you can't take a human being out of its social environment and use it as a control, there's a limit to how much you can ever exclude that social environment, so you also have to factor it into your conclusion, and add the caveat that your research only applies to the social environments you've studied.

To then take these limited conclusions out of context and see them as making external commentary on 'today's world' isn't tenable.

whatme, I don't think it's 'truth' - you can research something, and even demonstrate it, but this only means it's been demonstrated by you, in those specific conditions.

That's fine, and the arguments for and against can - and should - be had out in the open.

And its a darn sight better that censoring stuff or wanting it stopped because one doesn't like it. I see a worrying "closing of the Western mind" trend in all sorts of areas - like this one.

And fwiw samples above a certain size can be adjusted to overall populations (and even with small ones the area of error can be predicted)

Oh, sure, I agree, it's good to discuss.

I don't think anyone should censor things ... not sure what you mean by 'the Western mind' though?

Obviously, yes, samples can be used as representative of a larger population, but you'd have to have a population that are all of one homogeneous culture, I think, before it was accurate.

So I'm not suggesting this sample isn't represenative of the society from which the test participants were taken - it might well be - but it only tells us about that society, it doesn't mean it's true in general.

Just looking at the abstract at the moment for some initial impressions:

Pros:

It's not a tiny sample

Cons:

41 test subjects and 40 controls, though not ridiculously small, is quite a small group really.

Not sure why they're using the BMI of the women when this has been pretty conclusively challenged.

They get mega negative points for concluding, in a study focussed entirely on men looking at women:

"These results indicate that human attractiveness judgements are sensitive to variations in local ecologies and reflect adaptive strategies for dealing with changing environmental conditions" (italics mine).

That is really dodgy, both as science and, obviously, from a feminist perspective. They are assuming men's views are default, without studying them.

Here is the actual study.

I've no idea of the standing of the authors or this journal, but it's work done in psychology departments of respectable universities as part of a suite of studies of "why do people find others attractive". It had no special funding, so appears to be just normal collaborative work (updating previous work in the area described as "archival").

It's linked to in the OP? On the BBC website?

I don't know two of the universities but Newcastle is certainly respectable.

I stand by the idea they're pushing conclusions to the BBC to up their impact rating, too. Otherwise, why do it? And why make such sweeping conclusions about 'human' attractiveness judgements?

Either they're bad scientists, or they're good scientists selling out (which might be understandable given the situation, but doesn't make it good), or they are simply so sexist they don't understand why using men as a default and generalizing to 'humans' is wrong.

Going through the main study - I'm just picking out things that struck me as off, so this isn't intended to be especially even-handed. And I'm not saying these are necessarily things the authors didn't accept (they explicitly accept some of them), but they might change how far we take their conclusions:

• They're looking at a very particular group of men, specifically white British undergraduates between 18 and 42, which is interesting. They accept 'ethnicity' as a possible influence, so exclude other ethnicities.

• Their test group has a substantially heavier top limit for the men's own BMIs than the control - the test group ranged from 17.15 (just slightly under normal), to 31.64, which is into the obese range. The control group, OTOH, ranged from 16.53 (underweight) to only 27.76 (overweight). Since the standard distribution of BMI in both groups is the same, these are significant differences between the two groups.

This is interesting, because it's possible the men's own body sizes would affect their preferences. They reckon they discounted BMI by finding no significant differences across the groups, but I'm curious about this one - I wonder what another study focussing on the BMI of men would show? Here, I'm thinking it's interesting they want to discount this factor in the men, whereas they want to focus on it in the women - methodologically, why would they choose to do it that way around? (I mean, I know why, but it's interesting to look at which experiments get done, as well as how they're done).

Interesting point not flagged up in the BBC article - the stressed men not only preferred bigger women, they preferred a wider range of women to the control group.

They point out their study's limitations - they had the control group sit around doing nothing while the test group were being stressed, so maybe the control group's boredom accounts for something too.

My feeling is, while this study has some methodological drawbacks (largely much acknowledged by the authors), the main problem is they push their conclusions far beyond what the study can show, and their abstract makes a pretty unforgiveable generalization from men's responses to 'human' responses. It's not replicated in the article but it's dodgy. The BBC then generalizes it further.

It's fascinating that it's the size issue, men 'preferring bigger women', not the expansion of the range men prefer upwards in BMI, so men 'preferring a wider range of women', that's been picked up on.

That is really dodgy, both as science and, obviously, from a feminist perspective. They are assuming men's views are default, without studying them

I think the science is "as good as you'll get" in these situations, by fairly sound people at fairly sound institutions and (as far as i can see) no undercover paid-for agenda.

They did a study, these are the results. If you don't agree with them give reasons, just because it conflicts with your belief system doesn't make it wrong.

Someone clearly should do a study of the reverse effect on women, but that wasn't this study.

My apologies: I thought it would be helpful to link directly to the study. Clearly not.

It's fascinating that it's the size issue, men 'preferring bigger women', not the expansion of the range men prefer upwards in BMI, so men 'preferring a wider range of women', that's been picked up on

Blows the entire "Size Zero" and Glamour industry to shreds - its the lamentations of a million couture designers and supermodels :o

Oh, no, it was helpful, I just wasn't initially sure it was the same study or another one you meant. I was just clarifying they're the same thing.

whatme - noo, science can always be better!

It's not that it conflicts with my belief system - it's that there are drawbacks in the method and the conclusions. Lots of these they acknowledge in the main study - the problem is they've been generalized and no mention is made of those drawbacks in the media version, which is the one that people will see.

Yes, I thought the fact the range of women they liked expanded was easily as interesting as the conclusion the beeb headlined.

I wonder if it's possible stressed men, or stressed people, are just, well, not very picky?

I wonder if it's possible stressed men, or stressed people, are just, well, not very picky?

Not only stressed men, unless male life is permanently stressful :)

Well, it is, isn't it? Stressful.

I was wondering because there seems to be this very common narrative that if a man goes for a bigger woman, he's somehow 'settling', as if her being big is some kind of major drawback, or evidence he has 'weird taste'. I have a friend who's married to a larger lady and he gets so fed up with these comments. I get far less of the same about DH - no-one seems to assume that I must be odd to marry a fat bloke, they just assume women don't care so much.

I think it'd be interesting to see how some of these social narratives factor into it all, instead of doing what that study did and making rather random comparisons with Zulu society (which they did and which made me a bit puzzled).