People are generally attracted to people similar to themselves in looks, personality in romantic relationships
Research published in the Journal of Family Psychology suggests women who marry less attractive men have better marriages, while men who were more attractive than their wives were unhappy about their marriages.
But the Auburn psychology department’s assistant professor Richard Mattson said these findings may not hold true for unmarried college students.
“There are fundamental differences between dating relationships and married relationships,” Mattson said. “Not everything you find in the married population will translate to a dating relationship, because the relationships involve different things.”
Mattson said while people interested in marriage may look for someone to reproduce with, people interested in dating usually look for someone to hang out and have fun with.
Mattson said men and women have different types of investments in relationships.
“Guys are geared to behave in one way and girls another,” Mattson said. “Guys are interested in how to get the best deal, and girls are interested in how to keep the deal. So girls might feel more secure in their relationship if they were more attractive. But these are generalities. Any population has variances.”
Mattson said some women may be happier if they are more attractive than their mates, but most couples are content to be similar.
“‘Opposites attract’ isn’t supported by research,” Mattson said. “It’s more ‘birds of a feather flock together.’ People who are alike tend to gravitate toward people who are like them. This applies to personality and physical attractiveness.”
Alex McDonald, a sophomore in elementary education, said she thinks a relationship in which the woman is more attractive than the man would be an ideal one.
“It’s less important for a man to be attractive than it is for a woman,” McDonald said. “Women are supposed to be the prettier of the two, and if the man were prettier, it might cause problems.”
McDonald said it just makes sense for the female to be more attractive.
“Women, for the most part, are vainer than men,” McDonald said. “I wouldn’t want my husband to be prettier than me. I would want to be the pretty one. I couldn’t deal with a supermodel husband. I would feel like everyone would look at him first. That’s not cool.”
Garrett Stinson, a sophomore in civil engineering, agrees the girl should be the prettier one, and he said he follows this rule.
“I try to shoot for girls who are prettier than me because they’re prettier than me,” Stinson said.
