An Investigation into the way men and women attract the opposite sex through personal advertisements.

Psychology Module 6

By Harry Morgan

Abstract

For my study I aim to produce a similar investigation as carried out by Dunbar. He researched into the way that the different sexes attract each other through personal advertisements in American newspapers. I shall re-create this study however, using the local Macclesfield newspaper. After analysing the content I predict that my results shall suggest the same trend as Dunbar’s results: Women advertise attractiveness and youth whereas men offer wealth and financial stability.

Having carried out the experiment, I found that my results did follow Dunbar’s results’ trend. Men advertise their resources whereas women advertise looks and youth. I used a tally to record the data and then produced a Chi score in order to analyse my results. I found that Chi Squared – 12.484. The Critical value at p - 0.05 (one trailed) – 3.84. This means that the difference is significant at a 5% confidence level so I can accept both my null and directional hypothesis which was that “There will be no significant difference between how men and women advertise themselves to the opposite sex.”

Introduction

Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that humans naturally select other suitable humans to mate with in order to preserve and continue the human race. This process of “natural selection” supposedly helps minimise disadvantageous mutations and accumulate minor advantageous mutations. For example, a gene resistant to a disease will be passed on in offspring and preserved in order to minimise the chance of death and prevent offspring from mating. Natural selection is the preservation of advantageous genes that enable a species to survive in the wild, and is the equivalent to domestic breeding. Over long periods of time, weak traits are eliminated as humans will not select mates with these characteristics and therefore these inferior genes cannot be passed through generations.

David Buss studied sexual strategies across a wide range of cultures. He found that heterosexual men generally offer status, wealth and professions to attract women and exclude youth and beauty when advertising. Additional Cunningham’s research provides more evidence, which showed that the first characteristic that humans notice is a person’s appearance. He claimed that features such as narrow cheeks, wide cheekbones and widely spread eyes are found attractive by men and features such as square jaw, small eyes and thin lips are found attractive by women. This evidence is shown through aspects of modern life and suggests that Darwin’s idea of physical attractiveness being a key factor.

Furthermore, Andersson carried out a study in 1982 which supported the Darwinian theory of attracting the opposite sex. He artificially elongated bird’s tails and recorded the effect that this had on mating success within birds. He found that the longer the tail of a bird was the more success they had within mating. Those birds who had their tails artificially reduced did significantly less well in mating. Darwin would argue that the long tail on a bird indicated to others that they had “good genes” and those with the longest tails had the best genes. He concluded that this was the reason for mating success. As the study was done on animals psychologists have to be aware that the results may not be able to be fully generalised to humans and may not be valid.

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Researchers Dunbar and Waynforth (1995) carried out research into human differences in mate selection by focusing on 900 different lonely-hearts ads taken from four different American newspapers. The investigation aimed to see what characteristics males and females looked for in potential mates by analysing each ad and recording how each person described themselves and what characteristics they looked for in a partner. It was found that women were more likely to advertise themselves as physically attractive, whereas males tended to highlight their economic status, displaying their potential ability to provide. Darwin’s theory supports this, as stereotypically good looking women will be good child bearers and provide ample food and care for children, and therefore will be more likely to produce healthy children with good genes for the next generation. Similarly, by highlighting their economic status men label themselves as good providers for children and will be able to care and help throughout the child’s life, meaning chance of survival is higher. Furthermore, stereotypically good-looking men (big, muscley etc) will have a higher chance of survival and therefore pass on these good genes to their offspring.

I am going to investigate Darwin’s sexual strategy theory similarly to Dunbar’s methods, by looking into the way in which people advertise themselves in personal advertisements and seeing if they relate with Darwin’s, Andersson and Cunningham’s ideas about physical appearance and also pervious research done by Dunbar. I would be interested in finding out if Dunbar’s results done in America are similar to results that I will find in Macclesfield (England). I would further be interested in seeing if results have changed over time as men and women’s perceptions of each other may have differed in the last few years. His research led to my directional hypothesis which is “Men will describe their resources more than youth and looks in personal advertisements, women will describe their looks and youth more than resources. “

Aims & Hypothesis

The aim of the experiment is to find out what characteristics men and women offer when advertising himself or herself as a potential mate and to investigate if there are gender differences between the way men and women make themselves attractive to the opposite sex through lonely hearts advertisements. inspiration

My directional hypothesis therefore, as influenced by Dunbar, is that heterosexual men will be more likely to offer resources such as wealth and financial stability. Heterosexual women, however, are more likely to offer youth and physical attractiveness.

The null hypothesis would be as follows: there will be no significant difference between how men and women advertise themselves to the opposite sex.

Method

I used a non-experimental content analysis design to test out my hypothesis.

Firstly, we gathered a local paper; ‘The Macclesfield Express’ from Wednesday 4th June 2008. We looked through the paper and found the ‘lonely-hearts’ advertisements named “Love 2 Love”. We tested a total of 108 personal advertisements. There were 53 female advertisements and 55 male advertisements that we analysed.

Secondly, we produced a preliminary read of the advertisements and noted down the specific ways in which both women and men described themselves within their advertisement. With these phrases we made a pre-determined list of the way both sexes describe themselves in terms of looks; for example “attractive”, “good-looking”, “young” and the way both sexes describe themselves in terms of resources; for example “businessman/woman”, “own car”, “solvent”.

We then went through the advertisements, using a tally chart, counting how many times the heterosexuals used these phrases or descriptions.

There were no controlled variables in this study due to the content analysis design. This therefore decreases the accuracy of the study. However, it increases the ecological validity of the study. The uncontrolled variables are the personal descriptions of each person within their advertisement.

We used the Macclesfield express so that it was a good representative sample of our local area within the North West; we used all the heterosexual advertisements presented in the Macclesfield express on Wednesday June 4th 2008. If people stated what they were looking for (“WLTM”) and did not describe themselves then we simply disregarded their advertisement as they were not appealing to the opposite sex through their attributes: they were not following the aim of the experiment.

This study could be repeated easily using different newspapers for a larger scale and a more varied set of results.

Justification of Stats

The data collected was nominal data, which led me to use the Chi squared test. Nominal data means that we are testing for frequencies of males and females offering looks and youth or resources, and therefore it is a test of difference (the difference between what males and females offer). The experiment is also independent measures as there are different subjects in each group (males and females). A 5% confidence level was used, as this is normal for psychological research that doesn’t apply to human health.

Results

I found that in general heterosexual women seeking men were more likely to offer attractiveness/youth rather that offer resources. However, for heterosexual men seeking women I found that men were more likely to offer resources rather than attractiveness.

Critical value at p - 0.05 (one trailed) – 3.84

Chi Squared – 12.484

From these results my calculated chi squared value is 12.484. This is above the critical value meaning the difference is significant meaning I can reject my null hypothesis. I can therefore accept directional hypothesis that heterosexual men will be more likely to offer resources when advertising themselves as a potential mate in a lonely hearts column in a newspaper. Heterosexual women, however, will be more likely to offer good looks as opposed to high financial and economical status.

Discussion

Explanation of Findings –

I found that in general heterosexual women seeking men were more likely to offer looks/youth rather that offer resources. For females, 82 offered youth/looks and 32 offered resources out of a total 118 ads. However, for heterosexual men seeking women I found that men were more likely to offer resources rather than looks. For men, 36 offered looks/youth and 45 offered resources out of a total 81 ads. The fact that I used a 5% confidence level means that there is only a 5% probability that my results are down to chance. This allows me to reject my null hypothesis and accept my directional experimental hypothesis.

Relationship to Background Research –

We found that in general women were more likely to offer youth and good looks as opposed to wealth and financial status in my sample of adverts. This is similar to the research of Dunbar and Waynforth (1995), who found that women were more likely to offer physical attractiveness. Furthermore, these results are supported by Darwin’s theory of evolution, as by offering physical attractiveness as a quality, women are more likely to be successful child bearers. This means that offspring are more likely to survive, and healthy genes are more likely to be passed through the generations.

Similarly, we found that men were more likely to offer wealth and finance rather that looks. Dunbar and Waynforth also found a similar trend. Furthermore, Darwin’s theory of evolution also supports these findings, as a man with a secure financial status will be more able to provide for offspring making them more likely to survive and have the ability to pass on healthy genes to the next generation.

Our results are also supported by research by David Buss who also found that women are more likely to offer youth and looks rather than wealth and finance, and vice versa for men. However, my results cannot necessarily be accounted for using different cultures, as Anderson et al (1992) found that attractive characteristics varies from culture to culture.

Limitations and Modifications –

Although my results matched my experimental hypothesis, the experiment had many limitations.

Firstly, I was not able to control who advertised themselves in the newspaper and therefore the advertisements may not be representative of the general population. Only a certain type of person would put an advertisement into a newspaper. They may be shy or have a personal difference that stops them from going out. It is also possible that they have personality traits that are not typical of the average person. It could be argued that people who advertise in ‘lonely-hearts’ advertisements could be argued as abnormal. Most people are able to and meet their partners out on social occasions or at their local sports club but those who are writing into the newspapers must be unable to find somebody in theses situations and therefore could possibly be abnormal.

Secondly, people may emphasise certain traits, underestimate others and tell lies or not the full truth. This limits the validity of any conclusions that are drawn from the possibly unreliable results.

Also, there is the fact that my pre-determined lists are subjective as they are opinion and therefore someone repeating the experiment may deduce completely different information from the same examples when there were no specific references to youth/looks and wealth/finance. This reduces the ecological validity of my experiment even further.

As with most experiments, Cultural variations have to also be taken into account. This could be due to the extent to which countries are developed and the differing cultural priorities. For example in some cultures it is a priority for women to get married and have children, whereas for the men it is to provide food for their family. It is now becoming increasingly more common for the women’s role to be more providing and for the men’s role to be involved with the children.

Implications and Ideas for Further Research –

My results draw attention to the fact that women who have youth/good looks and men that are successful/wealthy (and good looking also) are thought to be the most attractive. These results are apparent in the media and aspects of every day life. For example, photos of women on men’s magazines are almost always of women who are youthful and stereotypically good looking. Also, men’s magazines often contain content that will offer advice on becoming more successful, and therefore more attractive. Also, many adverts aimed at men signify status symbols and therefore support my findings.

One explanation for my results may be because of an evolutionary effect; over time men have become more attracted to good looking women as they will be likely to successfully give birth to children and women have become more attracted to men offering resources as they will be more likely to provide for them and their offspring meaning a higher chance of survival. By doing this, healthy genes can be passed on through the generations and the race can continue to survive. This explanation is supported by Darwin’s theory of evolution. However, men and women may be influenced by the media, peer pressure or other things that make them try and act or appear more attractive.

There is a range of further research that could be carried out to gain a further insight into the nature of these findings. For example, the experiment could be repeated using homosexual ads, and see what resources homosexuals offer and compare those findings to these ones. I could also compare results with findings from samples of an older generation past breeding age so that the findings would be irrelevant to evolution.

Additionally, a cross culture investigation would be an interesting investigation to be done. One could study how people in different cultures attract their partners and even compare between more economically developed and less economically developed countries.

References