Hot or not? Men agree on attractiveness, women don’t

Hot or not? Men agree on the answer. Women don’t.

There is much more consensus among men about whom they find attractive than there is among women, according to a new study by Wake Forest University psychologist Dustin Wood and Claudia Brumbaugh of Queens College.

“Men agree a lot more about who they find attractive and unattractive than women agree about who they find attractive and unattractive,” says Wood, assistant professor of psychology. “This study shows we can quantify the extent to which men agree about which women are attractive and vice versa.”

More than 4,000 participants in the study rated photographs of men and women (ages 18-25) for attractiveness on a 10-point scale ranging from “not at all” to “very.” In exchange for their participation, raters were told what characteristics they found attractive compared with the average person. The raters ranged in age from 18 to more than 70.

Before the participants judged the photographs for attractiveness, the members of the research team rated the images for how seductive, confident, thin, sensitive, stylish, curvaceous (women), muscular (men), traditional, masculine/feminine, classy, well-groomed, or upbeat the people looked.

Breaking out these factors helped the researchers figure out what common characteristics appealed most to women and men.

Men’s judgments of women’s attractiveness were based primarily around physical features and they rated highly those who looked thin and seductive. Most of the men in the study also rated photographs of women who looked confident as more attractive.

As a group, the women rating men showed some preference for thin, muscular subjects, but disagreed on how attractive many men in the study were. Some women gave high attractiveness ratings to the men other women said were not attractive at all.

“As far as we know, this is the first study to investigate whether there are differences in the level of consensus male and female raters have in their attractiveness judgments,” Wood says. “These differences have implications for the different experiences and strategies that could be expected for men and women in the dating marketplace.”

For example, women may encounter less competition from other women for the men they find attractive, he says. Men may need to invest more time and energy in attracting and then guarding their mates from other potential suitors, given that the mates they judge attractive are likely to be found attractive by many other men.

Wood says the study results have implications for eating disorders and how expectations regarding attractiveness affect behavior.

“The study helps explain why women experience stronger norms than men to obtain or maintain certain physical characteristics,” he says. “Women who are trying to impress men are likely to be found much more attractive if they meet certain physical standards, and much less if they don’t. Although men are rated as more attractive by women when they meet these physical appearance standards too, their overall judged attractiveness isn’t as tightly linked to their physical features.”

The age of the participants also played a role in attractiveness ratings. Older participants were more likely to find people attractive if they were smiling.

Intervention reduces teen pregancy rates

A program aimed at reducing criminal behavior in juvenile justice teens has yielded a surprising side benefit. The program is also reducing the teens’ rate of pregnancy.

A study was conducted with 166 teen girls ages 13-17 with histories of criminal behavior who had been court-mandated to receive out-of-home treatment. The girls were randomly assigned to either receive the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) program, which involved one-on-one care in the homes of highly trained foster parents, or the services they would have received had they not participated in the study, which was usually treatment in a group care facility.

David Kerr, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Oregon State University, and Leslie Leve and Patricia Chamberlain of the Eugene-based Oregon Social Learning Center, conducted the research, which will be published in the April edition of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

“One of the most interesting aspects of this research is that the MTFC program was created to reduce crime, not pregnancy,” Kerr said. “It specifically targeted changing the girl’s environment: her home, her peers and her school experience. The focus was on giving her lots of supervision, support for responsible behavior, and consistent, non-harsh consequences for negative behavior. And this worked to reduce pregnancy rates.”

The results were dramatic, according to Kerr. About 26% of the girls assigned to receive the specialized Treatment Foster Care program became pregnant, compared to almost 47% of teens in group care.

“These girls are extremely compromised,” Kerr said. “They are not doing well. They have had a hard time in different areas, including criminal behavior, drugs and risky sexual activity. Many of them had already been pregnant before the time of the intervention.”

Kerr said while teen pregnancy rates have fallen in recent years, the United States still has one of the highest rates compared to other industrialized nations. And that rate is even higher among females in the foster care system. One survey of child welfare systems in three states found that nearly half of girls in the foster system reported a pregnancy by age 19.

The specialized foster care program places the teen in a highly supervised foster parent setting. The state-certified foster parent or parents have been given additional training on how to work with high-risk youth, and were provided with ongoing consultation, support and crisis intervention services from program supervisors.

According to Kerr, each girl and her caregiver were interviewed one and two years into the study. The greater reductions in teen pregnancy, as well as reductions in criminal activity and arrests and increases in school engagement, were found in the group that was assigned to receive the specialized Treatment Foster Care services.

Currently there are 51 of these specialized foster care programs in the US and Canada, 41 in Europe and 1 in New Zealand. New program sites are being trained and certified each year by Eugene-based TFC Consultants, Inc.

The standard group care approach to treating a juvenile justice case costs $7,000 less than using the specialized Treatment Foster Care in the short-term. However, Kerr said that an independent analysis of teen boys showed that the dramatic reductions in criminal activity among teens in the specialized program costs taxpayers and crime victims $78,000 less per teen in the long term.

“The figures aren’t available for girls yet, but delaying unintended pregnancies should add to that savings. But aside from the economics,” he said, “the real plus is helping a high-risk teen grow up some more before she takes on that important job of motherhood. That’s good for everyone.”

Why you may lose that loving feeling after tying the knot

Will the partner who supports your hopes and aspirations while you are dating also help you fulfill important responsibilities and obligations that come with marriage? The answer to that question could make a difference in how satisfied you are after tying the knot.

Dating couples whose dreams include marriage would do well to step back and reflect upon the type of support they’ll need from their partners when they cross the threshold, a new Northwestern University study suggests.

Believing a partner is there to help you grow into the person you aspire to be predicted higher relationship satisfaction for both dating and married couples. But the belief that your partner helps you live up to your responsibilities and uphold your commitments only predicted higher relationship satisfaction after marriage.

For dating couples, the relationship itself tends to revolve around whether things are moving forward. Happiness with a partner depends on whether the relationship will grow into something more, whether a partner will support the dreams the other eventually hopes to achieve.

For married couples, the feeling that their partners are helping them to advance their relationships and realize their ideal achievements is still important. But the relationships of married couples, now more interconnected both practically and psychologically, tend to revolve around upholding the commitment made to their partners. Unlike dating couples, married couples also put a high premium on their partners’ support of whatever they determine to be necessary obligations.

“In other words, the feelings of being loved and supported that people use to judge who makes a good girlfriend or boyfriend may not be completely trustworthy in deciding who makes a good husband or wife,” said Daniel Molden, assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern. “Those feelings may only partially capture the emotions that will determine your satisfaction with the person you marry.”

The findings, Molden said, could be important in explaining why so many marriages fall apart.

The studyincluded 92 heterosexual dating couples and 77 married couples. They completed a battery of questionnaires that included an assessment of how much they thought their partner understood and supported both the hopes and responsibilities they had set for themselves. To measure how different types of perceived support were related to happiness with the relationship, couples also completed well-validated measures of satisfaction, intimacy and trust.

Previous research overwhelmingly demonstrates an important connection between feelings about partner support and satisfaction with a relationship but does not reveal any differences for dating versus married couples.

By identifying different ways in which people feel supported by their partners, the new Northwestern study goes beyond past work to show that support for maintaining perceived responsibilities seems to be important for satisfaction only after marriage.

The study also showed that different types of perceived support predicted differences in people’s overall satisfaction with their lives.

“People planning to get married should think about not only how their partners support what they hope to achieve but also about how their partners support what they feel obligated to accomplish,” Molden said. “We could end up with both happier marriages and more satisfied people in general.”

Contrary to belief, romance can last in long-term relationships

Romance does not have to fizzle out in long-term relationships and progress into a companionship/friendship-type love, a new study has found. Romantic love can last a lifetime and lead to happier, healthier relationships.

“Many believe that romantic love is the same as passionate/obsessive love,” said lead researcher Bianca P. Acevedo, PhD, then at Stony Brook University (currently at University of California, Santa Barbara). “It isn’t. Romantic love has the intensity, engagement and sexual chemistry that passionate love has, minus the obsessive component. Passionate or obsessive love includes feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. This kind of love helps drive the shorter relationships but not the longer ones.”

Acevedo and co-researcher Arthur Aron, PhD, reviewed 25 studies with 6,070 individuals in short- and long-term relationships to find out whether romantic love is associated with more satisfaction. To determine this, they classified the relationships in each of the studies as romantic, passionate (romantic with obsession) or friendship-like love and categorized them as long- or short-term.

The researchers looked at 17 short-term relationship studies, which included 18- to 23-year-old college students who were single, dating or married, with the average relationship lasting less than four years. They also looked at 10 long-term relationship studies comprising middle-aged couples who were typically married 10 years or more. Two of the studies included both long- and short-term relationships in which it was possible to distinguish the two samples.

The review found that those who reported greater romantic love were more satisfied in both the short- and long-term relationships. Companion-like love was only moderately associated with satisfaction in both short- and long-term relationships. And those who reported greater passionate love in their relationships were more satisfied in the short term compared to the long term.

Couples who reported more satisfaction in their relationships also reported being happier and having higher self-esteem.

Feeling that a partner is “there for you” makes for a good relationship, Acevedo said, and facilitates feelings of romantic love. On the other hand, “feelings of insecurity are generally associated with lower satisfaction, and in some cases may spark conflict in the relationship. This can manifest into obsessive love,” she said.

This discovery may change people’s expectations of what they want in long-term relationships. According to the authors, companionship love, which is what many couples see as the natural progression of a successful relationship, may be an unnecessary compromise. “Couples should strive for love with all the trimmings,” Acevedo said. “And couples who’ve been together a long time and wish to get back their romantic edge should know it is an attainable goal that, like most good things in life, requires energy and devotion.”

Kids learn to handle emotional responses

A University of Illinois researcher has demonstrated successful strategies that children can use to handle the emotional ups and downs that go with being a brother or a sister.

These tactics not only require less parental involvement in getting their children’s negative emotions under control, they also result in fewer negative actions directed at one sibling by another and provide measurable improved sibling relationship quality, said Laurie Kramer, a professor of applied family studies in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and the creator of the “More Fun with Sisters and Brothers” program.

“Sibling experiences can be unbearably frustrating for children,” Kramer said. “Kids often lack the vocabulary to describe what they’re experiencing, the strategies that would help them deal with the emotionality of sibling relationships, and calming techniques so they can de-escalate frustrating episodes and go on to effectively communicate with their brother or sister.”

A child’s ability to manage emotional experiences and behaviors is the foundation for engaging in other appropriate social behaviors, she said. “For example, productive conflict management is unlikely to occur if the child is experiencing high levels of frustration, anger, or other negative emotions that are not effectively regulated.”

And acquiring these social skills not only enhances the sibling relationship in childhood, it increases the chance of harmonious sibling relationships as adults. “Research shows that sibling relationships that are conflictive early in life are likely to remain so. Sibling bonds are usually our longest-lasting ties in our first family so we’d like them to be supportive alliances.”

The same skills that aid in good sibling relationships also prepare children to interact positively with parents and peers, she added.

Kramer’s program, “More Fun with Sisters and Brothers” helps children identify, monitor, and evaluate their emotions, gives them words and ways of talking about their feelings, and helps them distinguish between emotions they may find confusing — for example, they may label their frustration as anger or even lash out and say “I hate you,” she said.

“Most important, we help children understand when they’re so overwhelmed by their feelings that they need to calm themselves before reacting, and we teach them ways to do that. We call it ‘learning to chill.’ In scientific terms, it’s called regulating their emotions,” she added.

Kramer also measured “parental down regulation,” the work that parents do to manage their children’s emotions. “Brothers and sisters really know how to push each other’s buttons. That’s when you get, ‘Mom, he’s looking at me!” she said.

Kramer’s study examined the role of emotion regulation in improving sibling relationship quality in four- to eight-year-old siblings in 95 families.

Sibling interactions were observed in the children’s homes one week before the “More Fun with Sisters and Brothers” program began and after it was completed. Parents also answered questionnaires assessing their children’s relationship quality and their attempts to control their children’s emotional outbursts.

A control group of siblings who did not participate in the program was evaluated at the beginning of the study and after five weeks had elapsed. As expected, their parents reported no change in their children’s behavior.

Participants were taught emotional and social competencies through modeling, role-playing, performance feedback, and coaching in five one-hour training sessions. Puppets, videos, and life demonstrations were used to teach these positive sibling behaviors. Children then practiced these behaviors with their sibling and received immediate feedback and coaching.

“We then taught a method of instructional self-talk and self-control to be used when problems arose so kids could avoid impulsive responses, think about their goals in that situation and how they wanted to achieve those goals, respond calmly in emotionally charged situations, and explain their point of view and their needs to their sibling,” Kramer said.

Parents observed the training sessions through a video monitoring system. They were then given detailed instructions in helping children use the techniques at home and in other contexts. A final training session was held in each family’s home.

Sibling relationship quality had improved measurably following the program as children used more of the newly learned social and emotional competencies with their siblings, said Kramer. In addition, parents reported that they needed to intervene less to manage their children’s behavior. They also believed the quality of their children’s sibling relationship had improved.

“The program gave parents new tools for helping their kids handle disagreements. Parents were able to lead their children through a process of problem solving and conflict management. Children learned to approach conflicts as problems that could be solved. They learned to calm down, talk about what happened, and appreciate each other’s perspectives,” said Kramer.

“The study showed that targeting and teaching specific social skills can have a positive effect on the quality of sibling relationships,” she said.

Good parenting lowers risks for substance abuse

A genetic risk factor that increases the likelihood that youth will engage in substance use can be neutralized by high levels of involved and supportive parenting, according to a new University of Georgia study. The study is the first to examine a group of youth over time to see how a genetic risk factor interacts with a child’s environment to influence behavior.

“We found that involved and supportive parenting can completely override the effects of a genetic risk for substance abuse,” says study co-author Gene Brody, Regents Professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “It’s a very encouraging finding that shows the power of parenting.”

Brody and his colleagues, which include UGA Institute for Behavioral Research director Steven Beach and University of Iowa Associate Professor of Psychiatry Robert Philibert, focused their attention on a gene known as 5HTT that’s involved in the transport of the brain chemical serotonin. Most people carry two copies of the long version of the gene, but those with one or two copies of the short version have been shown in several studies to have a greater likelihood of consuming alcohol and other substances and to have higher levels of impulsivity and risk taking.

The researchers interviewed 253 African-American families in rural Georgia over a four-year period. After obtaining informed consent from the parents and youth, they collected saliva samples for genetic testing.

The researchers found that nearly 60% of the youth had two copies of the long gene, while the remainder had one or two copies of the short gene that confers risk. As expected, the use of substances was low among 11 year-olds and increased as the youth aged. By age 14, 21% of the youth had smoked cigarettes, 42% had used alcohol, 5% had drank heavily and 5% had used marijuana.

Among youth with the genetic risk factor, those who received low levels of involved and supportive parenting increased their substance use at rate three times higher than youth with high levels of parental support. Among youth with high levels of involved and supportive parenting, the difference in substance abuse was negligible – regardless of genetic risk.

“In families that were characterized by strong relationships between children and their parents, the effect of the genetic risk was essentially zero,” said Beach, who is also a Distinguished Research Professor in the psychology department of the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “With this study and previous studies looking at environmental risk factors such as poverty, we’re finding that in many cases the best way to help children is to help families become more resilient.”

Involved and supportive parenting is a very powerful tool, and Brody said it’s relatively simple to implement. Some examples include regularly spending time with your child, communicating with them so that you can gauge how they’re doing, providing emotional support and helping them with their material and day-to-day needs such as homework.

“We all carry around genetic risks,” said Brody, who also directs the UGA Center for Family Research, a unit of the IBR, “but fortunately very few people are impacted by those risks because their environment protects them.”

Why you can’t hurry love

Scientists have developed a mathematical model of the mating game to help explain why courtship is often protracted. The study, by researchers at UCL (University College London), University of Warwick and LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science), shows that extended courtship enables a male to signal his suitability to a female and enables the female to screen out the male if he is unsuitable as a mate.

The research uses game theory to analyse how males and females behave strategically towards each other in the mating game. The mathematical model considers a male and a female in a courtship encounter of unspecified duration, with the game ending when one or other party quits or the female accepts the male as a mate. The model assumes that the male is either a ‘‘good’’ or a ‘‘bad’’ type from the female’s point of view, according to his condition or willingness to care for the young after mating. The female gets a positive payoff from mating if the male is a ‘‘good’’ male but a negative payoff if he is ‘‘bad’’, so it is in her interest to gain information about the male’s type with the aim of avoiding mating with a “bad” male. In contrast, a male gets a positive payoff from mating with any female, though his payoff is higher if he is “good” than if he is “bad”.

The study looks for evolutionarily stable equilibrium behaviours, in which females are doing as well as they can against male behaviour and males are doing as well as they can against female behaviour. It shows that extended courtship can take place, with a good male being willing to court for longer than a bad male and the female delaying mating. In this way the duration of a male’s courtship effort carries information about his type. By delaying mating, the female is able to make some use of this information to achieve a degree of screening. Because bad males have a greater tendency to quit the courtship game early, as time goes on and the male has not quit it becomes increasingly probable that he is a “good” male.

Professor Robert Seymour, UCL Mathematics, says: “Courtship in a number of animal species occurs over an extended period of time. Human courtship, for example, can involve a sequence of dinners, theatre trips and other outings lasting months or even years. One partner - often the male - may pay the greater part of the financial cost, but to both sexes there is a significant cost of time which could be spent on other productive activities. Why don’t people and other animals speed things up to reduce these costs? The answer seems to be that longer courtship is a way for the female to acquire information about the male.

“By delaying mating, the female is able to reduce the chance that she will mate with a bad male. A male’s willingness to court for a long time is a signal that he is likely to be a good male. Long courtship is a price paid for increasing the chance that mating, if it occurs, will be a harmonious match which benefits both sexes. This may help to explain the commonly held belief that a woman is best advised not to sleep with a man on a first date.”

Dr Peter Sozou, Warwick Medical School and LSE Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, says: “From a female’s point of view, males are not all equal. A female would like to mate with a good male, but cannot tell a male’s type from his appearance alone. The strategic problem the female faces is how to screen out bad males, and this is where long courtship comes into play. A male is assumed to always want to mate with a female, but a good male is more willing to pay the cost of a long courtship in order to claim the prize of mating. This leads to an outcome in which the female is not willing to mate immediately, but instead requires the male to wait for an indeterminate time before she agrees to mate with him. During this time, the male may give up on courting the female.

“Bad males give up at some random time if the female has not by then mated with them, but good males are more persistent and do not give up. The female’s strategy is a compromise - a trade-off between on the one hand the greater risk of mating with a bad male if she mates too quickly, and on the other hand the time cost of delay. Under this compromise there remains some risk that she will mate with the wrong type of male. She cannot eliminate this risk completely unless she decides never to mate.”