Women are more attracted to rich men - scientists

  • 08/01/2018
Researchers have discovered that women are far more likely to find rich men attractive.
Researchers have discovered that women are far more likely to find rich men attractive. Photo credit: Getty

New research has found an easy way for men to get more attention - be wealthy.

Researchers have discovered that women are far more likely to find rich men attractive. However this isn't true in reverse, they say.

The study, recently published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, involved asking over 300 men and women to rate pictures of the opposite sex based on their attractiveness.

Salary information was then added to the images, and the participants were asked to re-rank them.

The researchers concluded that women are significantly more sensitive to salary information when considering a partner compared to men.

"A man can move himself two points higher on the attractiveness scale we used if his salary increases by a factor of 10," study author John Speakman told The Times.

"For a female to achieve the same two-point effect, her salary would need to increase by 10,000 times."

The study argues this could be driven by the different sexes' mating strategies.

The study showed that men prioritise youth and high fertility - in other words, physical attractiveness - in their search for a partner.

"Parental investment hypotheses regarding mate selection suggest that human males should seek partners featured by youth and high fertility. However, females should be more sensitive to resources that can be invested on themselves and their offspring," the authors wrote.

"We found that ratings of attractiveness were around four times more sensitive to salary for females rating males, compared to males rating females. These results indicate that higher economic status can offset lower physical attractiveness in men much more easily than in women."

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