What do you think about this study? Do you see any weaknesses in the methods? How relevant are the results and what do they tell us? Do you think the results are more due to cultural or biological factors? Would the results be any different if the participants had been asked to base their reaction on how they view possible long-term partners? Do the results show that Western society still has a long way to go if it wants to achieve the goal of gender equality? If you were a participant in the study, would your answers be similar to the majority’s? Why or why not? (Check out the comments below the article too. I think some are quite perceptive.)
The more I read about psychological studies the more I experience that I skeptical about their results. Maybe, I am just ignorant to scientific nature of the current psychology trends and its ways of experimenting. Indeed, I am not an expert in this field nor am I an expert in any field but I would like to see some more information about the experiment process and subjects in it. Saying that 760 people participated on the study and giving their age median is not enough. Moreover, results were in my opinion not described sufficiently in this article. Maybe I could read the full study in Emotion journal before criticizing, but I am heading to the problem that I cannot judge whether this experiment is reasonable or not, given the information in the article. I would really appreciate an expert assessment of this study. This can be some professor of psychology or sociology from some university or multiple expert opinions. This would be a good idea for a magazine to do when publishing about a study.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, Even though I am pure humble laic, I would like to say that “… smiling men were judged to be more feminine and less dominant” seems to be unreasonable. Why should be the smiling state assigned to the female gender only? I do not see any reason why that should be. Smiling is present in both genders and it is used to express a happy state or a satisfied state. I think that it is logical that happy women are attractive, since it indicates that they do not have any problems to worry and they are just simply healthy and happy. On the other hand, the same implies for men in my opinion. Therefore I would not say that smiling is feminine.
However, this does not mean that women should automatically pick smiling men in the study as the most attractive one. They pick “the best” or the man with a pose which reflects its dominance. Proud pose means two connected things. First the subject is happy or at least it does indicate lack of crucial problems which could bother him, and secondly it shows that a subject possess some feature that is rare or better among other men. Thus, I would say that the reason for picking the proud pose as the most attractive is that this is the pose the women see when a man defeats someone and firmly established that he is an alpha male.
Lastly I would like to say that this does not influenced me enough to do not smile on dates, and I am going to make a proud face that the results of this study do not imply on me.
Mojo
@Mojmir
ReplyDeleteI am not quite sure whether you criticize psychological studies as a whole or just the way the article has been written. Or both. But I agree that a sample of 760 people may be not enough. I would certainly include more people when doing such research.
In addition, the claim that smiling men were judged to be more feminine and less dominant seems to me quite reasonable. Actually, when I was reading the article, I said in my mind, “yes”. I do like smiling men because I know that they are fine but I am usually interested in men that seem dominant to me. And thus the smiling men actually become feminine and less dominant, although I do not think about it when I look at them because it is rather an unconscious feeling. Thus the claim that the proud pose is the most attractive as it is the pose that women see when a man defeats them is true.
However, I also think that this should not stop men in smiling, but rather combine these two things together.
Zuzana
RE: mojo
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you that it is hard to say whether the information from the study is valid or not. However, I must say that this article isn’t a report of the study. Its only goal is to summarize the results of the study and put it in other words, so that everybody could understand it.
I also share your opinion about smiling men. I think that both men and women look attractive and happy when they are smiling. Nobody wants to have anything to do with a person who isn’t happy. Of course one should not be faking the smile, otherwise it would look unnaturally and the person may seem weird and probably less attractive.
I totally agree with you on the fact that women don’t pick men who are always smiling. As you mentioned, they pick the alpha-male. You said that the proud pose means that the person is happy and lacks any problems and therefore is the most attractive for women. I agree with you on that, however, one should consider the fact that when a man is smiling, it also reflects his personal happiness and balance and it doesn’t in any way mean that the men is feminine or less dominant.
Here is Alex's comment:
ReplyDeleteI do not want to appear cynical, but the study or at least its summary in the article did not convince me very much. They could have said some more details about the results, but never mind, let’s work with the facts.
I tried to relate to the result that the smiling men were the least attractive from the whole series of men showing other emotions. I do not know whether it is just me, who likes to be accompanied by happy and cheerful people, but it surprised me that some other women rated smiling men the lowest. Either all men in the pictures looked psychotic when they smiled (just like the man shown in the article), in that case I can imagine even myself voting more for the proud and neutral men, or the tough look is generally more attractive.
As we are talking about carnal attraction here, as the article names it, it is perhaps the challenge to seduce a “hard-to-get” man or someone who is obviously successful which makes women naturally fall for the non-smiling men more. If a person has a smile on their face, they look either more prone to flirt with somebody, or are already satisfied with their current situation and not willing to pick up anyone. And as I have already said, women relish challenges, therefore they could take smiling men as an easy prey or someone who is already happily taken; not worth them in other words.
However, I believe that if the participants had been asked to base their ratings on whether the man would be a suitable partner for them, I am pretty sure that the smiling ones would have got more points. A smile suggests care and sensitivity and good mood in the relationship; in that case something which is valued in a partner for the future. However, I am also certain that proud men would still be successful as they give away message that they would be able to earn the living and take care of their family.
There is one thing that seemed quite illogical to me, and it is what Jessica Tray said in the article. She claims that the result has its root in traditional gender roles and cultural values in Western cultures, but how does she know that when they have not done the experiment on people from Eastern cultures? That, accompanied by great generalization, seems to have undermined the value of the whole study for me and caused my skepticism about it.