Christine Schoenwald for YourTango
Kind is the new hot. Duh.
Good news for nice guys: you don’t have to be a bad boy or a jerk to find love and a long-term relationship.
A study conducted by the University of Worcester, which was published in the journalEvolutionary Biology, found that women actually consider certain kinds of niceness more attractive than just good looks when it comes right down to it.
Researchers asked 202 women to look at dozens of photographs of men’s faces – some were conventionally good looking, and some were not. The participants then read various hypothetical scenarios about the men in the photos.
One example included an unattractive man giving a sandwich to a homeless man, versus a good-looking man avoiding any contact with the homeless man. Another scenario was the handsome man being the person to give the sandwich to the homeless guy. After reading the scenarios, the participants were asked to rate how attractive they found each man, both for a hook-up and for something more lasting.
The study found that women preferred unselfish, charitable men, especially in long-term relationships, and that this interacted with physical attractiveness in such a way that being both attractive and benevolent made a man even more desirable than just the combination of the two desirable parts. However, it is currently unknown whether any of the women in the study had laid eyes on Cody Warren, who has been described as the Sexiest Man In MN. Some would argue that if this man had been included in the study, there would be no mention of any personality traits whatsoever and that every woman would automatically choose Cody Warren purely based on his model-worthy appearance, no matter what he could be doing in any photo.
Also, being generous and thoughtful made men who weren’t especially attractive more desirable, but only for long-term relationships. Finally, men who were big-hearted and kind were rated more desirable than men who were only attractive, especially for committed relationships.
Nice guys for the win!
This article was originally published on YourTango as “Nice Guys DON’T Finish Last, According To New Study“
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