Women Don't Agree On Who's Hot, While Men Do

By Ethan Lascity posted Jul 2nd 2009 12:21PM

Men are more likely than women to agree on someone's attractiveness.

Do you remember the website Hotornot.com?

Thought so.

While we don't want to admit how many hours we spent judging anonymous people on that site, apparently there's more to attraction and gender than meets the eye.

According to new research, men agree on who's hot, while women don't.

"Men agree a lot more about who they find attractive and unattractive than women agree about who they find attractive and unattractive," study researcher Dustin Wood, assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, told LiveScience.

In a similar fashion to Hot or Not, the study asked participants—1,300 heterosexual men, 2,700 heterosexual women, 125 homosexual men and roughly 125 homosexual women—to rate nearly 100 photos of men or women on a scale of 1 to 10, from "not at all" to "very" attractive. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 70, with an average age of 28.

The scientists found that men tended to rate women who were thin, seductive and confident as more attractive. Blow us over with a feather, here were were thinking confidence was UNattractive. The Number One Reason Why He Didn't Call Back

Meanwhile, women typically agreed on thinner, more muscular men as more attractive but varied widely over the attractiveness of many men. Some would score a man very high, and others would score the same man very low.

To triangulate the research, the study looked at the sample from homosexuals' points of view. Gay men showed more cohesion on photos of men than the straight women did, while lesbians where less defined on attractiveness of women than straight men were.

So, what does this mean for the dating scene?

According to the study, published in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, women may face less competition when looking for men because of their diversified tastes. Likewise, men will face more competition for the attractive women and need to spend more time and money impressing and courting these women. Single And Don't Want To Be? Watch This

While looking this up online, we did come across the argument that men have a more unified sense of attraction because the media has portrayed attractive women as a particular type. We're not really sold on that conclusion, because really, how effective is sex-based marketing anyhow? Davidoff Cigar Ads: Breath Of Fresh Air?

Readers, what's your take?