According to this new study , men and women perceive the beauty of the opposite sex differently depending on whether or not they consider it to be a long-term partner .
Thus, women perceive less attractive men as long-term partners if they have first imagined them as one-night stands. In contrast, men perceive less attractive women as one-night stands if they have first imagined them as long-term partners.
Different evolutionary strategies
Women and men show symmetrical biases, but in a diametrically opposite way. This is suggested by a total sample of more than 3,000 individuals from different studies . Whatever the interpretation of such results, these biases are capable of producing spurious or inconsistent associations and mislead us when we compare studies that appear superficially similar.
It is not known why this happens, but it is probably related to the fact that both sexes follow different reproductive strategies depending on what they must biologically invest : men can ejaculate sperm whenever they want and make women pregnant; But women, once pregnant, spend months in the gestation process.
In other words, women, on average, will find the commitment and fidelity of men as the most desirable trait, who have more incentives to get other females pregnant. But men who are willing to compromise, nevertheless, will conceptualize one-night stands differently: a kind of indiscriminate spread of genes .
However, so far no study has statistically controlled for the effect of the order in which participants consider the two types of relationships.
This would also explain the reason why beauty signs are different both in them (show more resources) and they (show more beauty):