It seems to be a widely held belief on this forum that both men and women who adhere to their traditional gender roles are more successful in dating. I believed this myself, thinking that behavior consistent with the male (female) gender role would be interpreted as masculine (feminine) and therefore more attractive. This study has prompted me to reconsider however. Here is a summary of the study.

  • The study looked at the online dating preferences of 447 college students.

  • Hypothesis 1: Both men and women will prefer more attractive profiles, but the effect will be stronger for men.

  • Hypothesis 2: Both men and women will prefer gender role congruent profiles.

  • Participants were shown a series of dating profiles with a mix of physically attractive/unattractive partners combined with gender role congruent/incongruent partners. They were then asked a series of questions about the likeability and romantic desirability of the potential partners.

  • Here is an example of one of the attractive and gender role congruent profiles

  • Some words used to describe a female gender role congruent partner were sweet, kind, supportive, and likes helping others.

  • Some words used to describe male role congruent partners were ambitious, competitive, career-driven, and independent.

Results

  • Both sexes preferred more attractive profiles. Men rated the female profiles higher than women rated the male profiles, especially the profiles with average attractiveness. Hypothesis 1 was therefore only partially supported.

  • Gender role incongruent profiles were significantly more preferred over gender role congruent profiles. Hypothesis 2 was not supported and the results were in the opposite direction expected.

  • "Men showed similar interest in average profiles, regardless of role congruency, but for attractive profiles, they preferred the gender role incongruent profile."

  • "Women showed comparable interest in the attractive profiles, regardless of role congruency, but for average profiles, they preferred gender role incongruent profiles."

Why do you think the gender role incongruent profiles were rated more highly, especially for attractive women and average men?