Do Men Really Find Smart Women Attractive?

Men like the idea of dating smart women but the reality is quite different.

According to a study, (Psychological) Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Effects of Psychological Distance and Relative Intelligence on Men’s Attraction to Women, men are threatened by dating smart women.

The study found men are less attracted to smart women who outperformed them in a series of Math and English tests.

Intelligence and Attraction Study

The study was broken down into two parts. In the first part of the study, men were asked about a “hypothetical scenario” about a female student in their class who had outperformed them in either Math or English.

The men were asked to imagine themselves in the situation and consider how they would think, feel, and behave.

When the results were tallied, men who imagined being outperformed by a woman in the “hypothetical” scenario rated her more favorably and showed greater romantic interest in her.

Thus in the fake scenario, men were attracted to, and open to dating, smart women.

In the second part of the study, the men were put in a real word scenario. The men actually interacted with women in the second part of the study.

Men were seated next to a woman while taking a math test. The test was, of course, rigged. The women taking the test knew this as they were part of the study. When the math tests were scored, men always got 12 of the 20 questions correct. Women either got 18 question correct or 6 questions correct.

Men placed their chairs further away from the females when they were outperformed by women on the test. The men also rated women as less attractive when they were outperformed on the test as well.

Study Conclusion

Even though the study points out that “further research is needed”, the findings showed that men who were outperformed by women distanced themselves more from the women, tended to rate women as less attractive, and showed less desire to exchange contact information or plan a date with the women.

Why it that?

The study pointed out that “feelings of masculinity can be undone by public failures and transgressions.” Being competent and competitive are especially important to men, being outperformed by smart women might threaten men’s feelings of masculinity.