Intelligent women have a plus of attractiveness for men; However, this same factor also makes them feel intimidated by them as to finally ask them out or imagine them as a couple, concludes a new study carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Buffalo, California Lutheran University, and the University of California. University of Texas (USA).
Having an intelligent girlfriend is something that men are attracted to in theory but in practice we would like to see it become real. The research revealed that even though men say they are looking for smart partners, the idea of being with a woman smarter than they is terrifying.
According to scientists, from a biological point of view, the fact that a man looks for an intelligent woman is a logical reaction due to the genetic advantages that this entails. However, in practice, most men prefer not to date a woman who is smarter than they are.
To reach this conclusion, the experts carried out several experiments among university students. In one of them, in addition to completing a survey about male stereotypes, 105 young men – male – had to imagine a hypothetical scenario in which, after a recent examination, they were aware of the grades – lower or higher – of a group of young women and themselves and then they had to classify them according to their attractiveness. The results revealed that, in general, men formed more favorable impressions and showed greater interest in those women who had obtained better grades than them than in those who had obtained lower marks. Furthermore, 86% of them stated that they would be more attracted to someone smarter than them.
In the second part of the study, a real situation was recreated with the same objective. In this case, the theory was put into practice with a total of 151 men who had to take an intelligence test . After doing so, the researchers explained to the volunteers that they would gather in the same room the women who had also taken the intelligence test, informing who had obtained the best and worst grades.
After this, the men had to re-evaluate the attractiveness rate. Contrary to the previous experiment, most men rated smarter women as less attractive and had less desire to propose to them.
After an interview with the male participants, all of them said they felt less masculine when faced with women with intelligence superior to them. According to the researchers, “the mere presence of a woman more intelligent than themselves was enough to make men feel threatened , and feelings of diminished masculinity represented a decrease in attraction to women for men,” the authors clarify.
The study has been published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin .
