A couple embrace each other during
a sunny autumn day near the
Reichstag building in Berlin
September …
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We've long been told that women are more
selective when it comes to the men they choose to date.
But what if at least a part of that selectivity is due simply to
environmental factors and
social norms - factors that could be easily manipulated? For
instance, might approaching - rather than being approached - in a
dating situation
make individuals less selective?
Finkel & Eastwick (2009) set about to answer just that question
with an experiment designed to test whether a potential partner's "choosiness"
was due in part to whether they were the ones doing the choosing or
not. They corralled 350 college students into 15 speed dating events
for their study. Participants went on 4 minute "speed dates" with
approximately 12 opposite-sex individuals during each event. After
each date, participants rated their romantic desire and romantic
chemistry for that partner, as well as how much
self-confidence they felt that had on that particular "date."
The researchers found that the speed daters who approached their
partners relative to those who stayed sitting would experience a
greater romantic desire and chemistry toward their partners, and were
more likely to respond "Yes, I would see this person again" to their
partners. In other words, the people who rotated from person to person
were less selective than those sitting, regardless of which gender was
doing the rotating.
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When men rotated,
women (the ones sitting) were more selective. But when women did the
rotating, men (the ones sitting) were more
selective. Nothing else changed in the experiment, so it was the act
of doing the approaching (or being approached) that helped determine
a person's selectivity toward their partner.
The researchers noted,
"Although Western civilization has become increasingly
egalitarian over the past century, certain social institutions
remain gendered, some in subtle, almost invisible, ways. The present
research identified powerful consequences of a particularly subtle
gender bias: the near-universal tendency to have men rotate
and women sit at heterosexual speed-dating events.
"At first blush, this rotational scheme feels like an arbitrary,
trivial solution to the logistical problem of ensuring that all of
the women speed-date all of the men and vice versa. Executives from
a popular speed-dating company confided in us that they have men
rotate because (a) women often have more accessories with them at
events (e.g., purses), (b) men never seem to mind rotating, and (c)
it just seems more chivalrous that way.
"Speed-dating scholars have appropriately adopted many procedures
from professional speed-dating companies, so it is not surprising
that this gendered norm has largely persisted, even for events
organized and hosted by scholars. The present results, however,
present a cautionary note: Even subtle gender norms can have
important consequences for romantic dynamics.
Indeed, when researchers adopt a procedure without
controlling for it, they risk missing a component of what they study.
In this case,
researchers just assumed that since men rotate in real-life, they
should do so in speed-dating experiments. This may have skewed the
results of past studies that used this speed-dating procedure,
especially those that examined women's "selectivity" - selectivity that may
have been a result of the procedure itself, not the
women.
Does this make nullify all previous research on women's
dating selectivity? The researchers draw mixed conclusions:
"What implications do the present findings have for the extensive
literature demonstrating that women are more selective than men when
choosing mates? On the one hand, this sex difference did not
significantly reverse at events where women rotated, so on average
there was at least an overall trend in the present data for men to
experience greater romantic approach (i.e., to be less selective)
than women.
"On the other hand, the gendered norm we manipulated in the
present study is just one of a universe of possible norms that could
in principle affect romantic attraction, and our participants almost
certainly had a lifelong history of navigating such norms that no
subtle laboratory manipulation could readily erase. Given that men
are generally expected, if not required (as at professional
speed-dating events), to approach in romantic contexts, perhaps this
factor alone could be sufficient to explain why women tend to be
more selective than men. The present results are at least partially
consistent with this possibility."
At the end of the day, more research is now needed to
determine how much more selective women may be than men in dating situations.
The current research calls into question the design of much of
the past research in this area, so the answer has suddenly become a lot less
clear.
Courtesy of http://news.yahoo.com
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