Are Men Attracted to

Clever Women?
New research explains why smart women intimidate men.
Posted Sep 22, 2016

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Source: Nottingham Trent University/Flickr

The claim that men are intimidated by clever women has been backed by the
results of a new study of speed-dating by Polish economists.
The scientists were able to determine the odds that men and women would
respond positively to a speed-dating partner based on that
partners intelligence and physical attractiveness. Participants at a speeddating event meet a different potential partner every few minutes, and indicate
whether they would be interested in meeting each partner again.
Adam Karbowski and his colleagues from the Warsaw School of Economics
analyzed data from the Columbia University speed-dating experiment, in
which over 500 students participated. The men and women took part in what
was a regular speed-dating event. After each date, the participants stated
whether they would like to meet their date again: yes or no. They also rated
their date on a 10-point scale for both intelligence and physical attractiveness.
The researchers analyzed their data using a technique called logistic
regression. This method allowed them to predict whether a person would say
yes or no to a date based on that dates rated intelligence and
attractiveness.

What women want

Karbowski first examined womens choices. Unsurprisingly, he found that
handsome men were more likely to be chosen than less handsome men. But
women didnt shoot down every unattractive man. If an unattractive man was
intelligent, he still stood a chance of being marked a 'yes.'
The analysis also revealed how women trade off the two traits against one
another. Of course, a woman is most likely to say yes to a man she perceives
as both intelligent and attractive. And as intelligence and attractiveness
increase, a woman is more likely to want to meet the man again. However,
her decision is much more strongly influenced by attractiveness than
intelligence.

A man who tops the chart in intelligence with a score of 10 out of 10 has only
a 10 percent chance of being chosen if he scores a 2 for attractiveness. The
likelihood that he will receive a yes increases slightly with every additional
point of attractiveness. With a rating of ~5 for attractiveness, a genius-level
man has a better chance of being chosen, but its still only 5050. With a 9 for
attractiveness, our genius has a chance of 75 percent.
On the other hand, a man who scores 10 for 10 in attractiveness has a 30
percent chance of being selected even if hes so stupid he cant tie his own
shoelaces. If we increase this mans intelligence his appeal will increase too,
but the effect is diminishing. With an intelligence score of 2, a Ryan Reynolds
lookalike has a 55 percent chance of being chosen, and if he scores 4.5 out of
10 for intelligence he is in with an 80 percent shot. After that, any further
increases in intelligence have little to no effect on his chances of being picked.
The researchers say if male speed daters can choose, then it is better to be
perceived by female conversation partners as handsome and not necessarily
brainy than the opposite. Obviously, it is best to be perceived as both smart
and physically attractive.
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What men want

When it comes to what men want, the results of Karbowskis analysis run
contrary to what we might expect, because they suggest that men are pickier
than women. Women who score less than 4 for attractiveness or 2 for
intelligence have very little chance of being chosen. This isnt true when
women judge men.
However, the results do conform to expectations when it comes to the relative
importance of attractiveness and intelligence: an increase in one
attractiveness point is more likely to cause a man to tick yes than a
corresponding increase in a womans intelligence. Men value beauty over
brains: no surprise there.

But Karbowskis most interesting result was that there is a clear point at
which men stop valuing a womans increasing intelligence. We have
seen that, when it comes to womens preferences, more is better: a man is
more likely to be chosen if he is more attractive and more intelligent. As far as
womens preferences are concerned, the skys the limit. Women may be
happy to trade intelligence off against attractiveness, but they will always be
more likely to choose a man who is that little bit more attractive or intelligent.
Not so when it comes to men choosing women.
To illustrate this, lets track the chances of one woman being chosen by a man
at a speed-dating event. This woman scores a 6 out of 10 for attractiveness:
about average. Now, if her intelligence rating is a lowly 2 out of 10, she has
only a 20 percent chance of being chosen. Lets imagine that her intelligence
increases 2 points, to 4 out of 10: now she has a 30 percent shot. Boost her
intelligence by another 2 points, to 6 out of 10, and she now has a 40
percent shot. But a further 2 intelligence points have virtually no effect: she is
still at 40 percent. And maxing out her intelligence to 10 out of 10 reduces her
odds of being chosen, back down to 30 percent!
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To sum up, our hypothetical woman with a 6 out of 10 score for attractiveness
will do best with men at a speed-dating event if she scores around a 7 for
intelligence: if she is any less or any more intelligent than this, men will be
less interested in her.
By the way, this isnt only true of women who are of average physical
attractiveness. The same pattern holds true for very attractive and unattractive
women. At every level of attractiveness, the optimum level of intelligence is
somewhere around 7 out of 10. For very attractive women, the optimum
intelligence level is slightly higher; for unattractive women, the optimum
intelligence level is slightly lower. But its always the case that a woman with
a brain the size of a planet will be less appealing to men than a woman who is
equally attractive, but less intelligent.

"Bimbos" over "boffins"

Karbowskis findings perhaps explain why clever women are sometimes said
to intimidate or threaten men, or why some women downplay their intelligence
in an attempt to appeal more to men. Very intelligent women are less
appealing than somewhat intelligent women. What this experiment cannot tell
us is why men are not as attracted to geniuses.
A paper published in late 2015 suggested that men are less attracted to
intelligent women because the comparison with their own intelligence
damages their fragile male egos. The authors of that paper write:
when evaluating psychologically near targets (e.g., in
real interactions, spatially near interactions), men may
be less attracted to women who outperform them, and this
could be due to momentary shifts in their selfevaluations (e.g., feeling less masculine from being
outsmarted by a woman).
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Karbowski and colleagues offer another possibility:

Perhaps womens matingdemands (of the physical
attractiveness and intelligence of a potential partner)
can be effectively met by more pairs of the levels of
[attractiveness and intelligence].
That is, maybe women are more flexible when it comes to judging an ideal
partner. They can get what they want from a man who is attractive but not so
intelligent, but also from a man who is intelligent but not so attractive. Men
may be more rigid in their requirements, andfor
whatever reason have

a
fixed idea of what constitutes an ideal partner.
Or it could be the ego thing.
References

Karbowski, A., Deja, D., & Zawisza, M. (2016). Perceived female intelligence
as economic bad in partner choice. Personality and Individual Differences,
102, 217222. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2016.07.006
Park, L. E., Young, A. F., & Eastwick, P. W. (2015). (Psychological) distance
makes the heart grow fonder: Effects of psychological distance and relative
intelligence on mens attraction to women. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 41(11), 14591473. doi:10.1177/0146167215599749