THE UNDERESTIMATION OF THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS IN DATING PREFERENCES - IGNORANCE OR TABOO

The literature suggests that subjects tend to underreport the impact o f physical attractiveness on their dating preferences. It was investig ated whether this is due to subjects' inability to achieve accurate in trospective reports or to a tendency to intentionally provide distorte d reports of the role of physical attractiveness in such preferences. Female subjects were shown profiles containing photographs and informa tion about the personalities of potential male dating partners and wer e asked to state the dating desirability of each target person. Subseq uently, they were asked to introspect about the factors that affected their dating preferences. The findings suggested that subjects are cap able of accurate introspection. The subjects tended to intentionally u nderreport the impact of physical attractiveness on their preferences. More specifically, when subjects thought that they were connected to a lie-detector-like apparatus, they produced more accurate overall int rospective reports, admitted a more extreme influence by the physical attractiveness of the targets, and endorsed more extreme dating desira bility ratings for physically unattractive men. Attractive men were co nsistently preferred and physical attractiveness was found to be the s ingle most influential target variable on the subject's preferences.