In addition to the 1,300 couples, Dr. Gregory Webster of the University of Florida and his team re-analyzed a landmark meta-analysis study from 1988 that combined 27 previous studies measuring the attractiveness between couples with data going back as early as 1972.
"It's possible that some aspects of attraction have changed over time, such as with the rise of online dating, where all you have at first are pictures," Webster writes in his report. "On the flip-side, the fundamentals of what humans consider to be attractive across cultures and across time are pretty consistent."
After sifting through 52 years' worth of data – with some studies focused on younger couples and others on long-term marriage – it turns out that people tend to pick equally attractive partners. That's certainly not always the case – the correlation factor between partner attractiveness scores (as judged by others) was 0.39 – right on the borderline between a weak correlation and a moderate one. So there's plenty of variance involved.
Furthermore, researchers realized that men were better at determining their waning attractiveness as they aged.
The recent aggregate data of 1,300 people showed that both men and women value attractiveness fairly equally when judging both facial and bodily features, such as the classic "hourglass" figure of women or the torso size of men or even deep voices in men. On the other hand, it also found that unattractiveness, especially for "short-term relationships," is seen as a "dealbreaker."
Another interesting find is how importantly various factors in a potential mate are ranked. Both men and women placed attractiveness first – followed by how similar they feel the other person is to them, how familiar they feel, and in fourth place, whether the other person appeared to like them back.
As the relationship matures – and people get older – the importance of attractiveness becomes less of a factor.
The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Source: University of Florida