So says the Department of Psychology at Cardiff University:
Scientists have discovered that white people tend to choose other races when asked to rate which faces they find most attractive.
The scientists discovered that white men prefer the facial features of Asian women while white women go for the faces of black men.
Or as the Daily Mail put it: “Why white men are more attracted to women with Asian faces: Humans are hardwired to fancy other races.”
The parts of the study quoted deal exclusively with the preferences of white men and women; I’d be keen to see what the results were for men and women of other races, too.
(HT to the Seoul Shinmun)
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
How did they determine it’s a matter of “hardwiring” and not cultural conditioning?
That’s what I came across when reading the paper:
“[...] geographic evolutionary explanation can be extended to explain the findings regarding the perception of attractiveness of Asian people as well. We can do this if we assume that, just like the arctic tundra conditions of Europe, the mountainous expanses of Asian lead to a lifestyle of difficult agriculture. Several males may be required to support a single female as is currently the practice in the polyandrous Tibetan culture. Such a society would show sexual selection for feminine features as a highly feminine female would be able to attract the support during child rearing of one, or more, productive partners. In this case, however, it is not the lighter skin tones and fairer hair that were selected for but the rounder, more feminine face structure. In this way, competition between females for mates leads to a population that is more feminine in its facial characteristics. These feminine facial characteristics mean that Asian women are perceived as being more attractive whereas the same features affect the attractiveness of Asian men in a negative manner.”
http://bit.ly/wTs6Bn
Sperwer: if it were culturally conditioned, why would the genders go for different races, and why those races in particular?
(On the other hand, the rankings – males for Asian, white, black, and females for black, white, Asian – sound familiar from testosterone/estrogen rankings I saw somewhere…)
I wonder what study that was; none of the 3 in press ones listed in http://psych.cf.ac.uk/contactsandpeople/academics/lewis.html sound right.
#3 You can find the link to the study in post #2
Rare occurrence in TMH bizzaro world, but I agree with Sperwer in # 1.
Have they interviewed white men and women in Europe? Russia?
It’s plausible that we’re hardwired for exogamy, but that in itself doesn’t explain a predilection for any one particular outgroup female phenotype.
Sincere apologies, I could not even slightly be bothered to read the whole study. Can anyone explain how they excluded the test subjects previous preconceptions about other races? By this I mean that the subjects surely had some positive ideas about their preferred racial group before taking the test, whether conciously or unconciously, right? And these would be based on social influences of one kind or another (ie. not ‘hardwiring’ or whatever)?
More importantly, the Daily Mail is not the most reliable source of information in the UK media. Never take what they say too seriously and check their sources if possible. This is a good example of how they work:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/02/sleighbell-winter-climate-change-denial
(Not that I am assuming that Mr Koehler is taking this seriously, or unaware of the nature of the UK tabloid press)
Not that there isn’t enough discussion of “white on rice” interracial dating here on MH, here’s yet another incentive to consider:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/02/white-person-asian-person.html?imw=Y
Seems the days of hick GIs marrying Asian bar girls as the dominant interracial paradigm are over.
And good riddance to that!
DLB
It’s all about the benjamins? Holla!
It certainly seems that way. It must be all those ambitious, type-A, and wonderfully awesome kyopo gals pulling in very nice paychecks.
The funny thing is that like a lot of folks who’ve spent time in Korea, I know a lot of mixed American and Korean couples, and there is a definite pattern that seems to reflect the cultural norms of each country: those friends who live in the U.S. have Korean or Korean-American wives who work, usually in professional-level jobs, and who earn very nice incomes.
In contrast, those American friends who for whatever reason still live in Korea have Korean wives who do the hausfrau thing, and earn nothing.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that (except that there is, but I better not go there. Oops, too late.)
DLB
Well, that will certainly come as a surprise to my wife, who currently manages three retail units, and who’s been working with me to set up another business.
Mine,too; she’s the ceo of three separate subs of a US company in Korea, the Phils and Japan, with combined annual income that has grown from ~ US 300m to 1.1 billion during her 7 years in the job.
Sounds like she’s really kicking some ass, Sperwer. Are you sure she doesn’t want to call it a day, and focus her efforts on housework?
She does the housework, too!
Around our place, we split that, with exception of cooking. Frankly, considering our respective skills, that’s wise, but it’s also fun for me though isn’t for her.
I do the cooking.
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