OKCupid study shows women say 80% of men are "below average" looking

[Laize]

I know. Im talking about what the ideal average man would look like in the women's head. And this the media has twisted so that average is not the real average. Same goes the other way around.

The chart shows otherwise.

Men don't have an unrealistic expectation of women's looks.

[XDurionX]

The thing that boggled my mind about the study was that 80% of men being "below average" is a mathematical impossibility.

No it´s not.

Let´s say 80 score 100 on a certain scale, and 20 score 1000. Then the average would be 280, and thus 80% below average.

[Puck]

Average looking people become beautiful if you fall in love with them.

[Shadowmelded]

The chart shows otherwise.

Men don't have an unrealistic expectation of women's looks.

Only an unrealistic expectation of women's standards :P

[Laize]

No it´s not.

Let´s say 80 score 100 on a certain scale, and 20 score 1000. Then the average would be 280, and thus 80% below average.

You're right. I should have said median.

I would have thought a score of 2.5 should be median attractiveness.

[Vizardlorde]

Well in my school I find like 80% of girls attractive and out in the street only like 60% I guess that means my standards are really low by now.

[Laize]

Only an unrealistic expectation of women's standards :P

Uh. What?

[Sole-Warrior]

I'm a guy, I personally find far far less than 20% women attractive. But do I look down on women? Absolutely not.
This statistic from the read that women say 80% of men are "below average" does not surprise me one bit. But I don't give a flying fuck about what someone looks like. To judge someone on the bases of how they look is extremely shallow.

[cudomix]

Also, don't forget that there are probably lot more men than women at any internet dating site, so you could say that results are skewed simply because women have lot wider selection of potential mates (or attractive guys use dating sites less than "less-attractive", so that could also change results). Basically, it is a sampling bias.

[Lightfist]

In all fairness, I wouldn't give the two 'near the top' women anything above a 7/10.

---------- Post added 2012-11-14 at 07:10 PM ----------

Average looking people become beautiful if you fall in love with them.

While this is very true (at least for some people), those average looking people have to be given a chance.

[starlord]

Also, don't forget that there are probably lot more men than women at any internet dating site, so you could say that results are skewed simply because women have lot wider selection of potential mates (or attractive guys use dating sites less than "less-attractive", so that could also change results). Basically, it is a sampling bias.

yeah that could be it too. its strange though, of the sample guy pics id rate em thus:
7 (although looks drunk)/9/3/6 (glasses arent my thing).

but they all got "below average"...

[Buxton McGraff]

It's why so many women are obsessed with people like the dudes from Twilight, and the kids from the band One Direction. That starts to set their standards for attractive Men. Only they don't understand that it's not so much their looks that are attractive, as much as it is their fame. But because they don't know that, they think they're attracted to the men's looks, and that becomes their new basis for an attractive looking man.

So basically anybody who's not as successful or famous as those people, will be judged lower than them on a scale of attractiveness, no matter how good looking they are.

[Shadowmelded]

Uh. What?

That while many men might have a more realistic or perhaps accurate view on levels of attractiveness, that it doesn't necessarily mean that they're more down to earth or pragmatic when it comes to relationships, as evidenced by your previous statement of '2/3rds of the men would fight for 1/3 of the women' in regards to the graph. Also the fact that a lot or average of slightly below average guys seem to chase after women well out of their league. I'm a teensy bit drunk though so I'm probably not making much sense :P

[Hiricine]

The study may seem like a fallacy. However, Men like me are pretty enough to set the average so high that most men can't even come close.

[Verain]

Something tells me men on that site think the same about the women on it.

Except the article says they don't.

The article is about how attractive people think you are based on your pictures online. And no I didn't really read it because it was fucking pointless which is exactly the point I was getting across in my post.

Then don't post stuff exactly contrary to what the article states and claim that is what the article states.

one persons below average is another persons above average.

No, one person's below average is several other people's below average. There may be someone who evaluates this substantially differently, but that person would be rare. The results are based on averages. A man of average attractiveness is rated as below average in attractiveness by most women. That's the point of the article.

It should be noted that men's reaction to physical attractiveness wasn't a bell curve.

But their perception of how attractive the women were was correct. This response is also correct, if you assume that men on average put a large amount of weight on being with a beautiful woman. You would only expect a bell curve in the number of messages sent if the men didn't care how attractive the women they were dating were, and they obviously do- and from my life experiences, they don't lie about it either. Men want to date attractive women, so you would expect them to message the hottest girls on the bell curve more than the average ones. That is consistent.

But they don't think average women are ugly, is the point.

I don't even find men attractive. >.>;

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be in the study then :P

[quote]

idk, i suspect men are just naturally "uglier" as well. consider that the men often rated most physically attractive tend to have more feminine features..

While I dispute this totally, I'll say one thing- even if you were correct about your assumption, the graph is still messed up. You by definition can't have over half of all men being of less than average attractiveness. You can't get to that unless you simply ignore the existence of really ugly men, or somehow distort your data set utterly. Even if the ideal attractiveness was whatever was invented recently to "be hot", you should still find half of men of above average attractiveness.

For example, if you took 20 overweight people in the room it wouldn't make sense to say that only 50% of them could be "above average" weight. They'd still all be fat.

NO, but it WOULD make sense to expect that 50% of them would be "above average" weight for an overweight person. Unless your room is somehow skewed to only have super obese, or just barely obese people in it. The pool is "men", and the graph represents a really distorted perception of reality. Note that the girls were perceived roughly correctly by the guys.

Straight guys are told that they just need to be "confident" and flash some money around and everything will be okay.

And there is some truth to this, as straight guys aren't trying to date men!

I'm not surprised, I'd say I find about the same percentage of women to be unattractive too.

But the men in the study did not. They ranked the women on a bell curve- it was roughly accurate.

The chart shows otherwise.

Men don't have an unrealistic expectation of women's looks.

You got it.

[starlord]

While I dispute this totally, I'll say one thing- even if you were correct about your assumption, the graph is still messed up. You by definition can't have over half of all men being of less than average attractiveness. You can't get to that unless you simply ignore the existence of really ugly men, or somehow distort your data set utterly. Even if the ideal attractiveness was whatever was invented recently to "be hot", you should still find half of men of above average attractiveness.

but its not "all men", its all men on the site. as another poster said it could be a sampling problem.

[Laize]

That while many men might have a more realistic or perhaps accurate view on levels of attractiveness, that it doesn't necessarily mean that they're more down to earth or pragmatic when it comes to relationships, as evidenced by your previous statement of '2/3rds of the men would fight for 1/3 of the women' in regards to the graph. Also the fact that a lot or average of slightly below average guys seem to chase after women well out of their league. I'm a teensy bit drunk though so I'm probably not making much sense :P

Well I'm sure part of it is men going after the most attractive women because they have nothing to lose. Rather than what you'd risk getting in a bar ("get away from me, creep") you simply don't receive a response. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, there's no reason not to take a chance.

[Verain]

but its not "all men", its all men on the site. as another poster said it could be a sampling problem.

Possible but... it seems unlikely. OK Cupid has a pretty big following, it would be surprising if the men patronizing the site were far below the mean, but the women were about as expected with a random sample. I would think that just the few pictures that they showed would make you think, it's not that.

But yea, a better study would control for that.


A good point, but I just don't think it's that. Hrm.

[Laize]

but its not "all men", its all men on the site. as another poster said it could be a sampling problem.

I find the idea of it being a sampling problem difficult to believe.

If this isn't indicative of reality, then there are 2 potential problems with the sample size.

1) Either a HUGE number of above-averagely attractive males are absent the study with the remaining "above average" males being Brad Pitt-level supermodels pulling the overall average up

OR

2) The sample size is too small


#1 is difficult to believe since the thought that slightly-better-than-average-males don't register for OKCupid but the REALLY hot ones do is kind of silly

#2 is unlikely because OKCupid has (and had at the time) several million members.

[Rukentuts]

The "80%" isn't just confined to men on that site.