Curiously overlooked in this whole wiki section on women’s preferences is the fact that kindness is repeatedly found to be among the most desired qualities in large-scale, cross-cultural studies of mate preferences.
The second article is paywalled; the abstract says: “Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries.” No mention of kindness there; but maybe it is in the article.
The first article is freely available. First 13 ½ pages are the article itself, followed by 25 pages of “open peer commentary”, followed by 7 pages of author’s response, and the rest is a list of references.
I have only read carefully the first 13 pages, there was no mention of kindness. Ctrl+F “kindness” finds two occurrences. The first one is in the peer commentary, under “Some psychoanalytic considerations” written by a different author, asking: “Is it implied that similarities between the sexes in mate preference are actually more important than differences? Here the psychoanalyst would observe that the elaborateness of mother-child interaction has greatly increased in the course of hominid evolution, and that adults of both sexes have learned to value kindness and intelligence specifically in the context of early interaction with the mother. Both sexes are looking for signals of future parental investment; what better mechanism for learning these signals than lessons learned from the mother—that is, the parent who invests the most?”
The second occurrence is in the author’s response, in section “Is there a species-typical or sex-typical human nature?”, where the author specifically considers the overlapping parts of male and female preferences. And within that part, kindness and intelligence are most highly valued by men and women of all cultures.
So… hey, I know that I suck at reading scientific papers, so it is quite possible that I have missed something important here… but it seems to me like it is the complaining guy who misrepresents the conclusions of one of the papers he links. (I just noticed that he is a co-author of the paywalled article, so that one probably supports his conclusions better.)
More precisely, if we know that “both men and women value X highly” and “women value Y more than men”, it is not enough to conclude whether women value X or Y higher. These statements are consistent with the universes where (a) both men and women value X at 10 points, and women value Y at 5 points, and men value Y at 0 points; or (b) both men and women value X at 10 points, and women value Y at 15 points, and men value Y at 0 points. In both situations, X is preferable than the minimum/average value of Y, but in the former women prefer X to Y, and in the latter they prefer Y to X.
*
A different objection could be made against using questionnaires as tools to reveal preferences. First, there will be bias toward socially acceptable answers. Notice that kindness and intelligence also happen to be universally non-controversial good traits (except for intelligence being recently problematic among the woke).
Second… as a thought experiment, imagine that everyone chooses X over Y, and everyone feels bad about their choice afterwards. (It could be because they changed their minds and now think that Y is better than X. But it could also be that they wanted both, and now their need for X is saturated, so they wish they could have Y, too.) The questionnaires will all tell you about the importance of Y. But the revealed preferences tell a different story.
Thanks for checking the sources in that article! I hadn’t done that.
I now took a quick look at the first paper as well. While “kindness” did only have two hits, searching for “kind” also brought up this bit from the article itself:
4.1. Qualifications and limitations [...]
Several important qualifications must attend the interpretation of these findings. [...] Third, neither earning potential nor physical appearance emerged as the highest rated or ranked characteristic for either sex, even though these characteristics showed large sex differences. Both sexes ranked the characteristics “kind-understanding” and “intelligent” higher than earning power and attractiveness in all samples, suggesting that species-typical mate preferences may be more potent than sex-linked preferences
Mate preferences were standardized across countries prior to analysis, so this and all b values can be interpreted as equivalent to Cohen’s ds. The average for women was 5.48, 95% CI = [5.46, 5.51], and the average for men was 5.11, 95% CI = [5.08, 5.14]. The smallest sex difference was in Spain, b = −0.12, and the largest sex difference was in China, b = −0.56. Furthermore, men reported a higher preference for a physically attractive ideal mate than women, on average, b = 0.27, SE = 0.03, p < .001. The average for women was 5.56, 95% CI = [5.53, 5.58], and the average for men was 5.85, 95% CI = [5.83, 5.88]. The sex difference (b) ranged from −0.07 in China to 0.50 in Brazil.
Furthermore, we found small but still-significant sex differences in reported ideal preference for kindness, intelligence, and health. However, both men and women reported higher preferences for these traits in an ideal partner than for good financial prospects or for physical attractiveness. Women reported preferences for kinder ideal mates than men, on average, b = −0.12, SE = 0.02, p < .001. The average for women was 6.23, 95% CI = [6.21, 6.26], and the average for men was 6.12, 95% CI = [6.10, 6.15]. The sex difference (b) ranged from −0.23 in the United States to 0.06 in Uganda. Women also reported preferences for greater intelligence in ideal mates, on average, b = −0.12, SE = 0.02, p < .001. The average for women was 6.03, 95% CI = [6.01, 6.05], and the average for men was 5.92, 95% CI = [5.89, 5.94]. The sex difference (b) ranged from −0.35 in China to 0.04 in Algeria.
Great, thanks! I missed that. Especially this part is interesting:
Women reported preferences for kinder ideal mates than men, on average, b = −0.12, SE = 0.02, p < .001.
Now that I think about it, there is also a problem with using general information to solve one’s personal problems.
As an example, suppose that women want traits A, B, C, where A is more important than B, and B is more important than C. You happen to have traits A, C, D. Obviously, the part you should worry about is B, even if the research says “A is more important than B”. The relation is not linear; you can’t compensate for lack of B by having even more A. (Also, there are probably diminishing returns at trying to be even more A.)
So, to use a specific example, if you are kind and smart, but have no money, you should get a job. This advice is useful in both universes where kindness is more important than money, or where money is more important than kindness. You already have the kindness, but you don’t have the money.
*
Eh, I guess this may seem like “Viliam was wrong, but he still insists that he was right in some sense”. Well, I am out of the dating game, already 15 years in a monogamous relationship, so this is not a sensitive topic for me now. But I remember the moment in the past when my dating success dramatically increased practically overnight, and it definitely wasn’t caused by a sudden increase in IQ, or by me becoming more kind. It felt more like a move in the direction opposite to kindness, a kind of “fuck trying to be nice and do the right thing, let’s just do the things the dark parts of internet recommend in order to get laid”, and yes it worked. (On the other hand, things like kindness seem to be valued more in hindsight, in the sense that a girl who breaks up with me later says to her friends that she sometimes misses my kindness.) So whenever I am reading about how all the cynics on the internet are wrong, I feel some cognitive dissonance that I am trying to solve.
At this moment my best guess is that kindness is generally nice, but there is also such thing as too much kindness. I want my friends to be nice to me, but I also want them to be able to defend me and themselves from our potential enemies; and I need some credible signal that they could do that if necessary. (Or, as Jordan Peterson would say, “good” is not the same as “harmless”. A good person is one who could hurt you, but chooses not to.) There is “kindness” that is a choice, and “kindness” that is a strategy to survive by avoiding conflict. I suppose the former is attractive, and the latter is not. But to make it clear that your kindness is a choice, you must sometimes be visibly not-kind.
At this moment my best guess is that kindness is generally nice, but there is also such thing as too much kindness. I want my friends to be nice to me, but I also want them to be able to defend me and themselves from our potential enemies; and I need some credible signal that they could do that if necessary. (Or, as Jordan Peterson would say, “good” is not the same as “harmless”. A good person is one who could hurt you, but chooses not to.) There is “kindness” that is a choice, and “kindness” that is a strategy to survive by avoiding conflict. I suppose the former is attractive, and the latter is not. But to make it clear that your kindness is a choice, you must sometimes be visibly not-kind.
The second article is paywalled; the abstract says: “Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries.” No mention of kindness there; but maybe it is in the article.
The first article is freely available. First 13 ½ pages are the article itself, followed by 25 pages of “open peer commentary”, followed by 7 pages of author’s response, and the rest is a list of references.
I have only read carefully the first 13 pages, there was no mention of kindness. Ctrl+F “kindness” finds two occurrences. The first one is in the peer commentary, under “Some psychoanalytic considerations” written by a different author, asking: “Is it implied that similarities between the sexes in mate preference are actually more important than differences? Here the psychoanalyst would observe that the elaborateness of mother-child interaction has greatly increased in the course of hominid evolution, and that adults of both sexes have learned to value kindness and intelligence specifically in the context of early interaction with the mother. Both sexes are looking for signals of future parental investment; what better mechanism for learning these signals than lessons learned from the mother—that is, the parent who invests the most?”
The second occurrence is in the author’s response, in section “Is there a species-typical or sex-typical human
nature?”, where the author specifically considers the overlapping parts of male and female preferences. And within that part, kindness and intelligence are most highly valued by men and women of all cultures.
So… hey, I know that I suck at reading scientific papers, so it is quite possible that I have missed something important here… but it seems to me like it is the complaining guy who misrepresents the conclusions of one of the papers he links. (I just noticed that he is a co-author of the paywalled article, so that one probably supports his conclusions better.)
More precisely, if we know that “both men and women value X highly” and “women value Y more than men”, it is not enough to conclude whether women value X or Y higher. These statements are consistent with the universes where (a) both men and women value X at 10 points, and women value Y at 5 points, and men value Y at 0 points; or (b) both men and women value X at 10 points, and women value Y at 15 points, and men value Y at 0 points. In both situations, X is preferable than the minimum/average value of Y, but in the former women prefer X to Y, and in the latter they prefer Y to X.
*
A different objection could be made against using questionnaires as tools to reveal preferences. First, there will be bias toward socially acceptable answers. Notice that kindness and intelligence also happen to be universally non-controversial good traits (except for intelligence being recently problematic among the woke).
Second… as a thought experiment, imagine that everyone chooses X over Y, and everyone feels bad about their choice afterwards. (It could be because they changed their minds and now think that Y is better than X. But it could also be that they wanted both, and now their need for X is saturated, so they wish they could have Y, too.) The questionnaires will all tell you about the importance of Y. But the revealed preferences tell a different story.
Thanks for checking the sources in that article! I hadn’t done that.
I now took a quick look at the first paper as well. While “kindness” did only have two hits, searching for “kind” also brought up this bit from the article itself:
EDIT: Looks like the second paper was accessible via sci-hub; it has this:
Great, thanks! I missed that. Especially this part is interesting:
Now that I think about it, there is also a problem with using general information to solve one’s personal problems.
As an example, suppose that women want traits A, B, C, where A is more important than B, and B is more important than C. You happen to have traits A, C, D. Obviously, the part you should worry about is B, even if the research says “A is more important than B”. The relation is not linear; you can’t compensate for lack of B by having even more A. (Also, there are probably diminishing returns at trying to be even more A.)
So, to use a specific example, if you are kind and smart, but have no money, you should get a job. This advice is useful in both universes where kindness is more important than money, or where money is more important than kindness. You already have the kindness, but you don’t have the money.
*
Eh, I guess this may seem like “Viliam was wrong, but he still insists that he was right in some sense”. Well, I am out of the dating game, already 15 years in a monogamous relationship, so this is not a sensitive topic for me now. But I remember the moment in the past when my dating success dramatically increased practically overnight, and it definitely wasn’t caused by a sudden increase in IQ, or by me becoming more kind. It felt more like a move in the direction opposite to kindness, a kind of “fuck trying to be nice and do the right thing, let’s just do the things the dark parts of internet recommend in order to get laid”, and yes it worked. (On the other hand, things like kindness seem to be valued more in hindsight, in the sense that a girl who breaks up with me later says to her friends that she sometimes misses my kindness.) So whenever I am reading about how all the cynics on the internet are wrong, I feel some cognitive dissonance that I am trying to solve.
At this moment my best guess is that kindness is generally nice, but there is also such thing as too much kindness. I want my friends to be nice to me, but I also want them to be able to defend me and themselves from our potential enemies; and I need some credible signal that they could do that if necessary. (Or, as Jordan Peterson would say, “good” is not the same as “harmless”. A good person is one who could hurt you, but chooses not to.) There is “kindness” that is a choice, and “kindness” that is a strategy to survive by avoiding conflict. I suppose the former is attractive, and the latter is not. But to make it clear that your kindness is a choice, you must sometimes be visibly not-kind.
Yeah this sounds right to me.