While it’s true that the average man is more attracted to looks than to status, and the average woman is more attracted to status than to looks, be careful not to over-generalize these preferences. Harry doesn’t seem to mind, for instance, that Hermione is plain looking, and admires her intelligence, while the average man prefers beautiful women noticeably less intelligent than he is. Hermione isn’t particularly attracted to high status men in canon (she picked Ron over Viktor Krum, for chrissakes), and there’s no indication that she’s different in MoR. Neither of them fit the personality profiles that the PUA community has studied most heavily, which I’ve heard described as “extroverted young women of average intelligence” and… well, I haven’t been informed about the type of men specifically, but I’ll hazard a guess that they’re not like MoR Harry. So PUA models of interaction between the sexes wouldn’t give you very reliable intuitions about how Hermione and Harry should act towards one another. Never mind that they’re prepubescent and applying any adult models of interaction that were developed with sexual relations in mind to them seems kind of creepy in the first place. “Relationship” aside, they’re mostly friends at this point.
I mean, I agree with you that Harry’s apology was rather embarrassing, but that was because it wasn’t warranted by the circumstances. If he’d actually done something worthy of an abject apology to Hermione, then he should be giving one, not restraining himself in order to protect his dominance over her.
Yes, this is why I didn’t want to bring up PUA—it drags in a host of connotations which were unrelated to my point. Which was simply that loss of dignity in front of the opposite sex is far more painful for males. The PUA-disclaimer was meant to convey that, even though I attributed the difference to the evo-psych reason I gave, I didn’t want to derail the conversation with this sort of thing. Ah well.
While it’s true that the average man is more attracted to looks than to status, and the average woman is more attracted to status than to looks, be careful not to over-generalize these preferences.
The differences are also typically exaggerated in popular culture and also in individual reports. If we compare actual behaviour to reported preferences the sexes are a whole lot more similar in their preferences (when it comes to status and money vs looks) than they tell themselves. Mind you, there is only so much faith I can place in the results of such studies (usually done in speed dating type ‘laboratory’ settings.)
Interesting. I’m not sure if the correct dichotomy is status vs looks either. It could very well be money vs looks with both as indicators of status, since a woman’s status (and ability to confer status on a man with her attention) is often determined by her looks. Have their been studies comparing attraction to, for example, very beautiful female sex workers vs less beautiful cheerleaders? Disclaimer: I’m wildly speculating here…
Have their been studies comparing attraction to, for example, very beautiful female sex workers vs less beautiful cheerleaders? Disclaimer: I’m wildly speculating here...
Not as far as I know, but there definitely should be. I don’t think there is any way such a study could not be interesting. There should also be some studies done on The Cheerleader Effect.
While it’s true that the average man is more attracted to looks than to status, and the average woman is more attracted to status than to looks, be careful not to over-generalize these preferences. Harry doesn’t seem to mind, for instance, that Hermione is plain looking, and admires her intelligence, while the average man prefers beautiful women noticeably less intelligent than he is. Hermione isn’t particularly attracted to high status men in canon (she picked Ron over Viktor Krum, for chrissakes), and there’s no indication that she’s different in MoR. Neither of them fit the personality profiles that the PUA community has studied most heavily, which I’ve heard described as “extroverted young women of average intelligence” and… well, I haven’t been informed about the type of men specifically, but I’ll hazard a guess that they’re not like MoR Harry. So PUA models of interaction between the sexes wouldn’t give you very reliable intuitions about how Hermione and Harry should act towards one another. Never mind that they’re prepubescent and applying any adult models of interaction that were developed with sexual relations in mind to them seems kind of creepy in the first place. “Relationship” aside, they’re mostly friends at this point.
I mean, I agree with you that Harry’s apology was rather embarrassing, but that was because it wasn’t warranted by the circumstances. If he’d actually done something worthy of an abject apology to Hermione, then he should be giving one, not restraining himself in order to protect his dominance over her.
Yes, this is why I didn’t want to bring up PUA—it drags in a host of connotations which were unrelated to my point. Which was simply that loss of dignity in front of the opposite sex is far more painful for males. The PUA-disclaimer was meant to convey that, even though I attributed the difference to the evo-psych reason I gave, I didn’t want to derail the conversation with this sort of thing. Ah well.
The differences are also typically exaggerated in popular culture and also in individual reports. If we compare actual behaviour to reported preferences the sexes are a whole lot more similar in their preferences (when it comes to status and money vs looks) than they tell themselves. Mind you, there is only so much faith I can place in the results of such studies (usually done in speed dating type ‘laboratory’ settings.)
Interesting. I’m not sure if the correct dichotomy is status vs looks either. It could very well be money vs looks with both as indicators of status, since a woman’s status (and ability to confer status on a man with her attention) is often determined by her looks. Have their been studies comparing attraction to, for example, very beautiful female sex workers vs less beautiful cheerleaders? Disclaimer: I’m wildly speculating here…
Not as far as I know, but there definitely should be. I don’t think there is any way such a study could not be interesting. There should also be some studies done on The Cheerleader Effect.