In our study, we recruited 1,388 heterosexual American women from 18 to 24 years old to take a short anonymous online survey[...]
Most of the women found the men holding cats to be less dateable. This result surprised us, since previous studies had shown that women found men with pets to have higher potential as partners. They also thought the men holding cats were less extroverted and more neurotic, agreeable and open. Importantly, they saw these men as less masculine, too.
[...] Women who self-identified as “cat people” were more inclined to view the men pictured with cats as more dateable or say they had no preference.
This result surprised us, since previous studies had shown that women found men with pets to have higher potential as partners.
As that study cited (“Domestic Dogs as Facilitators in Social Interaction: An Evaluation of Helping and Courtship Behaviors”, Nicolas Guéguen & Serge Ciccotti 2008) is highly likely to be fabricated and made up, it’s not surprising that it might be contradicted by some real research. The first/corresponding author is Nicolas Guéguen, who is a notorious serial fabricator/retractor (see Retraction Watch’s regular posts on him). It is regrettable that neither Kogan, Volsche, or any of the commenters at The Conversation appear to be aware of this and cite it uncritically, rather than solely to chuck it into the trash bin...
Well, since I like cats a lot and, when I was single, would have preferred a woman who liked cats too, maybe I could have filtered out some potentially bad matches this way? (I didn’t actually have a cat, though, for various reasons.)
I was kind of surprised by this too; I found this study which seems to support it though: https://theconversation.com/we-studied-what-happens-when-guys-add-their-cats-to-their-dating-app-profiles-144999
As that study cited (“Domestic Dogs as Facilitators in Social Interaction: An Evaluation of Helping and Courtship Behaviors”, Nicolas Guéguen & Serge Ciccotti 2008) is highly likely to be fabricated and made up, it’s not surprising that it might be contradicted by some real research. The first/corresponding author is Nicolas Guéguen, who is a notorious serial fabricator/retractor (see Retraction Watch’s regular posts on him). It is regrettable that neither Kogan, Volsche, or any of the commenters at The Conversation appear to be aware of this and cite it uncritically, rather than solely to chuck it into the trash bin...
Well, since I like cats a lot and, when I was single, would have preferred a woman who liked cats too, maybe I could have filtered out some potentially bad matches this way? (I didn’t actually have a cat, though, for various reasons.)