The Mathematics Of Beauty

January 10th, 2011 by Christian Rudder

This post investigates female attractiveness, but without the usual photo analysis stuff. Instead, we look past a woman's picture, into the reaction she creates in the reptile mind of the human male.

Among the remarkable things we'll show:

Fair warning: we're about to objectify women, big-time. The whole purpose of this blog is to analyze OkCupid's data, and without a little bit of objectification that's impossible. Men will get their turn under the microscope soon enough. As usual, none of this (with the exception of the celebrity examples) is my opinion. All data is collected from actual user activity.

Let's start at the beginning.

All people, but especially guys, spend a disproportionate amount of energy searching for, browsing, and messaging our hottest users. As I've noted before, a hot woman receives roughly the messages an average-looking woman gets, and 25× as many as an ugly one. Getting swamped with messages drives users, especially women, away. So we have to analyze and redirect this tendency, lest OkCupid become sausageparty.com.

Every so often we run diagnostic plots like the one below, showing how many messages a sampling of 5,000 women, sorted by attractiveness, received over the last month.

These graphs are adjusted for race, location, age, profile completeness, login activity, and so on—the only meaningful difference between the people plotted is their looks. After running a bunch of these, we began to ask ourselves: what else accounts for the wide spread of the x's, particularly on the "above-average" half of the graph? Is it just randomness?

What is it about her:

that gets more attention than her:

...even though according to our users, they're both good-looking?

Not all 7s are the same

It turns out that the first step to understanding this phenomenon is to go deeper into the mathematically different ways you can be attractive.

For example, using the classic 10-point 'looks' scale, let's say a person's a 7. It could be that everyone who sees her thinks exactly that: she's pretty cute.

But something extreme like this could just as easily be going on:

If all we know is that she is a 7, there's no way to tell. Maybe for some guys our hypothetical woman is the cat's pajamas and for the rest she's the cat Garfield. Who knows?

As it turns out, this distribution of opinions is very important.

Celebrity photos: to titillate and inform

Let's look at what the ratings distribution might be for a couple famous people. I imagine that for, say, the actress Kristen Bell it would be roughly like this:

Ms. Bell is universally considered good-looking, but it's not like she's a supermodel or anything. She would probably get a few votes in the 'super hot' range, lots around 'very attractive', and almost none at the 'unattractive' end of the graph.

Compare her to Megan Fox, who might rate like this:

On the far right, you have the many dudes who think she's the sexiest thing ever. On the far left, you have the small number of people who have seen her movies.

Unlike Ms. Bell, Ms. Fox produces a strong reaction, even if it's sometimes negative.

Real People

Now let's look back at the two real users from before, this time with their own graphs. OkCupid uses a 1 to 5 star system for rating people, so the rest of our discussion will be in those terms. All the users pictured were generous and confident enough to allow us to dissect their experience on our site, and we appreciate it. Okay, so we have:

As you can see, though the average attractiveness for the two women above is very close, their vote patterns differ. On the left you have consensus, and on the right you have split opinion.

To put a fine point on it:

  • Ms. Left is, in an absolute sense, considered slightly more attractive
  • Ms. Right was also given the lowest rating 142% more often
  • yet Ms. Right gets as many messages

When we began pairing other people of similar looks and profiles, but different message outcomes, this pattern presented itself again and again. The less-messaged woman was usually considered consistently attractive, while the more-messaged woman often created variation in male opinion. Here are a couple more examples:

We felt like were on to something, so, being math nerds, we put on sweatpants. Then we did some work.

Our first result was to compare the standard deviation of a woman's votes to the messages she gets. The more men disagree about a woman's looks, the more they like her. We found that the more men disagree about a woman's looks, the more they like her. I've plotted the deviation vs. messages curve below, again including some examples.

The women along the graph are near the 80th percentile in overall attractiveness. You can click the tiny thumbnails to expand them.

As you can see, a woman gets a better response from men as men become less consistent in their opinions of her.

Our next step was to analyze a woman's actual vote pattern of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s:

If You're Into Algebra

We did a regression on the votes for and messages to a sample of 43,000 women. To keep everything consistent, all the women were straight, between the ages of 20 and 27, and lived in the same city. The formula given in the body of the post was the best-fit we found on our second regression, after dropping the m3 term because its p-value was very near 1.

msgs are the number of messages the woman received during the observation period. The constant k reflects her overall level of site activity. For this equation, R2 = .28, which isn't great in a lab or on a problem set, but is actually very good in a real-world environment.

This required a bit more math and is harder to explain with a simple line-chart. Basically, we derived a formula to predict the amount of attention a woman gets, based on the curve of her votes. With this we can translate what guys think of a woman's looks into how much attention she actually gets.

The equation we arrived at might look opaque, but when we get into it, we'll see it says some funny things about guys and how they decide which women to hit on.

The most important thing to understand is that the ms are the men voting on her looks, making up her graph, like so:

And those ms with positive numbers in front contribute to messaging; the ones with negative numbers subtract from it. Here's what this formula is telling us:

The more men who say you're hot, the more messages you get.

How we know this—the .9 in front of m5 is the biggest positive number, meaning that the guys who think you're amazing (voting you a perfect '5') are the strongest contributors to your messaging income. This is certainly an expected result and gives us some indication our formula is making sense.

Men who think you're cute actually subtract from your message count.

How we know this—because the .1 coefficient in front of m4 is negative. This tells us that guys giving you a '4', who are actually rating you above average-looking, are taking away from the messages you get. Very surprising. In fact, when you combine this with the positive number in front of the m1 term, our formula says that, statistically speaking:

If someone doesn't think you're hot, the next best thing for them to think is that you're ugly.

This is a pretty crazy result, but every time we ran the numbers—changing the constraints, trying different data samples, and so on—it came back to stare us in the face.

What We Think Is Going On

So this is our paradox: when some men think you're ugly, other men are more likely to message you. And when some men think you're cute, other men become less interested. Why would this happen? Perhaps a little game theory can explain:

Suppose you're a man who's really into someone. If you suspect other men are uninterested, it means less competition. You therefore have an added incentive to send a message. You might start thinking: maybe she's lonely. . . maybe she's just waiting to find a guy who appreciates her. . . at least I won't get lost in the crowd. . . maybe these small thoughts, plus the fact that you really think she's hot, prod you to action. You send her the perfectly crafted opening message.

"sup"

On the other hand, a woman with a preponderance of '4' votes, someone conventionally cute, but not totally hot, might appear to be more in-demand than she actually is. To the typical man considering her, she's obviously attractive enough to create the impression that other guys are into her, too. But maybe she's not hot enough for him to throw caution (and grammar) to the wind and send her a message. It's the curse of being cute.

The overall picture looks something like this:

Finally: What This Could Mean To You

I don't assume every woman cares if guys notice her or not, but if you do, what does all the above analysis mean in practical terms?

Well, fundamentally, it's hard to change your overall attractiveness (the big single number we were talking about at the beginning). However, the variance you create is under your control, and it's simple to maximize:

Take whatever you think some guys don't like—and play it up.

As you've probably already noticed, women with tattoos and piercings seem to have an intuitive grasp of this principle. They show off what makes them different, and who cares if some people don't like it. And they get lots of attention from men.

But our advice can apply to anyone. Browsing OkCupid, I see so many photos that are clearly designed to minimize some supposedly unattractive trait—the close-cropped picture of a person who's probably overweight is the classic example. We now have mathematical evidence that minimizing your "flaws" is the opposite of what you should do. If you're a little chubby, play it up. If you have a big nose, play it up. If you have a weird snaggletooth, play it up: statistically, the guys who don't like it can only help you, and the ones who do like it will be all the more excited.

427 Responses to “The Mathematics Of Beauty”

  1. MsNomer63 says:

    I question the methodology. I didn’t realize the stars were for rating attractiveness in strictly the physical sense. I have always checked the total package before giving a rating. A guy can be in the not so attractive category and still rate a 4 if his profile is witty, intelligent or well thought out. Sometimes I award higher simply because the guy shares a lot of my own sensibilities and/or interests. Maybe guys award stars differently?

  2. Jamyjam says:

    This is very depressing. Just when I need a confidence boost. Thanks.

  3. ellips says:

    Very interesting. This makes a lot of sense to me. I get a lot of messages – about 40 in the past week, probably averaging 120 a month or more. BUT I’m older and very overweight. I mean, I could lose at least 60 pounds. I have full-length photos in my profile, though, and ones that I think are sexy, if a guy likes a curvier woman. And apparently, a lot of them do!

    What I notice about these images used, are the women getting the higher rate of messages, are showing a distinctive PERSONALITY in their photos. Not just pretty looks, but someone who is not mainstream, cookie-cutter. My pictures show my personality, too… and that I am not “just like everyone else.” Perhaps that’s what the guys are responding to.

  4. Ash says:

    Are you guys going to do any analysis on how women view other women? This research is interesting and all, but it’s not necessarily relevant for me.

  5. Matt says:

    I would say this is less of a “game theory” effect as it is a “prom queen” effect. I was a psychology major in school. In Social Psych, we learned that some people, considered “Prom Queens”, (and this can be either guys or girls!) are less likely to be talked to because they seem “so perfect” or “too perfect to even talk to”. This effect happens because although people like to surround themselves with people that are “better” than them and “worse” than them, people avoid “Prom Queens” because they feel that they can’t even compare. Given, both the game theory and the Prom Queen theory could be at work here, but I feel that this is a perfect example of the “Prom Queen” effect.

  6. tiger says:

    it is a good article. the math went pretty much right over my head, honestly, but the concluding advice is great. plus it’s just in keeping with common sense. deceiving your prospective partner into thinking you’ve got something you haven’t is not the most solid ground on which to build a relationship. truth in advertising is just going to serve you both a whole lot better in the long run. mainly by increasing the chance that there’s going to *be* a long run.

  7. Pookie says:

    I am not really sure if people vote me as a 1 or 2 often, but I gues so since sometimes I don’t get very pleasant messages from other users.

    Maybe girls who are in a way less liked recieve more messages because they are not only good ones. I personally get quite a number of messages monthly from different users. Both good and bad messages.

  8. Thomas says:

    Your data makes sense.

    The conclusion to play up the ugly side does not.

    The data shows that women catering to a specific target group get a better response from that target group. It’s the same thing like kid’s tooth paste gets bought more by kids than general tooth paste.

    E.g., if you have a tattoo, a number of guys will vote you down, because they have judgment about it. However, tattoo lovers will have a reason to message you.

    So, a high deviation shows that you appeal to a specific target group: hippies, artistic people, career focused people.

    The people that do not like those groups will vote you down, not because you are ugly. They are simply not into your type.

    The lesson would not be to play up your ugly side. It might rather be to show more of your natural inclination through clothes, scene, makeup etc. It’s the same as marketing products. The market is saturated. Carve out a market segment and dominate it.

  9. Jason Savage says:

    1. What you can’t fix; feature.
    2. Play with polarity.

    As someone who has worked for 10+ years in a therapy/coaching position for incels (involuntarity celibate men), I would also like to point out a reporting bias.

    A guy with low or average self-esteem will rate the average girl as average or cute. That’s the kind of girl he could even *imagine* talking to and getting acceptance from. He may rate her even higher than because he feels he has a chance at rapport.

    Meanwhile, the LSE guy will rate an obviously hot/fit *but different* (with a quirky, eccentric, individual look) girl as unattractive. He will say “she is trying to hard” or “she is not my type” when the fact is that he is simply intimidated. He lacks both the self-esteem (deservedness) and self-confidence (belief in ability) to attract such a girl. He feels he has no chance and overcompensates by rating her poorly.

    A similar, but distinct, phenomenon is when LSE guys go to strip clubs and use them as “rejection payback” venues. Where else will an obviously hot girl *approach* an average or ugly guy, where he then has the *power* to turn her down? He gets the rare opportunity to be approached and the ego rush of shooting down her request.

    Interesting stuff.

  10. James says:

    so, I guess I should send more messages to girls I think might be out of my league?
    that is how i perceived the differences between your case studies. the ones that get more messages are the girls i would message, but only because they are attractive, but seem more attainable.

  11. Digitz says:

    I think you hit the nail on the head with your final comments that having distinction in your pictures is the way to go. That same concept extends to the contents of your profile as well. If you’re so generic that it’s obvious you’re trying to appeal to everyone, you’ll get LESS attention. Don’t be broad and general, tighten it up and you’ll figure out who is really interested and who isn’t. Tighten up your profile! Tight is good!

  12. Eliot says:

    This was an awesome piece; the statistics of sexiness.

    One exogenous factor you guys didn’t consider was that when two people rate each other 4 or above they are each sent a message informing them of their mutual attraction. I believe you have a lot of users paying less attention to the 1-5 scale and instead are choosing 3 or 4 to solicit a quickmatch response.

    I personally do this because I am vainly curious to know who is rating me. Its an example of why the r2 in this example is low for a lab, but works for a real world situation.

    Keep it up!

  13. emote_control says:

    Why do you think that men who rate women using the five-star system are only rating them on their looks? I don’t, and there’s no instruction telling us that’s what it’s for. I haven’t seen a good justification of this assumption in any of the posts that you use the five-star rating as a measure of looks.

  14. Brian says:

    Am I the only one that caught the phrase ” the lizard mind of the human male”? Really? Good article, it only insults half of the users of this site. I can’t believe you would post an article that insults half your subscribers.

  15. Arielle says:

    I think Garfield is really cute.

  16. Daniel says:

    I’m not sure I fully buy the conclusion here. Since the scale is limited, the highest possible standard deviation would mean that you have lots of 1s and lots of 5s. Of course, if you think that 5s drive messages, then you’re going to see the correlation you see between high standard deviation and high message rates.

    As for your regression, I’d need more information about the data set to draw a conclusion. Did you control for multicollinearity? If m1 and m5 are highly correlated, we can’t trust the coefficients on each. Also, did you try doing m1 cross m5 to pick up the impact of having lots of both together? Then you can get a better idea of the impact of each alone.

  17. PointReyes says:

    Interesting. For what it’s worth, I’m always wary of cropped face shots. I’ve encountered a lot of misrepresentation from photos when meeting people in person — it’s really not a cool thing or fair thing to do (would be like me saying I’m 6′ tall). The “MySpace angles” are also often a dead giveaway that something is being hidden. And I agree with what this article says about not trying to hide what some might consider faults.

    I would love to see the mathematics of beauty for lemurs.

  18. TearsTheWingsOffAngels says:

    Um, you all know that dual-peak distributions like this are suspicious, right? They often mean that you’re measuring something different from what you think you’re measuring. You might want to take a closer look at your methods. Better yet, have an independent group take a look at your data to see what they think of it.

  19. Derp says:

    I wrote this in an email to a friend about this article, thought I’d repost it here. Sorry if someone’s already said something to this effect, I must admit I didn’t read through the comments:

    “I’ve been thinking about it. I think it has less to do with some male “I bet other dudes think she’s ugly so I should email her because my chances are better” zeitgeist and more to do with the idea that specific fetishes/inclinations are weighted more heavily than averageness as a component of individual attraction, and most people have a specific fetish, but most people don’t have the SAME specific fetish.

    Like, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those photo-composites of faces created using facial features from a lot of different people, so the composite ends up with the most average facial features. There have been studies that show that literally the more average a face is, the more attractive people find it.

    But obviously averageness isn’t the only factor of attractiveness, right? Like, say I have a fetish for aquiline noses. I REALLY like that kind of nose. But, it deviates from the average. If you were to show a group of dudes a picture of a girl with an aquiline nose, some of them like me would think she was super hot, but most of them would think it too deviant from the average, so she’d be one of those controversial divided-opinion ladies they were talking about. On the other hand, though, I’m not into girls with dyed pink hair, so when we see a girl with dyed pink hair I’m likely to give her a 2, whereas the fetishist for pink hair will give her a 10, another divided opinion lady.

    So, I’m browsing my match results. I see ten cute girls. Three of them have aquiline noses, and seven of them have more average features. For me, the specific appeal of my nose fetish is more compelling than the appeal of averageness. Sure, those other girls are ‘cute’, but I’m not going to write ten messages, so I write the aquiline nose girls and ignore the average girls. Then, my friend with the dyed pink hair fetish does a search, gets ten cute girls, two with pink hair, and messages only the pink haired.

    Now we’re at aquiline nose +3, pink hair +2, and average cute -15, even though the average cute were probably more highly rated overall.

    tl;dr Fetishes are powerful, averageness is weak.”

  20. polygonx says:

    “As you’ve probably already noticed, women with tattoos and piercings seem to have an intuitive grasp of this principle. They show off what makes them different, and who cares if some people don’t like it. And they get lots of attention from men.”

    This is what I don’t understand, other than claiming a paradox, how do you reconcile these analogous phrases of ‘They show off what makes them different’ and ‘If all we know is that she is a 7, there’s no way to tell.’ ? It seems that you are destroying your objectivity at this point. Example, ‘Men find women with tattoos and piercings a 7.’

  21. nina says:

    this blog is in line with a theory that my friends and i have had for a while! not being “super hot” means we get hit on more because guys think we’re more likely to put out. probably an extension of “ugly girls are good in bed because they’re just grateful to be getting some.” if a dude isn’t ‘threatened’ by your attractiveness, he’ll hit on you cause he thinks he has more of a chance!

  22. Shaun says:

    This article was awesome… Loved the mathmatics behind fickle people online… Awesome.

  23. browolf says:

    I don’t hold with the competition theory. It seems more likely to me that this shows that men who are interested in “controversial” women, are by that “controversy” more confident that the woman in question is their type. We don’t necessarily recognise controversy as such but we do perceive them as being in some way un-average. The trouble with the broad spectrum of average is that it’s much harder to discern similarity or specific components of attractive looks.
    I find my own style/look polarising and It always seemed to help women who know what they like see what they like more clearly.

  24. Emily says:

    I think it’s true, in my experience. When I had a conventional picture, I got few replies. When I played up my geekiness, I got MANY more.

  25. David Mane says:

    I’m a photographer and I’ve had 30 years giving people a look when I shoot them so I saw something different in those photos. Say someone’s going for a job as an airline stewardess you shoot her firstly as relaxed and sweet and then the next shot is self-possessed and sexy. Well, the results from the job panel parallel the dating website. Some men on the job panel are turned off by the alluring look but most think it’s great. The sweet look will have most of the men on the panel liking it but not baying and howling. (By the way I advise the potential stewardesses to go for the sweet look on the form. How do they they know that it’s not going to be a woman judging them for the job?)
    It’s the same thing with the dating website. I think that if the blonde looked passionate and the brunette looked sweet then the popularity results would be reversed. And as a photographer it would be a very easy thing to do.

  26. -Grey= says:

    I agree with several people that this trend is probably related to self confidence. I would like to see this factor analyzed.

  27. sazz says:

    What’s the point of this? Seriously. Oh right, there isn’t one.

  28. erin says:

    You got the correlation, but completely missed the causation.

    It’s not the attractiveness factor that’s causing the big 1 or 5 disparity. It’s the “my type” factor. You see a pretty girl who’s not your type, then you’re not rating her based on her looks. You’re rating her based on some turn-off factor. Examples: I see a beautiful woman smoking a cigarette (personal turn-off)… no way in hell. I see an average woman with an average picture… yeah, if I’m in the mood to message anyone. I see an average woman shooting a gun (personal interest)… absolutely going to message her, whether or not i think i’ll get shot down (oops… didn’t mean to make a pun).

    The standard deviation increases with what the photo shows about a person’s personality, rather than just showing us what the person looks like. When you think “hey, that person’s attractive” you’re more likely to breeze right past them than if you think “damn, she’s exactly my type.”

  29. Allie says:

    This was really interesting! I hope you do one for gay people!

  30. rebellinguist says:

    Is there a correlation between messages and replies that could also have skewed these results? One would assume (a horrible idea, but I’m going to suggest it anyway) that more messages means…on average (there is my qualifier)…more replies, which means more messages again.

    Is it that these women are carrying on continued conversations with singular men?

  31. Tory says:

    I started tweaking my photos in photo shop and then ran them through My Best Face and found that making minor changes like brightness and tone made a HUGE difference in the types of guys my photo attracted, however the number of men who picked my photo stayed about the same. The same picture went from half of the types being interested to all but the jocks being interested!

  32. zia says:

    OK, obviously I don’t have the data, but it seems like a much simpler phenomenon is at play here.

    What if the number of messages a woman gets is simply directly proportional to the number of men who rate her a 5 out of 5? That way, a girl who’s a “4” on average, with a peak at 4 (e.g. girls in left column above), would have fewer guys who consider her a “5” (and thus message her) than another girl who’s also a “4” but whose score is bimodal with peaks at 5 and 1 (e.g. girls in right column above).

    The scores of 1, then, don’t play a causative role in a “right column girl” getting messaged more often at all, as is suggested in the post. The 1s just bring down her average score so that we make the mistake of comparing her to a “left column girl” with the same average attractiveness, when in fact the important statistic and determinant of message frequency is NOT average attractiveness, it’s just simply the number of “5” ratings a girl gets.

    Just a thought, but then again, I’m sure that’s the first hypothesis you guys tested.

  33. CB says:

    I agree with Will (1/10/11), that it is about “hooking-up”. I’m a strait female, and the pictures that got the most messages, in my opinion, were of females who posed/looked a little more “sexually inviting”than those who were termed “cute”.
    I bet ya’ that if I posted a subtle, provacitive photo of myself, instead of the “sweeter” looking photos that I have on OKCupid currently, I would get many, many more responses than I do now. However, I’m not looking to slut-around, so I don’t even want that kind of attention, yuk.
    Basically, if you look like you’re “easy”, you will get lots O’ responses. Did you really need an equation to figure that one out, boys? Really, you math geeks…I dunno!

  34. sevn says:

    I like your research and articles. They make me chuckle and cause my brow to furrow. Just when I think I’m having a zen moment from your scientific findings, I trip into laughter with the simplicity of it all. Thank you to all the contributing scientists, mathematicians, journalists, and who knows who else. :D

  35. Elizabeth says:

    What this study does not account for though is the content of the emails. I have to wonder how many of those emails came from guys who thought she was ugly telling her to give up or go on a diet or whatever.

  36. 0rbitron says:

    This was super interesting and makes total sense in a bass ackwards kind of way. Well done.

  37. Amanda says:

    So, a girl like me who almost everyone says is “cute” gets the shit end of the stick? Dayum.

  38. Annie Gleason says:

    I would love to see this study enhanced to encompass women (or men) older than 27. How would it apply to forty-somethings? What about those in their fifties and sixties?

  39. apu says:

    good research. It seems that the other qualities are randomized, and the base sample is large enough to be significant.

    My only objection is that you called flat graphs by rating of beauty “not much divergence.” It is not true, or at least misleading. If 60 percent of votes are in M1 and M5, equally, why would that be called “more varied” than if M1=m2=m3=m4=m5? It’s been long since I’ve forgot all the statistics I have taken, but I bugged by popularizing statistics with matching graphs with descriptions meaninglessly, or wrongly, or grossly inaccurately, or mismatchedly.

    Statistics is an abused science coz statisticians encourage lay people to abouse their art.

  40. Jordan says:

    Was this problem solved by using heuristics? If so, it will not account for the results of the future.

  41. Annie says:

    Am I the only one that noticed that the “hot” girls are sending a little bit more “come hither” messages to their potential matches? The other girls are more traditionally cute, but not showing much sex appeal, hence the difference between Kristen Bell and Megan Fox. How come that wasn’t considered?

  42. Emily says:

    I think unless a man is looking for a long term relationship, he will either message women that he thinks are really hot and is hoping that on the offchance she might respond or he will write something to uglier girls hoping that they are desperate. He will avoid women that have a more assertive profile and don’t come across vulnerable.

    Those men that are looking for a relationship will look for similar/compatible traits and decent photos, their confidence level will decide whom they message.

    I think a woman who doesn’t display obvious weaknesses in her profile and is not seen as without options (ie she isn’t ugly), she will not be messaged as much because those seeking casual sex won’t bother contacting her and wasting their time.

    It is always a good idea to display uncropped photos purely because if you want to meet up with someone, they will be found out otherwise – so that’s a nobrainer.

  43. Nikki says:

    So I actually changed my main photo to a more “traditional looking” photo just to test out this theory… and the number of emails I got SIGNIFICANTLY decreased. I went from getting 4-9 emails a day, to 1 or 2. Very interesting! (I obviously changed my photo back.)

    Thanks for the stats Okcupid!

  44. Ms sheeba says:

    Interesting how example pictures were of only Caucasian women. Are you certain other races were considered. And if so, it’s important to bear in mind that not every user is open to the idea of desiring a woman from another ethnic group which will immediately lower her score.

  45. Caitlin says:

    I second that, Ali. I’d love to see how this applies to gay women.

  46. midrashist says:

    WISH TO HELL YA’AL HAD A SUGGESTIONS SECTION. Your math skills are generally greater than mine, but I know more psychology. And something about research. Some of us on here also went to schools which taught critical thinking as well as (or better than) yours.
    You could have checked the IM’s guys send to women whose profles they haven’t really read. I get a fair number of these. (Mostly from guys 20 plus years younger than me….wish you’d analize that weird phenomenon sometime.) It wouldn’t completely illiminate the percieved personality factor, but it would help.
    I actually made my personality come off stronger after getting too many dumb, bland messages. Ie., I made myself sound more daunting than I am. Of course some people will rate me as a one: they find me as offensive or overly quirky or arrogant.

    I will almost never rate guys who look like they think they are super-attractive, who exude excess confidence and possibly arrogance, above a four. I “lower” their rating to a three. I refuse to come across as quasi-anonymously wanting a date or message. If I want to get to know such a person, or get them to read my profile, I will usually send a light hearted message myself. (The ones who confuse me are the ones who check my profile numerous times, but do not respond to a message.)
    I’ve only responded a couple of times purely to an attractive face, and not the content of their profile. Even with those, however, I am probably also responding to subtle personality cues.
    My personal rating system:
    1 = never need to re-read this profile. People who say very little on their profile and reveal little self-understanding get this rating. Or people whose world views are too dramatically foreign.
    2 = I’d be shocked if I found much to talk with this person about, but they aren’t bad people.
    3 = Worth reviewing later, if I’m looking for more possibilities. (Quickmatch says so much less than a whole profile sometimes.) People also get threes from me when I am currently seriously flirting with someone, or getting more messages from people I don’t reject off the bat than I can keep track of in a given week. It’s usually pretty easy to figure out who rated one above a three, and sometimes I will send a reassuring message that there profile was fine, I’m just currently pre-occupied.
    4 = wow, I’d like this person to know I might want to talk to them or date them.
    5 = this person has one of the most interesting profiles I’ve run across. (Three of these in two months.) Or it’s someone I’ve previously dated and think their attractiveness rating should be higher.

  47. Anchorage says:

    I’m all for math as much as the next guy and love stats!

    But this one is pretty obvious. The girls who receive more attention in the photos you’ve shown all are playing something up.

    Highly exotic look, tattoos, lots of eye makeup, etc. = they look like women of loose morals ;)

    The other girls who are just as attractive but look more wholesome = looking for something serious

    Using my hypothesis i would love to see what the opposite effect is on guys. Are women also looking to hook-up or are they messaging guys who look like partners?

  48. Ellen says:

    Weak study, but fun math. Too many uncontrollable variables to draw confident conclusions, including other immediately apprehended aspects of the profile (username, orientation of face, kids/no kids, etc.). You hinted at, but didn’t answer, the question of how other reptilian factors that are deeper than “looks” affect messaging. For example, psychological studies have shown that the tilt of a woman’s face subliminally indicates sexual receptivity, and affects a man’s attraction to her. Similar points can be made about eye contact vs. looking away from the screen, the openness of a woman’s mouth, whether she is touching her face/hair… all of these influence attraction (according to studies I read in a graduate class on neuropsychology). Other users made excellent points as well – that male users will respond differently based on whether they’re seeking a relationship vs. a hookup. But you made some points I think are valid, including the points about avoidance of competition affecting some men’s responses to women they deem less desirable. This is a worthy line of inquiry and study, and I found your observations interesting but not reliable. Still, let the fun continue. Can’t wait to see the analysis of the guys.

  49. zxcvb says:

    This isn’t just true about people, but about our taste in music/movies/books/etc. We’re more obsessed with things that are divisive or “cult” favorites than things that are widely liked. For instance, Neutral Milk Hotel fans are generally more passionate than U2 fans, even if the latter sells a billion more records.

    So it isn’t just “game theory” but artistic appreciation. No matter how “perfect” someone looks, you’ll get bored with them over time if they’re generically hot. Meanwhile, someone with “flaws” will always stand out from the crowd, and in time, you can get over their imperfections.

  50. hoobi says:

    Were only empty profiles with photos analyzed, or are we assuming general illiteracy among male users? I rate profiles as well as photos, unless the photos are just horrific. Speaking of, shouldn’t “Hide” count as a rating?