The theory seems to make sense. Stereotypically, the girl always seems to fall for the macho “man’s man” over the shy, passive nice guy. At least, this is what Hollywood and social media tends to depict in popular culture. However, naysayers of this common adage may be surprised by recent study results coming out of the US.
A very sad man once said, “Why do girls always complain that all guys are jerks, then date jerks when there are intelligent, sweet men like me dying for a girlfriend?” Well, a new study shows that this guy may be outta luck.
The study in question was conducted in a Tanzanian chimp reserve by Arizona State University Anthropologist Ian Gilby. The scientists hypothesized that female chimps would be more attracted to the aggressive male chimps, and therefore, reproduce with them more often than non-aggressive chimps. This study was observational, and scientists ended up observing that the “males who directed aggression towards females at higher rates were more likely to sire those females’ offspring.”
Nice men, don’t lose hope yet. There are a number of things that may show this study to be unreliable. Firstly, the study is not the most reliable sort. Being observational brings forth the issue of being less thorough than any sort of experiment or double-blind placebo trial, which wouldn’t quite be possible with this sort of hypotheses.
Additionally, the details of the study are muddy. Specifically, what did the researchers use to determine aggression in males? What was judged to be the difference between passive and violent? It’s also worth pointing out that the article did not disclose whether the aggressive males and the passive males were given the same access to females, which would obviously affect which group the females would end up mating with. The study was not conducted multiple times, and this being an observational study, this data was only drawn once over a seventeen-year period.
Overall, despite the fact that this single study found that the females were more likely to mate with males who repeatedly abused them over several years, the conclusions we draw from this study don’t quite match up to what we’d expect from humans, and more importantly, the correlation between aggression and attractiveness is not established based on this single observational study alone. Nice guys, just stay nice.
I really like you post! I think that nowadays, women are influenced by social media or movies in which movie director always pick a guy to play the role of a man that every woman dream about. The way men are presented on social media or movies are very categorized. It is either an ugly guy who plays a nerd role or a really good looking guy who plays a macho role. Or in some TV shows such as Gossip Girl, all of their actors are good looking.
By showing this to women, they start wishing what they see and think the things that happen in those tv shows can happen in real life and in most cases it doesn’t. So this theory is kind of true even though it shouldn’t be.
This theory is both true and untrue. I have seen many girls run after the tough macho-man numerous times, but I have also heard other girls complain about those guys being jerks. I interviewed a couple of my female friends (two from school and two from home) and they gave me some interesting answers. They all told me that a macho-man is “sexy”, but they would prefer a nice guy who has a brain. One of the girls began to tell me that she has dated too many jerks in her life, until she met her recent boyfriend who is unlike her other boyfriends. He is “nice, smart, funny, and hot all at the same time” (puking). She says that she was most attracted to his kindness and generosity, not his looks or his muscles. Some of my other friends began to tell me that as teenagers, some girls do not really care about niceness because they are not thinking about marrying them, so who cares? However, as time goes on, girls would want a nicer guy because they want to marry nice and generous men. Since they are older, they are thinking more about their future, not one night stands. So, maybe the “nice guys who finish last” won’t be in the back of the race forever.
Really good post! I think it also depends on the person. A lot of women do just want someone who is more aggressive than them, and I do believe that this has to do with social media as well. Other women on the other hand from past experiences that I have seen, look for other things in a man other than just looks, or how they are. They look for the overall personality, and how they react in certain situations. Also a lot of times in today’s society a lot of women do not want the man to be dominant over them, they want equal control, and sometimes even more! So like I said everyone is different, and the nice guys to me definitely have a chance!
Being humans, I think it should also be mentioned that humans and monkeys a very different. Of course, we have a lot in common, and monkey’s are a very smart animal, but we don’t operate like animals. Monkeys mate in terms of dominance often times. The leaders of packs will most of the time be the aggressive, dominant type, and the females will want them as mates (check out http://www.monkeyworlds.com/monkey-reproduction/ for reference!) . For human, we don’t have that same attribute in our society. There have been ton of studies that show that humans naturally gravitate toward certain types of people, but for the most part, we don’t fight or struggle to establish dominance in order to prove how worthy we are as potential mates in the same primitive way monkey’s do.
I agree with William that social media has a big part in the influence of “nice guys finish last” its displayed everywhere, from movies to magazines to news. However, I believe that this is also an unreliable source. There are many factors that go into why and how someone is attracted to someone else. One study reported by Psychology Today found that women are more attracted to financially and socially stable men, which may be the dominant male theory that Ann stated. However the study found that women are attracted to different types of men depending on their fertility cycle. When women were peaking on fertility it reports that they are more attracted to the macho men, but when they are off they are more attracted to the nice guys. This study also may not be that reliable however. Personally I feel the whole “nice guys finish last” is just a social media stereotype hype, and that every woman is different and prefers different quirks in males.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/head-games/201308/what-women-want-in-men
I agree with Ann. We’ve all heard that nice guys finish last before, but where did it come from. Did this originate in nature and was observed by humans? Or is it like Ann proposed that because the aggressive male is more dominant therefore spending more time with the female that that is why they mate? That seems to make the most sense to me. I like how you incorporated the fact that this study might be showing inaccurate results though. Even though it took place over a 17 year period there is no second experiment or duplicates of the first to reinforce the results they concluded during the first time around. Personally I believe that social media has a lot to do with the entire perception of nice guys finishing last. But I could be wrong, It was an interesting topic to bring science in to though and I’m glad I read this blog.
Cute topic! Of course the girls that comment on this will agree, and say nice guys don’t finish last and they should just keep trying! But, something to keep in mind, if the male chimps were more aggressive, then they probably had more exposure to the females. The dominant male easily approaches females, and thus gives him a better chance. One must hope, I guess, that as humans we can identify with more than animal instinct.
Also, your blog made me think of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfeys7Jfnx8