Are Sexy People Really More Selfish? New Study Reveals Men and Women Differ

Are Sexy People Really More Selfish? New Study Reveals Men and Women Differ

Study finds unexpected difference between attractive men and women in their selfishness.

Men with more attractive bodies are more selfish and less likely to favour equality, according to new research.

Despite this, women with more attractive bodies show no greater tendency towards being selfish or less interested in equality.

The results come from a study published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology (Price et al., 2015).

Dr Michael Price, who led the study, said:

“The results suggest that better-looking men may be biased towards being more selfish and less egalitarian.

The correlation between attractiveness and selfishness was nowhere close to being perfect, and many very attractive men will also be very altruistic and egalitarian.”

Researchers used a 3D body-scanner to measure 125 men and women’s bodies.

These were then scored for attractiveness on the basis of waist-to-hip ratio for women and waist-to-chest ratio for men.

Participants were also asked to fill in personality questionnaires which measured their attitudes towards equality and selfishness.

In another part of the study, a separate group of people were asked to judge the body images and guess how selfish or altruistic each person would be in reality.

The results showed that while people generally expected more attractive people to be more selfish and less concerned with equality, this was only actually true for men.

Dr Price said:

“We found that the ‘raters’ perceived better-looking men and women as being less altruistic and egalitarian.

Our results showed that in fact we may be justified in expecting more attractive men to behave in ways that are less favourable to economic and social equality.”

The research implies that attractive women may not be as selfish as other people tend to think.

Dr Price said:

“Several studies have suggested that wealthier people tend to care less about kindness and equality, but our study suggests that attractiveness is at least as important as wealth in influencing these attitudes.”