David DeAngelo, self-proclaimed dating guru, provides anecdotal explanations in his men’s dating guide, Double Your Dating: What Every Man Should Know About How To Be Successful With Women, 2001-2010. This article provides the scientific basis to some of DeAngelo’s claims on what attracts women to men.
Why It’s Okay to be a Man
Minus the scientific jargon, DeAngelo has clearly explained in chapter 2 of his widely popular dating guide the primary concept of evolutionary theory as popularized by Charles Darwin–that of reproductive success. In summary, David DeAngelo explains that women can only have one offspring at a time for 9 months while men can make pregnant a lot of different women within the same period.
This fact has several scientific implications when it comes to dating, says Sadalla, E.K., Kenrick, D.T., and Vershure, B., in ‘Dominance and Heterosexual Attraction’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 52, No. 4, 730-738, 1987.
Basis for What Attracts Women
These are the impacts of reproductive success to dating, note Sadalla, Kenrick and Vershure:
- Women are more selective compared to men while men are easily seduced by women who are receptive to men’s advances. This basically means that male suitors are usually rejected by women due to an evolutionary basis. It’s nothing personal. Women are biologically wired that way to ensure that their babies will have higher chances at survival.
- Since men are less selective, men have a tendency to mate with more women when opportunities are present. Thus, men are more concerned with the physical appearances of women as a sign of a female’s reproductive health while women are less concerned with physical appearances.
Hence, from an evolutionary theory perspective, women could be choosing their dates subconsciously to ensure that their babies have the highest chances of survival.
What Kind of Men Attract Women
Research scientists offer two categories on what attracts women to men. These are:
- Men who offer material benefits or those with high investment attractiveness; and
- Men who offer genetic benefits or those high in sexual attractiveness.
More elaborately, Pillsworth, E.G. and Haselton, M.G. in ‘Male Sexual Attractiveness Predicts Differential Ovulatory Shifts in Female Extra-Pair Attraction and Male Mate Retention’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 247-258, 2006, cite previous researchers asserting that, women tend to choose sexually attractive men for short term relationships while they tend to choose rich men for long term relationships.
Notably, Pillsworth and Haselton have discovered that women with less than sexually attractive lovers will have a greater tendency to cheat and make out with more sexually attractive men due to desires that hormones cause. However, the study has not made distinctions where a male lover is both rich and sexually attractive or when he has average wealth and average sex appeal.
In another study, Pollet, T.V. and Nettle, D. in ‘Partner Wealth Predicts Self-Reported Orgasm Frequency in a Sample of Chinese Women’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 2, 146-151, 2009, have controversially asserted that women who are married to rich men reported greater sexual satisfaction compared with women married to men with lesser means.
Thus, to some degree, David DeAngelo’s claims on the types of men that attract women have some clear, scientific basis. Rich, powerful, famous and good looking men will attract most women. What DeAngelo says isn’t exactly rocket science yet what the research scientists say about fidelity and perceived sexual satisfaction are different things. Rich men don’t necessarily imply that they are ugly or less sexually appealing to women.
Showcase the Good Genes and the Potential to Create Wealth
When a man isn’t wealthy, good looking or both; David DeAngelo asserts that to attract more women, a man has to show his value through a change in his behavior. Of course, good genes or wealth cannot be faked. However, what DeAngelo essentially explains is that men should know how to give women fun. According to DeAngelo, this can be achieved by staying away from behavior that bores women.
Instead of good genes or wealth, does behavior that women find fun or sexually attractive makes scientific sense? Well, according to Sadalla, Kenrick and Vershure, it does. Likewise, Todosijevic, B., Ljubinkovic, S. and Arancic A. in ‘Mate Selection Criteria: A Trait Desirability Assessment Study of Sex Differences in Serbia’, Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 1, 2003 say the same thing.
It seems that alpha men are so scarce that women will settle for the next best thing. Think of a group of monkeys or chimpanzees versus a city of humans. While a country’s president will represent the alpha male for that country, that alpha male simply can’t mate with millions of women in his lifetime. Thus, women will choose alpha men in a more limited context.
In this regard, most women will likely choose a man that they can call their own rather than chase a Brad Pitt or Bill Clinton several hundred or thousand miles away. This limited context could be at work, at the street, or at a city block.
DeAngelo – Men's Dating Guide to Attract Women Scientific Review
What attracts women to certain men is essentially about evolution several research scientists say. This attraction can be categorized into: [a] good genes or sexual attractiveness; and [b] wealth or capability to support a family. However, these categories are not extremes in a left or right continuum.
A man of modest means can support a family. He does not have to be a Bill Gates. A man of average looks can still be sexually attractive to certain types of women. He does not need to compete with Brad Pitt who lives in an exclusive community several hundred miles away.
The alpha male is scarce. Yet showcasing the best qualities of a man’s genes, or showing the capability to support a family, or the potential to create wealth might be enough for certain types of women. Exhibiting a unique behavior or personality that makes women have fun or feel good is what David DeAngelo’s dating guide is all about.
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Sources:
DeAngelo, D., Double Your Dating: What Every Man Should Know About How To Be Successful With Women, David DeAngelo Communications Inc., 2001-2010.
Pillsworth, E.G. and Haselton, M.G., ‘Male Sexual Attractiveness Predicts Differential Ovulatory Shifts in Female Extra-Pair Attraction and Male Mate Retention’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 247-258, 2006.
Pollet, T.V. and Nettle, D., ‘Partner Wealth Predicts Self-Reported Orgasm Frequency in a Sample of Chinese Women’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 2, 146-151, 2009.
Sadalla, E.K., Kenrick, D.T., and Vershure, B., ‘Dominance and Heterosexual Attraction’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 52, No. 4, 730-738, 1987.
Todosijevic, B., Ljubinkovic, S. and Arancic A., ‘Mate Selection Criteria: A Trait Desirability Assessment Study of Sex Differences in Serbia’, Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 1, 116-126, 2003.
Melvin Tandoc - Melvin currently works for the project management software company that makes 2-plan Desktop and 2-plan Team.
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