10 Scientific Reasons Why Nice Guys Do
(Or Don’t) Finish Last
It’s not the first time you hear it, nor is
it the last one: nice guys finish last. According to this perception,
women prefer bad boys and won’t date men considered to be too nice. As it is
defined in the Urban Dictionary: “It basically means that you will never
have any sex whatsoever in your life if you don’t treat women like sh*t.” No
matter what good guys do, the woman of their dreams will end up with a bad man
who doesn’t deserve her. But how can guys be so sure that this idea is
true?
The problem with perceptions is that they are based
on personal interpretations and experiences. Therefore, people cannot claim
that something is true based on their own personal experiences. They need more
stats to say that failing to seduce a beautiful lady is more than simple bad
luck or unexplainable disinterest. Men can’t either claim that the problem was
being nice, as women can have other reasons to explain why they are not
interested in them. Then, how is it possible to say that nice guys finish last?
Fortunately, scientists also ask themselves the
same questions, as men and women are both interested in finding the answer. Is
it possible that women can’t love men that are being nice to them, even though
this seems illogical? Researchers asked a lot of people about it and made sure
no information was left behind in different experiments that gave them valid
results. Here’s what they find out about the perception that nice guys finish
last.
#10. Nice Guys Put A Ring On It
According to researchers Buss and Barnes in 1986,
women want their husband to be kind, intelligent, easygoing, and adaptable.
Nice guys finish first when it comes to marriage as females want someone who
will stay with them for a long time and take care of the kids.
Members of married couples were interviewed
separately and asked to fill a questionnaire to tell the researchers more
about their preferences. Both men and women agreed that they wanted their
marriage partner to be a good companion, honest, affectionate, understanding,
interesting to talk to, and much more. Women also wanted their partner to be
fond of children and ambitious, and men focused more of physical
attractiveness.
Therefore, even though men and women expect
different things from their partners, they are both interested in positive
qualities associated with the nice guy stereotype. However, ladies might
be looking for other qualities in partners they don’t want to marry.
#09. Players Have a Lot of Partners But Few Good Qualities
Men who are willing to engage in a sexual relationship with no
commitment often describe themselves as irresponsible, assertive, unproductive,
and not warm according to Reise and Wright in 1996. They don’t seem to be
willing to do anything for a woman unless it leads her in their bed.
Men had to fill out a questionnaire so the researcher
could know more about their personality and their sexual behaviour. This
is how they associated unrestricted sexuality with negative characteristics as
those previously mentioned, but also a lack of moral values, hostility towards
others, and low aspiration levels. Women open to sexual relationships with no
commitment participated in this research too but were described as
perseverating, not conservative, and aware of their own attractiveness.
Moreover, the research demonstrated associations
between unrestricted sexuality in men, and narcissism and psychopathy. These
players might have more ladies in their bed, but that doesn’t mean that women
will appreciate them for more than one night.
#08. Nice Men Have Longer Relationships
According to Regan and Joshi in 2003, women prefer nice, intelligent,
and fun men as long-term partners but want sexy, passionate, and sexually
responsive men as sexual partners. Bad boys win the sprint, but nice guys
finish first in the marathon.
For the research, adolescent boys and girls were
asked to indicate their preferences in an ideal short-term sexual partner and a
long-term romantic partner. They both have a similar conception of a perfect
partner, even though they preferred a sexual partner to be physically
appealing, passionate, and sexually responsive and they expected their romantic
partner to be more intelligent and fun.
Therefore, bad boys might have more chances to date
the lady when she is just looking for sex and good men are chosen when women
want to spend more than one night with them. Sometimes, it takes a lot of time
to find the person that is looking for this serious relationship. Nice
guys do finish last… because there is no one else after them as they’ll spend
their life with the woman they love.
#07. A Confident Posture is More Attractive
Women are more attracted to men with a dominant body posture according
to Ahmetoglu and Swami in 2012. No matter what the woman’s personality, an
open body posture with gesticulation seemed more desirable than a close body
posture, associated with the stereotypical nice guy.
The participants watched three silent one-minute
videos presenting a man in different positions. This is all it took for them to
choose which one was more attractive and most of them agreed that they
preferred the one who appeared to be more dominant.
Seduction starts before a man opens his mouth so he
needs to make sure he looks confident before approaching a lady. Body language
speaks much more than what someone can say. Even though this isn’t directly
related to niceness, looking like a bad boy can give men more opportunities to
have the chance to flirt with the woman they are interested in. However, they
shouldn’t forget that what they say matters too after the first impression.
#06. Being Dominant Is Not Enough
Jensen-Campbell, Graziano and West (1995) showed that
male dominance enhanced sexual attractiveness, in a previous study about body
posture. However, it seems like dominance has different consequences depending
on the social context, and that other qualities might have influence on a
woman’s answer. They decided to find the answers by themselves.
Instead of simply showing a body picture,
researchers presented videos with different men that were either dominant or
not dominant, altruistic or not altruistic. This is how they found out that
prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive as dates.
If a man was more altruistic towards others, women thought that he was more
desirable than the non-altruist man. Dominance alone did not increase any form
of attraction, but when a man had both of these characteristics, it did.
According to their research, male domination alone
had no effect on women’s sexual attraction. They weren’t more interested –
neither less interested – in dominant men that are considered to be the “bad
guys.” This means that if a dominant man wants to stay with a woman
for more than one night, they better behave well.
#05. Bad Boys Do It More
According to Urbaniak and Kilmann in 2006, men with
lower levels of agreeableness had more casual, sexual relationships than those
who considered themselves to be nice. Thistime, the research wasn’t based on
questionnaires but on real life experiences.
Instead of asking the ladies about their
preferences, the researchers asked men about their dating experiences. They
also asked women to rate their photographs on a scale of 1 to 10 to know if
they looked good. This is how the researchers found out that the lower the
men’s agreeableness score, the more he was successful with casual dating, one
night stands, and casual sex. Moreover, being physically attractive also gave
him much more chances to get lucky.
Men also reported that being agreeable didn’t give
them more chances to be in a romantic relationship and attractiveness didn’t
have an important influence either. Results are much more different when men
talk about their experience so women who say they like nice guys might end up
with bad boys anyway.
#04. Being Nice Is Better Than Being Hot
Whether they are looking for a long-term romantic or a short-term
sexual partner, men and women prefer internal qualities like kindness than
external qualities like physical attractiveness, according to a study led by
Regan in 2008.
College students expressed their preferences on
different characteristics in short-term and long-term partners. Even though
inner beauty was always more important for men and women, some other
preferences change depending on the type of relationship. Women wanted their
sexual partners to be attractive and have a good sex drive but expect their
long-term romantic partners to be intelligent, honest, and warm. Moreover, men
cared more about sexual desirability than women did.
Therefore, nice men have more chance to get a date
than those who are only handsome, but many other criteria are also
important when it comes to finding a good sexual partner. Men shouldn’t stop
being nice, they should simply learn to show that they are much more than that.
#03. Nice Women Date Nice Men
Women want to date men who are similar to
themselves as it makes them more satisfied with their marriage, according to Botwin,
Buss and Shackelford in 1997. This means that if a man wants to date a nice
woman, he better be nice too.
Undergraduates and newlywed couples were asked to
fill a questionnaire to describe themselves and their partner before telling
the researchers about their mate preferences for personality traits and their
marital satisfaction. Researchers found out that personality played a critical
role in mate selection. Women were interested in men with different socially
desirable personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness and
intellect openness.
Moreover, the study proved that females cared more
about personality than men did. This might be explained by Trivers’s (1972)
theory: women are used to being pregnant for nine months and take care of the
baby so they were looking for a good partner that would stay with them during
this whole time as a long-term partner.
#02. Altruistic Men Get The Date
According to a study by Barclay in 2010, altruist men and women are
more desirable as long-term partners than neutral individuals. However, when it
comes to a simple date, women do want to be with altruistic men, but men don’t
care about it.
Men and women viewed simulated dating
advertisements of different candidates that were either altruist or neutral,
and that were looking for a short-term or long-term relationship. Then, they
were asked to rate which candidate was the best for different types of
relationships. This is how the researcher found out that women were also
willing to have a platonic friendship with altruistic men, which might explain
the “friend zone.”
The funniest thing is that men preferred
non-altruistic women for one night stands. Researchers believed that this could
be because men expect less success for a short-term relationship with good
girls. This might mean that nice gals sometimes finish last too.
#01. Nice Guys Are Not Perfect
Women define the stereotype of the “nice
guys” in many different ways, as it is possible to see in a research
study by Herold and Milhausen in 1999. They can either perceive them as
losers or good guys, which can have an influence on their choice to date them
or not.
Researchers simply asked women about their
definition of a nice guy and a bad boy. Even though nice men appear to have a
good personality, high standards, and politeness, some women also saw them as
needy, weak, boring, and unattractive. As one of them said: “Nice guys are
generally not as attractive, and have a great personality to compensate for
this shortcoming. Unfortunately, looks, not personality, tend to get a woman
into bed.”
Women also explained that nice guys have fewer
sexual partners because they were less forward in their interactions with them. The
bad boys were described as either rebellious, macho, fun, or sexy, but also
aggressive, manipulative, and willing to lie to have sex. Therefore, the
problem is not being nice, it is how women define these male stereotypes.
info source @ http://www.therichest.com
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