Note to scientists everywhere: If you’re going to conduct a study on dating behaviors, it’s probably not a good idea to hop into your time machine and travel back to the 1950s to create your hypothesis.
That’s apparently what happened when researchers in Australia performed not just one, but five recent studies to test the theory that women prefer “nonconformist†guys and men prefer “conformist†women. Spoiler alert: Their hypothesis bombed.
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Here’s a breakdown of what happened:
For the first study, researchers analyzed questionnaires, filled out by 74 men and women ranging in age from 17 to 34, that gauged how they felt about dating people who were conformists, as well as those who were nonconformists. The participants were also asked to rate how they thought the opposite sex would respond to the same questions. Those questions included, “How romantically attractive do you find a man/woman who likes to stand out from his her/friends?†and, “How romantically attractive do you find a man/woman who is flexible in his/her attitudes in order to accommodate others?â€
The first study found that both men and women prefer dating someone who walks to the beat of their own drum, even though women were more likely to think that men prefer conformist women.
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In the second study, 115 students were shown two dating profiles: one featuring a more rebellious character and another featuring someone who is more of a follower than a leader. This is a direct excerpt from one profile, which clearly was not written by a Match.com expert: “Amy has always liked hanging out with her family and friends and likes being part of the group. She is quite happy to go along with what others are doing and to change her opinions and preferences rather than cause too much fuss.â€
Because who wouldn’t want to date that…zzz…sorry, what? Yet again, people went for the rebel type.
The third, fourth, and fifth studies also found that a majority of the participants were attracted to nonconformists (shocking, isn’t it?).
After all of that exhaustive research, scientists concluded that both men and women prefer to date someone who isn’t just like everybody else. Who’d have thought?
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