SophisticatedBean #sexist reddit.com

Re: Cues of upper body strength account for 70% of the variance in men's bodily attractiveness (Sell et al. 2017)

Funnily, rated strength is correlated very strongly (r ˜ .8) with rated attractiveness (as per title), but attractiveness is only moderately correlated with actual strength (r ˜ .25-.4), so once again likely some amount of Fisherian runaway and fakery at play, i.e. men evolving wide shoulders (presumably without additional muscle mass), merely to look more dominant in order to meet women's preferences that are under runaway selection, and to look more intimidating to other males too—

Closely related study: https://psyarxiv.com/edw4f/

Women are attracted to aesthetic men who appear to be strong in their eyes. Not actual strong men who have Dad bods, wider hips, higher body fat %, short arms etc.

Yes, but the fact that women select by perceived strength so strongly, should imply that actual strength is very important to them (bodyguard hypothesis), because women actually think they choose a strong man.

Then the question is why are women fooled fairly easily by men who appear stronger than they really are, and why do women misjudge strong men as weak on a fairly regular basis. Why didn't women evolve to be more suspicious provided that strength is (presumably) such a critical factor?

One answer is that strength is important, but not as important as it could explain the degree of attraction, rather, Fisherian runway explains why it is such a strong selection criterion (i.e. other females also select men who merely look strong, so passing on this trait to the offspring is beneficial, perhaps more so than actually being strong).

It could also be that the DNA that encodes the brain simply does not have more capacity to differentiate more precisely, and feature detectors for tallness and wide shoulders etc. get the job done to choose a bodyguard.

Another explanation could be that due to a sedentary life style, some men who look strong have the potential to be strong, but are not necessarily strong because they can be lazy nowadays.

Though recent results have struck such a massive blow against the honesty of attractive features about qualities important for survival (health, strength, locomotion efficiency, intelligence etc.), a.k.a. good genes, that I've grown very pessimistic.

I don’t think women are choosing them purely because they perceive them as strong, there’s other variables at play here. They’re choosing them because they’re aesthetic/attractive, and by that, the side product is that these women assume that person is strong, but it isn’t the fact they’re strong that is making women attracted to them, it’s the broad shoulders, low body fat, 6 pack, etc. All things that are seen as conventionally attractive on a man almost everywhere worldwide. Women don’t just want what they’re attracted to, they want what other women are attracted to, it’s almost a status thing.

A man who’s in good shape also oozes confidence and the fact he’s clearly someone who doesn’t lack desire/dedication to be better.

This is actually very analogous to the halo effect regarding intelligence. The correlation between attractiveness ratings and perceived intelligence is also around r = 0.8 (but the correlation with actual IQ is very low, around r = .07-.3).

I'm wondering whether this is related to the ad-hoc explanations that people give when their arms are moved by electrically stimulating neurons in their brains (link). In a similar manner, when some sexually selected circuitry makes someone stare at a beautiful person, the brain finds a plausible explanation in terms of an actually useful quality (moral, intelligence, strength, etc.).

I don’t think women are choosing them purely because they perceive them as strong, there’s other variables at play here.

Not purely, but perceived strength explains the vast majority of it (70%).

broad shoulders, low body fat, 6 pack [—] Women don’t just want what they’re attracted to, they want what other women are attracted to, it’s almost a status thing.

Women do copy mate choices, but I'd bet preferences for very specific things like toned muscles etc. are >95% genetically determined and >95% of it evolved by runaway sexual selection, much like antlers and the chicken's comb. Preference for the size of muscles, OTOH has likely actual advantages for survival.

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