Women Are More Attracted to a Man If Other Women Like Him Too

You think that choosing your partner was a strictly personal decision, but in fact it isn't so.

You think beauty is seen by your eyes, but in fact, what others believe about a person does matter when it comes to attraction and sexuality between men and women.

The ugly duckling that harasses you for years turns into a swan when others, too, desire him/her.

Scientific research showed that women are more attracted to a man if other women like him too. "We tend to think about things like attraction as reflecting a private decision or a personal choice, but our work shows that people's attractiveness judgments can be influenced in pronounced ways by what other people appear to think of those individuals," said University of Aberdeen psychologist Ben Jones.

To check how much other people's opinions count in our decisions, the researchers first started asking the women subjects to choose the more attractive male faces, rating how handsome they seemed to them.

After that, they were presented a short video in which the same faces were displayed, but each one was being looked at by a woman smiling or one showing a bored or neutral expression.

Following this video session, the initial test was repeated. "We found that the slideshow caused women to become more attracted to the men who were being smiled at by other women," said Jones.

When the same test was carried on with males, the results were the opposite. Those male faces that received the approving female glances were less appealing. "This shows that people are using cues to the attitudes of others toward individuals to shape their own attractiveness judgments of those individuals," said Jones.

This type of sexual behavior was observed in other species, but for the first time, it was proven on humans too.

But why this positive female interest in the faces increased the women's preference for those certain males? Because this may be a clue indicating a quality male.

The negative male reaction could just reflect jealousy or sexual competition. "If I go to a bar with Brad Pitt, for example, chances are I'm not going to get much interest from the women because Pitt will hog all the attention," said Jones.