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Body Weight and Matching With a Physically Attractive Romantic Partner
Author(s) -
Carmalt Julie H.,
Cawley John,
Joyner Kara,
Sobal Jeffery
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00566.x
Subject(s) - physical attractiveness , disadvantage , matching (statistics) , psychology , attractiveness , social psychology , mate choice , developmental psychology , personality , overweight , romance , obesity , medicine , mating , political science , biology , ecology , pathology , psychoanalysis , law
Matching and attribute trade are two perspectives used to explain mate selection. We investigated patterns of matching and trade, focusing on obesity, using Add Health Romantic Pair data (N = 1,405 couples). Obese individuals, relative to healthy weight individuals, were less likely to have physically attractive partners, with this disadvantage greater for women than men, and greater for White women than Black women. Additional education, a more attractive personality, and better grooming increased the probability of having a physically attractive partner and offset the disadvantage of obesity for some individuals. Unexpectedly, we found women, like men, trade education for their partners’ physical attractiveness. Despite evidence of attribute trade, matching with respect to physical characteristics was the dominant mate selection pattern.