Rich men find their ugliest women

Researchers convinced young people that they earned far more than colleagues. It was a lie, but the "new rich" were dissatisfied with their girlfriends and more willing to flirt with other women.

                   

Who makes money gets more demanding and want to upgrade at all - until the woman. This is shown by a new study in Hong Kong with college students in serious relationships. And researchers had a sense of humor.

First, they convinced the boys that they earned more than their peers. Then they promised they would meet with a beautiful model. It was all catch, but the men who came to be considered rich were the most dissatisfied with their girlfriends and were more willing to flirt with other attractive women.

The study was divided into two tests. The 182 participants were all straight in serious relationships from 2 months to 7 years duration. Scientists began the experiment by manipulating a group to believe that was richer than the other students, while the other had the feeling of being relatively poor.

The scam worked like this: the two groups answered a questionnaire about their financial situation (position, salary, savings). But seven response options were different for each group. Participants gained an average 1500 yuan. In the questionnaire that made young people feel rich, questions how? How much you earn? They had low values of response options: 1) From 0 to 250 yuan, 7) More than 500 yuan?. Thus, in most cases these volunteers they selected the highest response.

In the form that made them feel poor, the tracks were much higher: 1) From 0-2000 yuan, 7) Over 12,000 yuan. And handling it worked. Scientists have confirmed that the vast majority of participants believed that the 7 options that he saw represented the minimum and the maximum a university earned in your industry - and who scored the highest options left satisfied.

Once they were convinced of their wealth or poverty, young people had to assess how attractive they were their boyfriends or girlfriends.

For men, the wealth (imaginary) rises to the head, they considered that their girlfriends were far away from your ideal of beauty than men ?. poor? Among women, there was no significant effect - women, whether rich or poor, can rationally assess the partner's appearance.

The money also made the rich young people feel more confident to approach beautiful people. In the second test, the researchers recruited over 121 students who seriously dating. Then they asked them to evaluate photographs of beautiful people. When finished, they announced that they wanted to analyze their reactions in a face to face encounter with one of photographic models. Again, it was not true.

Participants were sent one at a time into a room with 6 chairs. In one of the seats, they hung a coat, a purse and a hat. The researchers warned that the guest was already coming back and asked the volunteer to sit. They realized that men and women more "rich" tended to sit closer to where they thought that the beautiful guest would sit. But those who considered themselves poorer kept a greater distance. When comparing genders, men approached more than women.

Scientists believe that this scenario is a good indication of who is willing to jump the fence or at least to flirt with someone attractive despite being in a relationship.

The study recognizes that to be done only with Chinese students, there may be a cultural factor in the results. But they are quite certain that a similar trend happen anywhere in the world, to a greater or lesser degree. This because they associate the discovery to our evolutionary roots: males who are over? with respect to the rest of the band have a wider range of partner options and can be demanding without the risk of being childless. Already compromised females prefer to keep their stability, which increases the chances of having a parental support for their young for longer.