{"id":6575,"date":"2018-01-26T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=6575"},"modified":"2018-01-22T15:10:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T20:10:02","slug":"is-attraction-about-evolution-or-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2018\/01\/26\/is-attraction-about-evolution-or-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Attraction about Evolution or Culture?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6578\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6578\" style=\"width: 513px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/shawnhenning\/3329413587\/in\/photolist-65d7Ex-65ho4J-9WyZHQ-bdjRb2-9FnKwF-e6BPc1-f3UJHJ-rwL2R-Ed22H-ftAkRo-ed7WQm-UfuHUL-pCdkV8-dv4B1e-ftAmx3-biXbTc-o6TAUb-VQNLg2-dZKx4e-8BgJej-nhnJVD-ahCo27-3UZcW-65d7i6-cAAJzw-d6p7XN-d6oVHm-d6p4bs-RPSASe-9i29LN-ftAndf-9dmrST-89z5Bs-WbvqSt-bpGRmV-ahzBdB-4So2Zo-5YxmXq-rqEhDL-eZ8MSa-4MeFZE-ftkZ7X-6VLH9Z-e4a457-bsWMUE-cAAJYs-nm8dXj-wEq41-7jTqNb-ftAmbd\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-6578\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2018\/01\/3329413587_830803afce_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"513\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2018\/01\/3329413587_830803afce_z.jpg 640w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2018\/01\/3329413587_830803afce_z-300x234.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 513px) 100vw, 513px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6578\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Shawn Henning, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure few people were surprised by <em>The Washington Post<\/em>&#8216;s recent headline,\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/speaking-of-science\/wp\/2017\/12\/12\/women-rate-the-strongest-men-as-the-most-attractive-study-finds\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Women Rate the Strongest Men as the Most Attractive, Study Finds<\/span><\/a>.&#8221; However, not everyone agrees on how to interpret these findings.\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the authors of <a href=\"http:\/\/rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/284\/1869\/20171819\">the study<\/a> believe participants rated strong men as most attractive for evolutionary reasons, sociologist <a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade<\/a> argues we should look to culture for the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe value tall, lean men with strong upper bodies in American society,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We&#8217;re too quick to assume that it requires an evolutionary explanation&#8230;We know what kind of bodies are valorized and idealized. It tends to be the bodies that are the most difficult to obtain.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wade was not the only academic to express skepticism of the study\u2019s causal claims. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/soc-anth\/meet\/holly-dunsworth\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Holly Dunsworth<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an anthropologist, argued that the methodology of the study was unable to support the author\u2019s evolutionary explanation. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThey made no link between any of those responses of those women to any sort of ancient, deep-seated evolutionary traits,\u201d she said. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wade agreed, noting that much of this type of research has similar methodological problems.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sure few people were surprised by The Washington Post&#8216;s recent headline,\u00a0\u201cWomen Rate the Strongest Men as the Most Attractive, Study Finds.&#8221; However, not everyone agrees on how to interpret these findings.\u00a0While the authors of the study believe participants rated strong men as most attractive for evolutionary reasons, sociologist Lisa Wade argues we should look [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,55,33],"tags":[104019,4615,218,851,40343,39112,2700,39114,39113,17284],"class_list":["post-6575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-gender","category-health","tag-attraction","tag-attractiveness","tag-bodies","tag-body","tag-body-type","tag-culture","tag-evolutionary-psychology","tag-gender","tag-health","tag-lisa-wade"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6575"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6582,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575\/revisions\/6582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}