Long distance love affair

But men want their children to be intelligent and talented.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uab-ldl103015.php

Public Release: 30-Oct-2015
Long distance love affair
Qualities admired in another from far away can be threatening as that person approaches, according to UB research
University at Buffalo

What people believe they want and what they might actually prefer are not always the same thing. And in the case of being outperformed as an element of romantic attraction, the difference between genuine affinity and apparent desirability becomes clearer as the distance between two people gets smaller.

In matters of relative performance, distance influences attraction. For example, someone of greater intelligence seems attractive when they're distant or far away in your mind. But less so when that same person is right next to you, according to a new study by a University at Buffalo-led research team published in the latest edition of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

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"We found that men preferred women who are smarter than them in psychologically distant situations. Men rely on their ideal preferences when a woman is hypothetical or imagined," said Lora Park, associate professor in the UB Department of Psychology and the study's principal investigator. "But in live interaction, men distanced themselves and were less attracted to a woman who outperformed them in intelligence."

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But the area of performance has to be something important to the individual.

"The domain matters," says Park. "If you don't care about the domain, you might not be threatened. Yet, if you care a lot about the domain, then you might prefer that quality in somebody who is distant, then feel threatened when that person gets close to you."