In Fall 2023, 12 Ithaca College students embarked on a team research project under the direction of psychology professor Lee Ann Vaughn. The international project, in which students played small roles, explored preferences regarding romantic partners, crushes, or people that individuals might be interested in. It also explored the differences between what people want in a partner and what they say they want.
The study, titled “The reality of romantic preferences: A large-scale survey reveals surprising truths,” was officially approved by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’s peer reviewers on July 3 and is set to be published in the journal of the same name. The findings were compiled as the culmination of a survey of 10,000 participants across 43 countries.
Although much of the work was carried out in fall 2023, the study’s acceptance for publication was officially announced in August.
Grace Lill, a fourth-year psychology major, served as a mentor to the other student co-researchers as this was her third team study. As a mentor, she tried to help the novice researchers succeed by giving them tips and answering their questions. She was proud that the research she contributed to was accepted for publication.
“You can look at it and see your name there,” Lill says. “I actually did this. You can put this[on your resume]and say, ‘I actually did this. This is pretty impressive for a place like grad school.'”
The Beginning
The study’s lead researcher, Paul W. Eastwick, a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, began the study because he was interested in gender-related differences in romantic preferences, as he explained in an interview with the Modern Wisdom podcast. Eastwick said he wanted to investigate the accuracy of the claim that women tend to be attracted to economic status, while men value physical attractiveness.
Eastwick explained the understanding and analysis of traits by focusing on the trait of attractiveness, likening the study to someone going on a speed date where they meet someone who likes some people very much and some people they don’t like at all.
“Liking[for someone or something]can be measured in a million different ways,” Eastwick said on the podcast, “but it’s a kind of association, a kind of predictive relationship, between that attribute and your bastion of evaluative experiences with a set of potential partners.”
Ithaca College Support
Professor Vaughan learned about the study through the Psychological Science Accelerator, an organization that enables researchers from around the world to collaborate and support large-scale team science projects that cannot be successfully completed by a single research team.
“For example, if you want to explore the romantic preferences of people all over the world, you can’t do that alone,” Vaughan says, “but with a large group of people, you can.”
The opportunity to join a research team like this is often what attracts students to college; psychology majors are required to join a research team for two semesters. Vaughn said it was easy to find students to help with this study. She also said it helped that the students were interested in the topic.
“This has always been one of my favorite topics in social psychology,” Vaughan says, “and it’s one of my students’ favorite topics, so I thought my research team would love it too.”
One of the students helping with the study was Allie Richter, a fourth-year psychology major who said this was her first large-scale group research project. Richter had always been an active participant in class, so Vaughn asked her if she’d be interested in joining the team.
“Many people, including myself, are in romantic relationships,” Richter said in an email. “I think it would be really interesting to see and learn what characteristics people care about most when looking for a romantic partner, and whether that’s similar or different to what I’m looking for in a partner.”
Senior Camden Kelly resonated with the research perspective and the opportunity to participate in international research.
“I just thought it would be interesting to be part of this large international study,” Kelly said, “and this seems like something that would be relevant to young people.”
Vaughan and his students’ role was to administer the surveys and collect data. The students recruited other students from the university to participate, help with data collection, and troubleshoot any issues that may have arisen. Vaughan led the students in helping write an Institutional Review Board proposal, which included presenting the proposed study methods to the board and obtaining consent forms from participants.
Before beginning their research, Vaughn and some of her students made predictions about what they would find.
“I just assumed that whatever discovery we made would feel like common sense, like something we already knew,” Kelly said. “We like people who fit our ideals.”
After analyzing many traits, we found that traits such as warmth, loyalty, and honesty were prioritized and generally most liked, a general trend shared by several research teams. In the context of gender specifically, the idea that women value status and men value attractiveness was exaggerated.
Findings also revealed that most people are influenced by “consensually desirable” or universally attractive traits rather than “characteristic” or more specific traits. Generally negative traits such as “easily angry” had a greater impact on partnerships and potential partnerships. Not all participants were in a relationship and were asked to think about multiple people during the study, so not all traits surveyed were specific to current romantic relationships in nature.
Although the study has already been accepted for publication, the team’s work isn’t done yet: Vaughn and several of her students plan to attend the 2024 New England Psychological Association meeting in October to present their findings to other research groups.
“I’m really looking forward to presenting our findings at NEPA,” Richter said in an email. “I’m a little nervous, but I think that nervousness is outweighed by the excitement of being a part of something so amazing.”
