[Psychology Today] One of these is not like the other

I believe socio economics plays a very strong factor. For example, some of the poorest in the US face health issues from poor choices of food, which in turn gives them weight issues. In the other parts of the world, the very poor suffer from no food at all. These of course tend to be in hot dry climates that aren't good for the skin.

Temperate climates like S. America and some of the Mediterranean areas can produce very beautiful women who are part of the lower class. This in part can be due to the wide availability of food and the climates are not harsh.

 

What about the Latinos?

 

People can read the original article in full here, if they desire:

http://www.quora.com/What-makes-Why...ally-Attractive-Than-Other-Women-unscientific

[rquoter]
Note that only Wave IV actually consists of "Adults". In fact, the range of ages for Wave I and Wave II is 12-22, with an average age of about 16 for both waves.

Imagine the scenario. Adult researchers (unfortunately we couldn't find out information about the actual interviewers themselves) went into the homes of these participants and rated their own subjective view of the physical attractiveness of the study participants on a scale from 1 to 5 (ranging from "very unattractive" to "very attractive"). For Waves I and II in particular, the ratings couldn't possibly (we hope!) be referring to ratings of the sexual attractiveness of these kids. So discussions of this topic using data from the dating website OK Cupid really aren't appropriate here.

Only in Waves 3 and 4 were the participants old enough on average (M = 22.2, SD = 1.9 and M= 29.00 SD = 1.8, respectively) to be actually called "women" and "men" instead of girls and boys. If one looks at the data from the waves (3 and 4) in which all of the interviewees reached legal adulthood, the pattern of results no longer supports Kanazawa's main conclusion.

In Wave 3, we did find a very slight difference in attractiveness ratings in favor of European women, but this is effect is no longer significant after we take into account the random variation due to the raters.

However, only data from Wave 4 is relevant for the issue that Kanazawa wants to address simply because this is the only Wave consisting of adults (they were collected when all of the participants were adults aged 25-34). Unfortunately, Kanazawa does not include presentation of these Wave 4 results, despite the fact that he uses Add Health data in most of his studies and these data have been available for over a month.

Focusing just on Wave 4, it is obvious that among the women in the sample, there is no difference between the ethnicities in terms of ratings of physical attractiveness. Differences in the distributions for females when tested with a regular (and slightly liberal) test of independence is non-significant and hence can be attributed to chance (Pearson's Chi-Square=15.6, DF=12, p =.210). Here's the graph that shows the distribution of ratings (in percentages) for 1564 European Americans, 553 African Americans, 97 Native Americans, and 96 Asian American females (with arithmetic means below each group):


[/rquoter]

So, what is Kanazawa's "comfort zone"? He intentionally omits the results for Wave IV where all the subjects are fully matured adults because they don't fall into his ridiculous "black women are objectively ugly" narrative.

4 months after posting the article, by the way, Kanazawa apologized for his sloppiness:

[rquoter]
In retrospect, I should have been more careful in selecting the title of the blog post and the language that I used to express my ideas. In the aftermath of its publication, and from all the criticisms that I have received, I have learned that some of my arguments may have been flawed and not supported by the available evidence. In my blog post, I did not give due consideration to my approach to the interpretation of the data and my use of language. [/rquoter]

 

Something for everyone.

 

Can't have it both ways. If the responses to studies like this tend to be skewed and unnatural, then why should anyone draw conclusions from it?

 

Western society has put a premium on light skinned women. I don't know why it started, but the media and society in general have done it.

In Asia, light skinned Asians are more sought after than dark skinned Asians. Same with hispanic women.

 

Same as Indians and middle easterns no? I remember I had an Indian friend whos parents didn't like the fact she was dating a an Indian guy who was much darker than her.

 

What is "unnatural" in the scheme of evolutionary genetics? We all came to be through natural selection from a common ancestor. No race is less "natural" than the other.

Of course, I agree that most men probably wouldn't be attracted to women having strong male physical characteristics, particularly all else being equal. But what we find attractive or not attractive is more complicated and subtle than that. We look at symmetry, eye shape, skin color, body shape, hair style, smile, legs, etc. There are countless variables, and how we prioritize them and what we prefer for each differs from one person to the next.

Kanazawa used the testosterone thing to "potentially explain" the results. First of all, without knowing more about how different the testosterone levels for females of different races are (what's the average levels and what's the variation), one shouldn't assume it to be a significant factor. Secondly, Kanazawa distorted the empirical evidence through selective omission. You can't just throw away data that doesn't conform to your hypothesis. So if the results themselves are distorted and therefore inconclusive, then there's really nothing to "potentially explain."

You're trying to reverse his argument. You first fixate on the testosterone thing as an objective indicator for which races are attractive. If the empirical results agree, then great, otherwise they are "skewed." It may well be this is how Kanazawa thinks as well, but its bad science and really shouldn't convince anyone.

 

I was in India and they were filming a movie nearby, and they would literally put white powder on the actors. India is so racist. They will hate on people darker than them. If you ever watch Indian movies all the actors and actress will be light skinned. I have even seen commercials for skin whitening creams.

 

The testosterone theory makes sense. If you go to Europe or Asia you don't see men swooning over black women at all. One reason why eastern european women are so desirable is because they haven't gone through that feminist stage like western women have nor do they want to. They take pride in being feminine and value a strong masculine man. It's a beautiful thing to have a strong ying and yang connection in a relationship. It's the only way to have a healthy attraction level.

 

Yes and in Thailand and most of south east asia the women there take glutathione supplements to make their skin lighter as lighter skin is viewed to be more attractive in females. Doesn't matter for males as far as attractiveness is concerned, however the women want to have children with lighter skin so they go after the white man over there.

Also in Asia, the Asian men go nuts over a blonde haired white woman. When I was in Shanghai one of our coworkers was from Norway and although she wasn't all that hot, probably a 7 out of 10 by clutchfans standard, she had very pale skin and blonde hair. The Chinese men there went crazy over her when we would walk around the city or go out to Dinner. They couldn't control themselves.

 

Based on his disregard for basic scientific ideals and his ability to draw conclusions from skewed data, it seems like your Mr. Miyagi was more like Mr. Magoo.

 

It's not just India. It's like that all over Asia, and even in some parts of Africa.