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Love or looks

A surprising new study suggests that less attractive men may actually make better mates. Experts Jim McNulty and Robi Ludwig offer perspective.

This morning on Today's Relationships, love and looks, ladies if you are smoking hot, well, guess what? You might want to think or you think you should have a hubby who is just as good looking as you are. But turns out a striking new study is turning conventional wisdom upside down.

Whether you think you're a nerd or not, why don’t you just come down here n’ join us, ok? Hollywood has been poking fun at the phenomena for decades, the ugly guy who wins over the beautiful woman from Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (~we might have a baby by and by~) to Sex and the City, where stunning Charlotte falls into an unlikely romance with Harry.( “Believe me. I never thought a shecksay goddess like you would fall for a pups like me. )

So ladies, if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, should you ditch the good-looking guys and go for the geeks? (“Stop Harry.”) Maybe.

Jim McNulty is a social psychologist who conducted the study, and Ruby Ludwig is a psychotherapist, good morning. Nice to have you both here. Good morning (Nice to be here). So Jimmy did the study involved some 82 newly-wed couples and you found that the more unattractive the man, I guess in the relationship, then the happier the relationship was. But these are newly-weds, right? Aren't they supposed to be happy anyway?

They are newly-weds. They were happy anyway. Certainly, and they behaved positively. And so we are just interested to know what role physical attractiveness actually plays in marriage. We know it matters in the beginning of relationships what about in marriage? Certainly it is the draw, yeah, in that physical attraction. Certainly, but once I know you does your physical attractiveness still matter? So what we did was we took some video tapes we had where people were discussing a personal goal. These newly-wed couples. And we recorded. We had the recordings, went back and watched them for the positivity and the negativity in their behavior and also rated the physical attractiveness of the husband and of the wife and found out the way he.....(you rated them, not for the spouses rate them, OK ).

We had a team, no, it was the spouses, did not do the ratings. We had a team of objective raters. (Right!) And surprisingly, they are actually agreed fairly well, and that is kind of consistent with the literature. People… (So something most scientific study is what you are saying. But I guess there is some psychology though behind that.)No, It’s definitely a scientific study in the sense that the objective raters all agreed about who was attractive, and when they agreed that the husband was the more attractive person in the relationship, the behaviors that other people saw when they watched the video tapes tended to be more negative both the husband and the wife. So the flip side was also true when the wife was more attractive both people behaved more smoothly. And they would support the discussions. So they were discussing a personal goal. If you have a personal goal, does your husband help you meet that goal? So the husband is basically trying harder. I guess, in a sense(exactly. That’s…) trying harder to maintain the relationship. (That’s exactly what is going on. )He’s gonna do more if his wife or, you know, his girlfriend is more attractive.

Ruby, does this kind of add up to what you actually see, in your, being an expert of relationships?

Not necessarily. I mean, there are also studies that show that people are kind of drawn to other people who match their attractiveness level. But having said that, certainly a partner is an extension of who we are, and how we wanna present ourselves. So if we feel that our partner is not living up to what's important to us, then that can somehow impact our marital satisfaction.

Is there some evolutionary concept that place into this?

Yes, yeah. First of all, beauty feels good, (Yeah) and it also signifies health. I mean, women are looking for a little bit different things too.(We are more pragmatic) I think in a relationship, they are gonna...he is gonna be a good father to your children.(That’s right) I mean you probably are influenced by power and intelligence. Sure, because that signifies being taken care of, having children who could be safe. So women are more pragmatic and men, I think, think more biologically. Who can I have these many children with? And also, you know, that if someone who is really good-looking and you are a woman that they can feel like I’m with somebody who is very youthful who makes me look successful. So our partners certainly do help us to feel a certain way.

What's the bottom line of this Jim, because this is not to say then though, if I am quoting you or taking this study correctly that if you are a woman and you are single, and you are looking for a mate, then you’re better off looking for a frog than looking for a prince charming? No, the headlines that are out there have taken a little bit too far. You know, this is an average finding. And there are many factors that matter to marriages. It’s surprising/ that this one does matter. But certainly there are other things and I think to take a message then is if you meet your partner's goals, that partner is gonna work harder to maintain the relationship. That’s kind of what we saw here.

Everybody should be working harder to maintain the relationship. I think that’s the bottom line. Jim McNulty and Ruby Ludwig, thank you so much. Thank you very much.