A new study has found that men prefer shorter women for short-term than for long-term relationships. In contrast to this, women’s preferences for men’s height did not differ by the type of relationship. The study was published in Frontiers in Psychology.
When choosing a mate, humans generally tend to look for partners with specific characteristics. Studies have reported that these characteristics include specific character or personality traits, such as kindness or honesty, but also physical traits such as age or physical attractiveness. Scientists have proposed that these mate preferences serve the goal of selecting mates with high genetic quality, and high resource or reproductive potential.
One preference widely observed across different cultures is the preference for height. Height tends to be related to a number of health outcomes and social characteristics. Therefore, it is not surprising that height is taken into account when selecting a mate. Studies have found that taller individuals have a lower risk of dying from various causes compared to shorter individuals. Shorter men, on the other hand, tend to have less social and reproductive success.
Studies have shown that young heterosexual women from western societies generally prefer men that are taller than them, but not too tall – generally around 180 cm (5 feet 11 inches) in most cases. In contrast, men’s preferences for the heights of women have been shown to be less consistent and weaker than women’s preferences for men’s heights.
It has also been shown that mate height preference depends on how tall the person choosing a mate is. This tendency of individuals to choose mates that are similar to themselves is called assortative mating preference.
Study author Katarzyna Pisanski and her colleagues hypothesized that assortative mating preferences for height will be observed across four different countries and that it will depend on whether a potential mate is considered for short-term or for long-term mating. Given an abundance of studies exploring mate height preferences that were conducted on young people from urban areas in Western countries, the authors made sure to include people from rural areas in the countries included in the study.
Participants were 536 individuals (333 women) recruited from the general population, both urban and rural, and from local universities in Canada, Cuba, Norway and the United States. Most participants (93%) reported being heterosexual. The average age of participants was 26. Men were 178 cm tall on average (5 feet 10 inches), while women’s average height was 165 cm (5 feet 5 inches).
Participants were shown two paper sheets. One contained minimalistic drawings of men of different height shown from the back, while the other contained similar drawings of women. The height of each individual in the picture was written next to the drawing.
Participants were asked to choose the ideal height of a mate they would prefer for a short-term relationship and, once more, for a long-term relationship. The procedure was conducted using pen and paper in Norway, Canada and Cuba. On the other hand, U.S. participants completed the procedure using survey software.
Results showed than men, on average, preferred women shorter than them – 164 to 167 cm on average, depending on the country. Women tended to prefer men that are taller than them – 179 to 180 cm on average. One’s own height was linked to the height of the preferred mate – taller individuals preferred taller mates.
Women on average preferred men 2.3 cm (nearly 1 inch) taller than the average man in their country, while men preferred women that are 2.5 cm shorter than the average of women in their country. Men preferred shorter women for short-term relationship, than they did for long-term relationships.
“Our results partially corroborate previous findings, namely that women generally prefer taller men, and men generally prefer shorter women, relative to their own heights. This result extends the ‘male taller norm’ to four industrialized countries,” the researchers wrote.
“Our results further corroborate a positive relationship between participants’ own heights and their mate height preferences, that is, positive assortative preferences for height. However, assortative height preferences were qualified by relationship-context. Surprisingly, and in contrast to research on individual differences in preferences for facial and vocal masculinity in the context of a short-term versus long-term relationship, our effects were specific to preferences for women’s heights. Taller men preferred relatively shorter women for short-term relationships than for long-term relationships.”
The study makes a valuable contribution to the scientific understanding of human mate preferences. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, height preference was assessed using back-facing outline drawing on an A4 size paper together with information about height. Results on real individuals and natural interaction contexts might not produce the same results.
The study, “Assortative mate preferences for height across short-term and long-term relationship contexts in a cross-cultural sample”, was authored by Katarzyna Pisanski, Maydel Fernandez-Alonso, Nadir Díaz-Simón, Anna Oleszkiewicz, Adrian Sardinas, Robert Pellegrino, Nancy Estevez, Emanuel C. Mora, Curtis R. Luckett, and David R. Feinberg.