New study shows that not all forms of social rank are equally attractive

People tend to look for partners who hold social rank, but a new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests that the kind of rank someone pursues matters for romantic attraction. The research provides evidence that attraction depends both on the type of rank a person displays and the relationship goals of the observer.

Social rank is often associated with desirable qualities such as influence and access to resources. Many people assume that rank improves attractiveness in a general way. But rank is not a single category. People can gain status through competence, generosity, and respect from others, which is known as prestige. They can also gain status through force, intimidation, or assertive behavior, which is known as dominance.

These two paths carry different interpersonal signals and different implications for long-term relationships. At the same time, individuals differ in their relationship goals. Some seek stable partnerships with long-term investment, while others seek short-term sexual relationships. The researchers wanted to test how these relationship goals shape attraction to people who use dominance or prestige to rise in social rank.

“I wanted to add nuance to the long-held and widely generalizable—but overly broad—finding that ‘social rank is attractive in a potential mate.’ Although people around the world are attracted to those with high social rank, recent research shows that social rank takes at least two distinct forms: dominance and prestige,” said study author Zak Witkower, an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam.

“Our work adds nuance to the finding that social rank is universally attractive, demonstrating that the appeal of social rank depends on both how people achieve social rank, and what others are looking for in a partner, with dominance and prestige attracting those pursuing short-term and long-term relationships in different ways.”

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The researchers conducted a series of three studies. The first study surveyed more than one thousand adults in the United States. Participants first completed a questionnaire that measured their orientation toward long-term and short-term mating. People with stronger long-term orientations expressed greater interest in committed partnerships, while those with stronger short-term orientations expressed comfort with casual sexual relationships.

After rating their own orientation, participants evaluated how attractive they found people who display dominance or prestige. These traits were presented in the form of brief descriptions, such as being considered an expert in an area or being willing to use aggression to achieve a goal.

The researchers found that participants who scored higher on long-term mating orientation tended to find prestige attractive. They also tended to rate dominance as unattractive. This suggests that people who prioritize committed partnerships associate prestige with traits such as warmth, reliability, and social support, while perceiving dominance as linked to behaviors that may endanger relationship stability.

Short-term mating orientation showed a different pattern. Participants who scored higher on this orientation tended to find both dominance and prestige appealing. This indicates that people oriented toward short-term relationships may see benefits in both routes to high status. Prestige can signal intelligence and competence, while dominance can signal physical strength and confidence.

The researchers ran additional analyses to test whether gender affected the relationship between mating orientation and attraction. The general pattern remained consistent. Men and women with long-term orientations preferred prestige and tended to avoid dominance. Men and women with short-term orientations tended to find both strategies appealing. Some differences in size of effect emerged across genders, but the basic relationships stayed the same.

The researchers also tested the combined influence of long-term and short-term orientation by comparing people who favored long-term strategies with those who favored short-term ones. People who preferred long-term strategies consistently showed a stronger attraction to prestige relative to dominance.

The next phase of the project tested whether these patterns would hold when people formed impressions based on appearance alone. People often make judgments about potential partners quickly, especially in contexts where they rely on physical appearance. The researchers conducted two additional studies that focused on faces rather than personality traits. These studies used photographs that had been digitally altered to appear more or less dominant. The researchers did not include prestige faces because no comparable method existed to manipulate faces along that dimension.

In the first of these facial preference studies, participants viewed pairs of faces in which one face was a neutral image and the other was a version of the same face adjusted to appear more dominant. Participants indicated which face they found more attractive. As in the first study, participants also completed questionnaires assessing their long-term and short-term mating orientations.

The results again aligned with the original predictions. People with higher short-term mating orientation scores were more likely to choose the dominant faces. People with higher long-term mating orientation scores were less likely to choose them. This pattern appeared across participants and did not vary significantly by gender.

The effect sizes were smaller than those found in the self-reported preference study, which the authors interpret as evidence that physical cues of dominance influence attraction in a more subtle way. Even so, the relationship between mating orientation and attraction remained consistent.

“The effects were robust, but varied in magnitude depending on how we measured attraction,” Witkower told PsyPost. “For example, people’s self-reported preferences showed large effects, while the effects were smaller when we measured attraction after subtly manipulating face to appear more and less dominant. Nonetheless, across all methods the same clear pattern emerged, which consistently supported our hypotheses.”

A second facial preference study replicated this design but improved it by ensuring that participants only viewed faces that matched their preferred gender in a romantic partner. This step helped the researchers measure attraction more directly. More than eight hundred people took part.

The researchers again found that people with stronger short-term mating orientation tended to select the dominant faces more often, while those with stronger long-term mating orientation tended to avoid them. These findings suggest that the relationship between mating orientation and attraction to dominance extends to appearance-based impressions of a potential partner.

“People looking for long-term romantic partners tend to be drawn to prestige but are systematically put off by dominance,” Witkower said. “In contrast, those interested in short-term sexual relationships are attracted to both prestige and dominance. In other words, social rank isn’t always attractive—its appeal depends on the type of rank and the kind of relationship someone is seeking—and this pattern holds true for both men and women.”

As with all research, there are limitations to consider. The studies focused on perceptions of attraction rather than real-world relationship outcomes. People may report certain preferences but behave differently when forming actual relationships. The work relied heavily on American participants, most of whom were White, which limits the ability to generalize the findings across cultures.

Future research could examine how the context of dominance shapes attraction. There may also be cultural differences in how prestige and dominance are valued and expressed, which could influence how they relate to mating preferences. The researchers aim to explore these variations to determine whether the patterns observed reflect universal tendencies.

“Given the universal link between social rank and attraction—and evidence from around the world showing that both dominance and prestige are viable paths to achieving social rank—our next step is to test whether the patterns we observed reflect an evolved and potentially universal feature of human psychology,” Witkower said. “By examining these dynamics across diverse cultures, we aim to uncover whether the connection between mating orientation and attraction to different forms of social rank is culturally shaped or a fundamental aspect of human nature.”

The study, “Short-Term and Long-Term Mating Strategies Show Distinct Patterns of Attraction to Dominance and Prestige,” was authored by Zachary Witkower and Nicholas O. Rule.