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Women are twice as choosy as men when they go speed dating, research suggests. Why might that be?
Trying to work out who is single in a bar, approach them and asking them out before you know anything about them is not a very efficient way of finding a girlfriend or boyfriend。
There is a solution - speed dating, where a group of singles meet at an event in a bar or cafe. The men move from table to table for a fleeting date with each woman, lasting typically between three to four minutes。
Afterwards the participants tell the organisers, often online, which people they want to see again。
A recent study into speed dating habits concluded that if men and women go to an evening and have 22 separate dates, men are keen to see about five women again, while women would only choose to see two again, on average。
The research was done by economists Michele Belot from the University of Edinburgh and her colleague Marco Francesconi from the University of Essex, who collected data from 84 speed dating events involving 3,600 people in the UK。
This controlled environment is something that excites some economists as they are perfect for observing market forces at work- in this case the dating market。
"This is something that evolutionary psychologists and biologists do recognise," says Belot. "We know that across a whole range of behaviours women tend to take fewer risks。
"They relate this to the fact that making mistakes are much more costly for women than for men because of childbearing. So obviously if you make a mistake in dating the wrong man and having a relationship with the wrong man, you might have nine months carrying a child, then caring for a child. While for men, the costs are lower."
Other academic worksuggests that because men historically have not been so involved in parenting, they devote more time to "short-term mating", so they're not looking further than a date。
A study in the US, on the other hand, suggests the difference might simply be down to the seating arrangements, because the convention is for women to sit still at the events, while men move round and approach each woman。
The researchers found that when the roles were reversed at speed dating events, and women moved round to approach the men, they found that women made more offers than they did at events when they sat still. One possible theory is that the person who moves has more confidence。
Belot and Francesconi's study also took all the data provided by each person from their profile, to work out what attributes people were looking for in a potential mate。
"For both men and women, education and professional status matters. We found that women prefer taller men and men prefer slimmer women," says Belot。
Perhaps this is not a big surprise. But it turns out - people are often ready to compromise on these preferences。
So, if a woman likes academic men, but she goes speed dating one night and no one is particularly academic, she will lower her expectations on this occasion, and instead pick men who next best fit her criteria。
Belot thinks one explanation is that people who go to a speed dating event assume that is representative of the pool of available single people。
But if you break out of the mould of what you think you want, it could actually be beneficial for society at large。
People marry people very similar to themselves - from the same socio-economic background for example. And economists argue that this stops social mobility between generations。
For instance, people from rich privileged backgrounds marry each other, while people from more disadvantaged backgrounds marry each other。
But speed dating shows that people are not too fixed in their views of who they should date, says Belot, if they are given the opportunity.
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據(jù)英國廣播公司報(bào)道，研究顯示，約會(huì)的時(shí)候，女性的挑剔程度是男性的兩倍。為什么會(huì)這樣呢?
于是，我們?cè)噲D在一間酒吧里找出誰是單身的，然后接近他們，在你還不了解他們?nèi)魏吻闆r的時(shí)候，就把他們約出來，以此來尋得女朋友或男朋友。但實(shí)踐證明，這種方法不是特別的有效。
但有這樣一個(gè)辦法，就是速配的時(shí)候，一群單身者出現(xiàn)在酒吧或者咖啡館。然后男人們開始從一個(gè)桌子移到另一個(gè)桌子，分別尋求與女人的約會(huì)，但這通常只持續(xù)三到四分鐘。
但隨后，參與者會(huì)通過網(wǎng)絡(luò)方式告訴活動(dòng)負(fù)責(zé)人他們希望能夠再次約會(huì)的人。
最近的一項(xiàng)關(guān)于速配習(xí)慣的研究指出，如果一個(gè)男人和一個(gè)女人約會(huì)一晚上，之后再讓他們分開22天，那么這段時(shí)間里男性會(huì)渴望能再約會(huì)五個(gè)女性，然而女性一般卻只會(huì)想要再約會(huì)兩個(gè)男性。
這項(xiàng)研究是由來自愛丁堡大學(xué)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家米歇爾貝洛特和她的來自從埃塞克斯大學(xué)的同事馬可·弗蘭切斯科所做，他們從英國84次速配活動(dòng)中收集數(shù)據(jù)，其中約會(huì)人數(shù)達(dá)3600人。
這種可控制的環(huán)境讓一些經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家感到興奮，因?yàn)樗峁┝擞^察婚介市場(chǎng)動(dòng)態(tài)的極好條件。
“這是進(jìn)化心理學(xué)家和生物學(xué)家都清楚的事。”貝洛特說道。“我們知道，在整體行為表現(xiàn)上，相比于男性，女性更傾向于選擇風(fēng)險(xiǎn)更小的做事方法。
“他們更證明了這樣一個(gè)事實(shí)，即相比于男性，女性付出的代價(jià)會(huì)更高，因?yàn)樗齻円徊恍⌒木陀锌赡軕言辛�。所以，很顯然，如果你在約會(huì)的時(shí)候找錯(cuò)了人，并且和他發(fā)生了關(guān)系，那么你可能就要有9個(gè)月的時(shí)間挺著一個(gè)孩子，然后承擔(dān)起照顧這個(gè)孩子的重任。但對(duì)于男人來說，卻不存在這種情況，成本會(huì)低得多。“
其他學(xué)術(shù)研究表明，因?yàn)槟腥藦膩矶疾粫?huì)很投入于養(yǎng)育子女，他們只想花更多的時(shí)間來進(jìn)行“短期交配”。所以約會(huì)的時(shí)候，他們從不會(huì)考慮以后。
另一方面，美國的一項(xiàng)研究顯示，男女之間的不同，最低程度上可表現(xiàn)在坐時(shí)的表現(xiàn)上，因?yàn)橄騺淼膫鹘y(tǒng)是，女性要表現(xiàn)的矜持，而男性則到處活動(dòng)去搭訕每一個(gè)女的。
研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，在速配時(shí)，當(dāng)角色互換，即女人到處活動(dòng)去接近男人時(shí)，她們能比安靜地坐著時(shí)制造更多的約會(huì)機(jī)會(huì)。這也許就證明了，更主動(dòng)的人更自信。
貝洛特和弗蘭切斯科尼還對(duì)速配人員的個(gè)人資料進(jìn)行了研究，想要弄清在速配時(shí)人們都在尋找什么類型的人。
“其中發(fā)現(xiàn)男女雙方都比較在意對(duì)方的教育和職業(yè)狀況問題。而且女性更喜歡個(gè)子高的男子和男性更喜歡苗條的女人。“貝洛特說道。
也許，這不足以為怪。但它卻證明了，人們更愿意在這些標(biāo)準(zhǔn)上多加考慮。
所以，如果一個(gè)女人只喜歡學(xué)術(shù)男，然后快速約會(huì)一晚上，發(fā)現(xiàn)他不是特別的學(xué)術(shù)，那么在這種情況下，她就會(huì)降低期望，寄希望于下一個(gè)也許最符合她標(biāo)準(zhǔn)男人。
貝洛特認(rèn)為這種原因也許只有一種解釋，就是速配的人把這看作是單身者的‘游泳池’，認(rèn)為速配的機(jī)會(huì)多的是。
但是，如果你改變一下自己一直追求的那種類型，這實(shí)際上可能會(huì)有利于整個(gè)社會(huì)。
你想，人們通常是和自己有很大相似性的人結(jié)婚，比如，和自己有相同的社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)背景等等。但是，經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家認(rèn)為，這會(huì)阻礙人群間的社會(huì)流動(dòng)。
例如，富人和富人結(jié)婚，窮人和窮人結(jié)婚等等。
但速配顯示，假如給他們提供更多的機(jī)會(huì)的話，他們想要和誰約會(huì)是不受限制的，貝洛特說道。
