http://nordic.businessinsider.com/best-dating-apps-according-to-psychologist-2017-9
Quote:
Finkel's most recent piece of research on the topic is a study he co-authored with Samantha Joel and Paul Eastwick and published in the journal Psychological Science. The researchers had undergraduates fill out questionnaires about their personality, their well-being, and their preferences in a partner. Then they set the students loose in a speed-dating session to see if they could predict who would like who.
As it turns out, the researchers could predict nothing. Actually, the mathematical model they used did a worse job of predicting attraction than simply taking the average attraction between two students in the experiment.
Hence why, threads like "Which traits do girls find attractive in guys?" are useless and don't reflect reality and won't give you guys any idea how to be more attractive. Retro, I am looking at you, stop making such useless threads, duh!
The source study is worth to look into:
Quote:
Abstract
Matchmaking companies and theoretical perspectives on close relationships suggest that initial attraction is, to some extent, a product of two people’s self-reported traits and preferences. We used machine learning to test how well such measures predict people’s overall tendencies to romantically desire other people (actor variance) and to be desired by other people (partner variance), as well as people’s desire for specific partners above and beyond actor and partner variance (relationship variance). In two speed-dating studies, romantically unattached individuals completed more than 100 self-report measures about traits and preferences that past researchers have identified as being relevant to mate selection. Each participant met each opposite-sex participant attending a speed-dating event for a 4-min speed date. Random forests models predicted 4% to 18% of actor variance and 7% to 27% of partner variance; crucially, however, they were unable to predict relationship variance using any combination of traits and preferences reported before the dates. These results suggest that compatibility elements of human mating are challenging to predict before two people meet.
Happy Valentines, fellas.
I believe a lot of attraction comes down to pheromones and things difficult to quantify, such as dynamics, non-verbal body language, and personality.