Study Reveals Men Do Not Prefer Intelligent Women
The results of a study set to be published in the November issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin are mind blowing. It seems that according to this study, men do not truly like women who are more intelligent than they are.
According to MarketWatch, more than 100 male participants were given a hypothetical scenario centered around the type of woman they would find attractive. They were told that there was a woman who outperformed them in an academic course and another woman who scored lower than they did in the same course. They were asked to imagine what it would be like to be in a romantic relationship with each of these women.
The majority of men expressed a healthy desire to be romantically involved with the woman who was more intelligent than they were. This proves that men do value intelligence in a woman. But, when the next question was offered, the men changed their minds.
After taking an intelligence test, these men were told that they would be introduced to a woman who scored higher than they did on the exam. Upon meeting her, the men “distanced themselves more from her, tended to rate her as less attractive, and showed less desire to exchange contact information or plan a date with her,” the study revealed.
The results of this study indicate that in theory, the idea of being with a strong and intelligent woman seems appealing but they do not become enthused by the idea of actually engaging with an extremely intelligent woman.
What does this mean for the women and men of Conquer Him?
Nothing. Why?
The men who were polled were obviously average men who feel the need to stroke their egos by being in control, even if it is to their detriment. The men of Conquer Him are a different breed. The men of Conquer Him actively seek an intelligent woman with leadership skills because they enjoy being partnered with a woman who will assist in nurturing their desire to evolve intellectually.
The men who read this blog would be thrilled to meet a woman who scored higher then they did, earned more income than they did and had her life on track without his assistance.
Women should never be afraid to develop their skills as a leader or an intellectual because it will scare a man away, reducing their chances of experiencing love. The type of man who does not appreciate a woman’s ability to express her wisdom is not a man any woman should desire anyway. This man limits himself to his own intellectual capacity, stunting his own personal growth because of his fear that a woman would surpass him in some way.
A truly supportive man wants a woman who he will grow with. He would never quell his potential by choosing a mentally limited romantic partner.
How important is a woman’s intelligence to you?
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It is my belief that most men, even those who long to be with a female leader, will at first be intimidated by a strong, intellectually superior woman and will tend to shy away and maintain distance from her. He does this for self preservation, nobody likes rejection, and he feels he’s not good enough for her or not up to her standards. Therefore he will sort of reject her, by keeping a distance, before she can reject him…at least in his mind he think’s this is what she will do. And that is why submissive men have to be wooed by stronger women, she has to let him know she will not reject him before he has a chance to prove himself to her. Men have been brought up to believe that women prefer dominant men over submissive ones…and women have been socialized to believe the same thing. Sites like ‘Conquer Him’ are helping to break down this misguided belief.
This is an interesting perspective. Men fear rejection from intelligent women and need to be pursued by them to reassure them that they deserve to be loved? Wow. This makes sense when I think about the responses from the dominant women survey. This kind of mentality is one of the most popular perspectives that dominant women reported that they hated about submissive men. I will share more during the FLR Training For Men.
Some submissive men have to be pursued more than others, and it’s up to the woman to decide if a certain man is worth the extra effort to reassure him and gain his attention. Other submissive men may need only a few nudges from her to make him begin to think he is pursuing her, when in reality she is doing the pursuing. In any case, she gets what she wants, as usual!
I think men will become less intimidated by supremely intelligent and confident women as more and more of them become visible in daily life. The backdrop is slowly changing. When I was a kid (in the 50s and 60s) I can’t recall any women who were political leaders and not even many who ran their own businesses. Maybe the woman who had the hairdressing salon, but I’m not even certain about her. It was a patriarchal society and men pretty much ran the show because they were (wrongly, as it turns out) considered more capable and less likely to be distracted from the main game by perceived female traits like emotions and softness. You had to be hard, apparently. For some reason it was considered best to ignore the mess men were making.
Now there are many capable women in politics, and their numbers continue to grow. Not quickly enough for me, but it is changing for the better. Australia has recently had its first female Prime Minister and America may well have its first female President soon. I can recall when the prevailing wisdom of TV networks was to have a reliable-looking middle-aged man reading the news bulletin … now the news hours are fronted by confident, articulate and intelligent women. Same with the current affairs shows, both on TV and radio. They are smart women and they are not being hidden away behind closed doors. It is becoming the natural order of things.
It’s probably true that there are still men out there who consider being spoken to, let alone being in a relationship with, an intellectually superior woman an affront to their fragile sensibilities and ego but hopefully it’s getting better. I guess it depends who you ask.
Serving a gifted highly intelligent woman, abiding by her wise decisions and being supportive of her leadership is a profound experience for me. It’s what constitutes a beautiful FLR and I can’t imagine a devoted male not striving to make it happen. It’s safe to embrace her criticism and correction … and her intelligence. It’s about her helping you to become the best man you can be for her.
You’re quite right, it’s not about being the kind of man that you think society expects of you (i.e. macho, assertive, dominant, etc.), as many men feel they must be, but about being the kind of man that SHE wants you to be.
Regarding the survey and purported conclusion: Much ado about nothing. There are enough polls to come up with any answer you want. This one contradicts itself but the authors draws a conclusion that is an opinion based on no real information. A sample size of 100 men is so small as to be meaningless. There is no mention of the statistical significance of the poll (that is how unlikely that the result is an accident of sampling), at least in the report we see.
IMHO, people tend to seek out people that have an intelligence roughly similar to their own. Certainly I don’t want to submit to a woman whose intelligence is much less than mine. As to women more intelligent than me, I’ve had some great female friends that were more intelligent than me, but never formed a relationship with them: I like to think that I could but I didn’t. While the phrase “opposites attract” contains some truth when people compliment or fulfill each others needs in some way, I think there is also a tendency to seek people we have characteristics in common including things like intelligence, looks, education, etc. Exceptions can be found, of course.
I have enjoyed the discussions so far, the wisdom and the exploration of concepts in them. They seem to have left the survey in the dust.