Are women more likely to ‘poach’ a taken guy? Survey says … yes!

Well, this is interesting! A recent psychological study (pdf) shows that single women rate attached men much more highly than they rate single men. This is true even when they are rating the same person! From the New York Times’ ‘TierneyLab’ blog:

Noting that single women often complain that “all the good men are taken,” the psychologists wondered if “this perception is really based on the fact that taken men are perceived as good.” To investigate, the researchers quizzed male and female undergraduates — some involved in romantic relationships, some unattached — about their ideal romantic partner.

Next, each of the experimental subjects was told that he or she had been matched by a computer with a like-minded partner, and each was shown a photo of an attractive person of the opposite sex. (All the women saw the same photo, as did all the men.) Half of the subjects were told that their match was already romantically involved with someone else, while the other half were told that their match was unattached. Then the subjects were all asked how interested they were in their match.

To the men in the experiment, and to the women who were already in relationships, it didn’t make a significant difference whether their match was single or attached. But single women showed a distinct preference for mate poaching. When the man was described as unattached, 59 percent of the single women were interested in pursuing him. When that same man was described as being in a committed relationship, 90 percent were interested.

Possible explanations include women believing that an attached man has been “pre-screened” by someone else and proven worthy, or that perhaps the single women are afraid of intimacy — they’re single only because they keep themselves interested in unavailable guys.

If you read the full study linked above (it’s only a few pages, but it’s got some dense statistics) you’ll find that men were more likely overall to rate the woman as desirable, but their desire decreased if she was attached (ie. they were less interested in poaching — the opposite of what happened with women). However, the researchers also note that the control photo they used for the female subject was more attractive than the control photo they used for the male subject.

They also cite some interesting studies done previous to this, which would make for cool reading if I was trapped for a week in a university library.