Attractiveness and Personality: Long- and Short-Term Relationships

Abstract: When looking for a future partner, both attractiveness and personality play a part. The purpose of this study was to expand previous findings and investigate the difference between face and body choice and the ratings of body parts importance depending on if a person is considering a long- or short-term relationship. The similarity between self and an ideal partner’s extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness personality traits was also investigated. An additional question researched associations between the choice of body part for women and men and the two types of relationship (short- and long-term). The method was an online survey in two versions: one which asked questions about participant considering a long- and the other short- term relationship. Seventy-seven university students took a part and were randomly assigned to one of the two surveys. After exclusion of three participants, 38 participants were included in the long-term group (18 women and 20 men, mean age 22.66) and 36 in the short-term survey (17 women and 19 men, mean age 21.86). The results revealed that although face was more frequently chosen than body overall there was no significant association between choice of body part and relationship type. This association was not significant either for males or females when gender was analyzed separately. In addition, individuals rated face higher than body in both the long- and short-term relationship groups, and the ratings of face and body did not differ between the two groups. For the long-term relationships, positive and significant correlations between self and ideal partner personality were found for the three traits (agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness), suggesting a similarity between a person and their ideal partner’s personality for these factors. For the short-term the traits agreeableness and conscientiousness were positive and significantly correlated between self and ideal personality, while extraversion was positive, but it did not reach statistical significance. The traits that survived correction for multiple comparisons in this study were long- and short-term agreeableness and long-term extraversion. In sum, the choice of face or body did not depend on the relationship considered (long- or short- term partner). The personality traits between self and ideal partner were similar and significant besides short-term extraversion.