The Impact of Posing with Cats on Female Perceptions of Male Dateability | Hacker News Reader

The Impact of Posing with Cats on Female Perceptions of Male Dateability

mdpi.com

I gotta say this is a tough one just because posing with a cat is such an unnatural thing from the perspective of cat ownership. Guy sitting on sofa with cat lying on the back of the sofa is different from "Here Look At My Cat" guy.

That's funny you say that. I met my girlfriend on a dating site and I had a photo of myself with my cat laying on the back of the sofa. And I choose that picture on purpose because it always got people excitedly asking about my cat.

So this "shows a guy is undateable" has not been my experience.

I think there is as difference between having the cat in the background and posing with the cat. It's in the same vein of having a photo of your cat on your shirt.

Not the owner of a cat, but yeah I would think the difference here is between:

1) I have a cat.

2) CATS CATS CATTY CAT CATS.

If they rejected you based on your profile, you wouldn't know would you?

>> If they rejected you based on your profile, you wouldn't know would you?

I guess you wouldn't know, but that seems like a good thing.

As a cat-dad, i used to put my cat on some profile photos. Why even bother wasting time on someone who doesn't like cats and/or isn't open-minded to cats? Best to filter them out asap.

Indeed. You'd have to be absolutely desperate. Long term, it makes zero sense to hide fundamentals such as affection for cats... or being a gamer. I know several guys who used to hide the fact they played games competitively. Granted that was almost 20 years ago but still.

But why do you assume that they don't like cats or even have an opinion on them? Most of first glance opinion forming is subconscious or near subconscious. It's less likely to be "I see a cat. I hate cats. Next" and more "Nah, not feeling it. Next".

You might be right. One thing is for sure though, if they actually like cats I assume this would be a big attractor. To flip the script, i'd 10x prefer a profile photo if it had a cat, given I like cats. Of course the two cats would also need to get along. Double date I guess.

You can only date a relatively small number of people. If a photo makes you less attractive to an average potential partner, but more attractive to potential partners who will actually be into you, that’s a huge lever for prequalifying.

Which is to say you should basically always play up your quirks, not hide them.

True but i think the comment you are responding too is commenting that “this was not my experience” can’t be known without more information.

But to your point you only have so much time and it will likely help narrow down better long term partners if your profile is honest

You can get zero matches on tinder - what allows to verify that some things dont work

> Which is to say you should basically always play up your quirks, not hide them.

Not going to lie, I don't think this matters if you're a dude. I found that almost no women I dated even read my profile.

I was always up front about liking video games, board games, tabletop rpgs and the number of times date #1 would end on "You Like Dungeons and Dragons!? Ugh" was higher than not.

I don't mean literally the date ended there, just that there was no chance of a second date after that point.

> You can only date a relatively small number of people.

I think more people need to understand this.

Like, if you sell something used you don’t need to craft the “perfect” ad or get tonnes of exposure on it. You only need to sell one.

As others pointed out, that is different then awkwardly posing with a cat that might now want to be held or looks forced.

That could be the underlying masculine message. Posing with a cat can be interpreted as "I can stand razor-sharp claws sinking my flesh and still smile for the picture".

That's the same cat posing with two different guys! Obviously a seasoned professional companionship worker.

They should repeat the experiment with cats that look their owners.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/oct/10/purrfec...

From a dating point of view, that’s a pretty important part though (for better or worse). Even before the cat person/dog person angle, there’s allergies and wether the person already has a pet or not.

Yeah, as a fan of cats: these results are exactly as I'd hope.

Cats rarely like being posed with. Neither of those pictures have happy-looking cats. If those are representative images, I'd be ranking less-date-able too, a possible inability to understand their pet is not a positive sign.

Pictures involving a cat willingly snuggling up to the subject may perform very differently. E.g. nearly all of these look good, and showcase very different cat-language: https://welovecatsandkittens.com/cat-pictures/12-adorable-ph...

The paper seems to suggest that those are the only pairs of photos. Yes, they both sort of scream awkward photo at best, cat-prop at worst.

"We compared photos of two men looking fairly relaxed with photos of the same men in a different less open and relaxed pose holding an anxious cat which had never met them before. The results prove that women don't like men with pets."

Supposedly.

Exactly. It’s also pretty clear from their faces that those men are nervous to be holding the cat.

Well, the little tigers can be dangerous and hold pathogenic bacteria in their little claws. You'd be nervous too if that thing could claw at your eye at any moment. Plus they could carry toxoplasmosis and tons of infections picked up from street animals.

Also on those pictures, the guy has is back all hunched and is holding the cat like a doll or a baby. Is it really the cat that give a less attractive vibe or the dorky posture of the guy on the picture?

Would the results be different if cat and man were posed differently?

I suspect that a picture of some guy going hiking with his cat would be seen different from some guy playing dolls with his cat in his apartment.

This reminds of the shirtless / not shirtless studies that use plainly artificial edited in muscles, no scenic background whatsoever (just a wall, not even a basic pool), and are just not generalizable to real (online) dating experiences.

Edit: This is the study. See the supplementary information section at the very bottom is you want to see the photos used.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-022-01278-1

I found it via an article on theguardian.com, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/25/keep-yo...

Oh wow those are bad, lol. Almost as bad as those 'shops where you can see the background bending around the inhumanly-shaped waist or butt.

I have to assume the conversation between authors went something like this:

> Muscles look like this, right? https://unbelievab.ly/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/photoshop.j...

> LGTM, ship it

lol yeah you can pretty much tell those authors hadn't ever gotten close to a girl or a gym

then some pop science blog writes about it and the average "i fucking love science" fan can feel good about being doughy and out of shape bc "haha science proves it" (if it sounds like im venting its because i am, i just hate pop science and this is the latest example why)

You're referring to Elizabeth, Morgan and JoAnne?

Also those images in that supplementary PDF are unredacted, with a separate oval superimposed over the face.

My cat is a total lap cat. She would stay there 24/7 if I let her. I do think she likes it but also likes the heat as well lol. Not all cats are hands off. Some like to be around humans too much and can be annoying they are so clingy. I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking photos while doing it, as she doesn't know wtf a photo is.

Also the photos have completely different compositions.

How do you separate the impact of the cat from the impact of a clear headshot that is front on vs someone sitting awkwardly with one leg up?

Amusing, but MDPI is a semi-predatory publisher: https://paolocrosetto.wordpress.com/2021/04/12/is-mdpi-a-pre...

A common tactic is to have tons of "special issues" that pump out a lot of articles. This particular journal, Animals, engages in this: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals/sections

Yeah, like, sadly when I see [MDPI + interesting title] my reflex is to switch to "how did they p-hack, publish underpowered studies, or otherwise mess up the stats"-mode, and that's probably not the worst prior to have...

As someone who did have a cat in one of my online dating pictures, I can believe that both: a) having a cat picture decreases the number of matches, especially against having a dog picture; but also that b) it increases the likelihood of hitting it off with those matches that do come.

Which is a net positive.

Yeah when it comes to dating, whether online or IRL, I think standing out (in a way that’s true to yourself)is generally a higher “return” for the same effort vs “standing above”.

Getting a Mohawk may decrease your potential dating pool by a lot, but also the few who see that as a symbol of compatibility will be far more likely to push harder to get a relationship with you.

Whereas competing to be the most classically eligible bachelor wins you the most dates if you can be in the rarefied percentiles…but there’s a lot of competition. And within the population of single men and single women, it does tend to be a “winners-take-most” situation.

I think the real “social crime” though is people pretending to be who they are not in order to score dates. Then even if you get in a relationship it’s usually not what either party actually wanted.

Somewhat similar advice for jobs, actually. (In terms of being true to yourself as much as possible to find a good employer match). Obviously with jobs you just need money sometimes and have to shove yourself through a square hole.

Whereas few people actually need sex/dates. Sometimes it sure feels like it, and human companionship has huge effects on physical and mental well-being (good or bad). Yes, I’m sure it’s saved more than a few people from suicide or poor decisions. But there’s no way to categorize this as a need unless we invent a way to fulfill it, all of which previously have been inhumane. Maybe AI/robotic companionship will allow new options.

I definitely go for polarizing over general appeal.

I’m also generally not looking for a relationship.

So there are also winner takes mosts in the fringes as well.

> Which is a net positive.

That would entirely depend on what you’re looking for. Not everyone one dating sites is looking for a long-term romantic partner.

True, and of course I'm speaking for myself here.

Some people seem to have a strong dislike of cats, so posing with one would lend to providing a filtering effect (i.e. Just as you describe: more rejections, but the passes are better matched.)

That said I don't really buy into studying these kinds of perceptions beyond the obvious conclusions because attraction is too subjective to be studied with such simple toggles. To study it this way has the naivety of a reddit thread "LADIES WHAT IS THE ONE THING THAT MAKES YOU INSTANTLY ATTRACTED TO A MAN".

Attraction is more than a sum of the individual parts, and the success of a relationship [interpreted as longevity] has been shown to not rely so much on choosing the perfect partner, but rather how you treat them once you have them.1

1. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/29/us/what-makes-a-relations...

This study suggests that a closer look at the effects of different companion species on perceived masculinity and dateability is warranted.

Does it, though? Quantitatively affirming the existence of a stereotype doesn't seem like any great discovery, more like indulging curiosity at best or lazy grant-seeking at worst.

Here, for free, are some other ground-breaking hypotheses:

Men with dogs will be perceived as more masculine than men with cats.

Men with large dogs will be perceived as more masculine than men with small dogs.

Men with snakes or tarantulas will be considered less dateable.

However, this result will not obtain for women who identify as goths, necessitating the formation of a new subfield.

Men with fish will be perceived as more or less dateable depending on whether they appear likely to eat the fish or feed it, with a small exceptional cohort composed exclusively of shark attack survivors.

Men with sheep present a quandary: are cheap sweaters worth the uncertainty?

> Men with dogs will be perceived as more masculine than men with cats.

Would a skinny guy with a chiuaua look more muscular than a bulkier guy with a cat? What about fat guy with a retreiver? If you are average build do cats add a "gentle giant" vibe? As opposed to a "tiny dick"/"he is compensating" stereotype if he had a pitbull?

The car stereotypes are interesting, it use to be that a muscle car or a big truck made you look stronger but now it has the opposite effect. Overt displays if masculinity can be mistaken for insecurity about your weakness these days so this study is interesting in my opinion.

I don't have a problem with a study like this. Companies like match.com have this data and much more. OKCupid's founder used to share some of their insights but he sold out. I'll always welcome adding more data to the public knowledge base even if it's a silly little thing like human matchmaking.

This is actually what scares me about the artificial intelligence revolution, private companies are feeding their exclusive knowledge about humans to machine models that will then know more about us then we do. Those models are already being used to psychologically manipulate us, which after all is the specialty of these advertising companies.

> Men with large dogs will be perceived as more masculine than men with small dogs.

A Pit Bull Terrier is smaller than a Golden Retriever and yet one is often seen with muscular men, while the other is the prototypical family dog.

The American Pitbull Terrier is, in its actual behavior, the prototypical family dog.

This is one study where (…in mice) would have made made the study very different!

Yes, a male mouse posing with a cat would be seen as very masculine — perhaps foolishly so!

The two particular cat photos they chose for the study seem almost comical, like a parody of a posed cat photo trend from the 80s. There are much more “normal” ways to have a picture with a cat that I wonder if they would perform differently.

Exactly! Especially in comparison to the non-cat pictures.

Exactly. And this really continues the whole idea that when you have thousands of "researchers" (people) who are judged solely upon quantity/acceptance hierarchy of published papers -- and what's at risk is their livelihoods -- you end up with lots of BS unreproducible research that can't be relied upon.

Those are awful "cat and person" portraits.

The cats are obviously engaged with an off-screen handler and not the subject so it does not come across like a person and their companion animal.

The off-screen handler shows up in most animal performances, there is a scene D-movie Devil Dog where the family dog leads the members of a satanic coven to a pentacle and it's obvious the dog is following a handler (Satan?) and being submissive, not dominant.

Not to mention the w/cat photos show poor posture and funny (my interpretation) hair.

The w/o cat photos also show the faces straight on, which makes them look more masculine. ie. thicker neck, more prominent jawline. There are too many subtle differences to list.

I'd like to see this done with identical photos with only the cat being the difference. My belief is that the results would be similar, but with a smaller significance.

I think preselection is the best indicator for success with women. Women are attracted to men who have already attracted other women. So it's best to pose with other female friends.

You need to be very careful not to cross the „jerk line“ right away with that. It has to be in a way that the interested female doesn’t feel so threatened that she turns away on the spot.

A friend ran product at Match.com, and the two most popular male images were always (a) a male with a stethoscope, and (b) a muscular male

If she finds out the stethoscope is only used on cats though, she might not be as interested.

"He's a doctor! Wait. He's a cat doctor..."

The first hurdle is the highest.

popular by what metric?

Clearly the ultimate male is a buff doctor with a cat.

Buff doctor with a dog*

From what I understand: Muscular, but with a shirt on, and not at a gym, and not so muscular as to look like you're 'roided up. Show forearm vascularity. No dead animals or caught fish, unless it's a hunting/fishing area and everyone does it. Show teeth when smiling, and have at least one smiling picture. Don't do bathroom mirror selfies. And, as mentioned, have a stethoscope, but avoid wearing scrubs.

There was another study not too long ago that showed the most popular picture for a guy was looking off-camera at a slight angle and NOT smiling. This apparently created an air of "unavailability" or some such exclusivity that inspired interest.

PSA that there are always other countries, other opportunities, and other people with wider views out there. Nobody should limit themselves to this stuff.

That only works when you don’t want it to (you’re already in a relationship). Group photos just make you wonder why you’re not dating them already. Or which one of the group owns the profile.

I agree. I was friends with a woman who was quite out of my league as a young man. She went on to be a lingerie model for a time, but she was aware of this and would feign flirting with me when we would go out as a group to great effect. A wingwoman beats a wingman every time.

Tangential aside, which amused me to remember. My old-fashioned, rural (southern US) grandmother used to tell me to never trust a man who didn’t like cats, because he would dislike a woman for the same reasons. (Barring allergies)

The smell?

The shedding hair?

That's a weird prejudice. I understand if it was about dogs, but there's plenty of reasons not to like cats.

There’s plenty of reasons not to like dogs as well.

Honestly, it's not even necessarily about not liking dogs. It's about "I'm OK with dogs but that means all our plans would have to fit into his having a dog." Nothing wrong with that, but implication of a lot more buy-in than with a cat generally.

Are there not plenty of reasons not to like women? (Also men but that's offtopic)

Ironically you're calling out a weird prejudice by showing your own weird prejudice

> Women viewed men as less masculine when holding the cat; higher in neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness; and less dateable.

I’d take this with a grain of salt. We tend to assign meaning and make value judgements based on context. For example, a swole guy cuddling a cat next to a squat rack will elicit a very different reaction than the same guy holding the same cat in front of a blank wall.

Similarly, I don’t think that anyone looks at this picture of Blofeld and thinks he looks particularly agreeable or open.[0]

0. https://images.app.goo.gl/jFHLBo883XVo3Gb86

Yeah anecdotally I can say female friends' reactions to firefighters rescuing kittens is very positive. I think part of what's going on is just the weirdness of a staged photo with a cat.

How about different more natural poses, like the cat stand on top of and dominating the man?

Sample size: 2 men

And in at least one picture it the cat looks like the cat doesn't want to be there. A man who doesn't care what an animal wants because his desire to have a cat in his photo raises red flags about the type of person this is.

The abstract fails to mention that:

> Survey respondents were recruited in January 2020 through > Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk; Amazon Inc., Seattle, WA, > USA) platform

which is a tiny fraction of the group of women who use online dating apps/websites, and is most likely quite unrepresentative as a sample.

That in itself makes the conclusions, IMHO, invalid.

In fairness, their qualifiers probably filter out a fair bit of what's likely very unrepresentative about the Mechanical Turk pool--although I'd probably still expect it to trend poorer than the online dating pool overall.

The survey was developed by Quatrics who I've actually used and seem to be a good outfit.

Entirely agree.

What's cool is that the women in this research guessed pretty much the same personality traits that previous research [1] found cat people have versus dog people. Always cool to see how these social proxies for personality work.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233630429_Personali...

Posing with a cat makes a man less dateable is not really an issue. As long as it attracts the right person, another cat loving partner.

A friend of mine photoshopped his dating profile with puppies and pizzas. He is now engaged. His fiancé said that she thought it was obviously ridiculous but he looked like a fun guy so why not!

Sounds like an idea for a SaaS business.

There is the stereotype of the cat lady. I wonder if the survey was reversed if it would say “Men viewed women holding cats as higher in neuroticism and less dateable.”

100% agree

American women?

In the U.S. dogs seem preferred among the younger generation (and possibly in general, I don't know the numbers). I've heard it that cats are 'for women' and dogs preferred because it shows loyalty. A large percentage of women on dating profiles in my area write "I always stop to pet dogs when I'm out walking, I can't help it. Big plus if you have a dog!!"

I'm pretty sure it's cultural. In many countries dogs are expected to live outside as they're viewed as dirty. I believe in Middle Eastern countries cats are preferred to dogs.

I'm skeptical of evolutionary link here in terms of male desirability. Dog ownership might have something to do with a proxy for children and 'taking care' of a child-like creature (cats are more independent).

Evo psych like this is generally indistinguishable from just-so stories.

My partner (US American woman) thinks dogs have been bred to act needy and pathetic. I tend to agree. I guess I can see how that could be mistaken that for loyalty, but it doesn't make it more attractive.

There's a lot of dog breeds. Some are aloof and distant, some are needy and anxious (which people do confuse as affection/love). I prefer the former.

What dogs are you talking about here?

Hard to see a border collie as needy and pathetic to me.

Labrador maybe. Pugs definitely.

Isn't a border collie crazy need as a high energy dog that needs a lot of stimulation?

Yes, its a working dog. Need to give it a big backyard/farm to run around in.

So not pathetic or needy. Just don't lock it inside.

The dimension I use is independent (most cats) vs dependancy (most dogs).

If someone is a dog owner type, I often stereotype them as wanting to both nurture and control, more parental. Cat owners often encourage independence. The relationship they want to have with a pet often bleeds over into the relationship they have with a partner.

I do strongly agree that evo-psych makes little sense: just-so narratives sound good though!

Man <-> dog connection comes from their historical role of dogs as work animals and men being in those professions. Herding, hunting, guarding, ratting, war, etc.

Cats are used as mousers/ratters. But that's it for cat jobs and they do that independently, not with a human cohort.

A boy/man and his dog is a pretty classic American archetype (Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows). I don't think it's evo-pysch really, but it does indicate you are somewhat active probably, you have your shit together enough to care for a living thing, and you are capable of affection / emotionally available to another living thing.

Popular culture can help us out.

When the villain has a 'personal pet', as opposed to a shark tank or alligators, it's generally a cat. Though sometimes dogs, either a Doberman or German shepherd. So, relatively big dogs.

I don't recall the hero ever having a pet.

Maybe this is the proof for the trope that women prefer the bad boy?

/jest

John Wick comes to mind, especially the part where the director explained having the dog died allowed them to have absurd amount of revenge violence committed by the hero later on and still feel justified for the audience. On my phone so I can't look up the articles but the quote was more or less "once we killed the dog, Wick was allowed to do anything he wanted"

Absolutely, John Wick stands out. Though I think he started out villainous in the backstory.

> I don't recall the hero ever having a pet.

See TV Tropes’ Loyal Animal Companion[1] for a list of lists of examples. Like Canine Companion[2], which itself contains Post-Apocalyptic Dog[3], which links to I Am Legend[4], The Road Warrior[5], and others. I’ll stop before going too deep into this rabbit hole.

[1]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoyalAnimalCompa...

[2]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanineCompanion

[3]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PostApocalypticD...

[4]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/IAmLegend

[5]: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TheRoadWarrior

Thanks for those examples. Great reading!

Interesting. Not a cat fan myself, but it seems like most women in my life are, so I expected the opposite result -- I would have thought that posing with a cat would improve my odds.

Unless your cat is a tiger, I wouldn't bother.

It seems like it would improve odds for lesbians.

I had at least one photo with one of my cats in my last set of dating profile photos. The goal isn’t to get the most responses, it’s to get the right ones. The premise of the study is flawed, IMO, assuming the goal is to be broadly popular rather than getting a smaller batch of more likely matches.

Note: now married to a woman who is equally fond of cats.

Ignore the headline and just remember the two cardinal rules of modern dating:

Rule #1: Be attractive

Rule #2: Don't be unattractive

Everything else is noise.

Cats… meh. Would love reading the same study with dogs, and sub-categorize between big dogs vs. smaller.

I’d like to see the same study but with golden retrievers

They mention different dog studies in the paper, which may cover what you're asking about.

>The authors found that when labeled a “dog person” the men were perceived as more masculine than when labeled a “cat person.”

That's interesting, I would have guessed the opposite - that you might be thought of as having a more caring or loving side if you had a pet. As a dog owner myself I've met a couple of partners just through them coming up to see me about my dog in a pub or a cafe. I never thought it was down to being perceived as more masculine though, I just assumed that it gives anyone who might be interested a really simple excuse to strike up a conversation and introduce themselves, but in a way that avoids figuring out how ask someone out directly.

There was a study from a decade ago on online dating. Apparently the optimal set of profile pictures for men was: one photo with friends, one shirtless pic, and one pic with an animal. They didn't specify which. I'm guessing they didn't control for cats.

Any dating research from a decade ago is useless IMHO. The dating apps and newer generations of folks have totally changed what it's like to date on Tinder/Hinge/etc. today vs. eHarmony/Match.com/OkCupid/craigslist back in the day. Those old sites were all about writing and describing yourself, with a few pics on the side. Everything today is about making a super curated Instragram-style glamorous couple photos and that's it. The apps barely have any text description and are all about very fast decision making, yes/no, from just the first photo.

Some day I hope to try this experiment myself with a goat in the background ...although it might be a little tricky to assess effectiveness without a control and the fact that goats flip-flop between photobomb and photogenic whenever they feel like it.

I'm not sure... My Tinder pics had me posing with my cat, and I had tons of dates. Petting him was also a good excuse for getting the girls up to my place.

He was a huge half-Russian blue. Sadly, he passed away due to intestinal lymphoma in 2018 :'(

This isn't surprising at all. It has always been my instinct that women would find a man less desirable if he owns a cat. Good that they did a study on it to drive the point home but it seems like common sense to me.

A legendary friend of mine regularly poses with cats: https://www.instagram.com/berkavitch/?hl=en-gb

Is that what makes him legendary?

The soft sciences continue to substantiate the appropriateness of that name.

“Received: 28 April 2020”

Imagine writing up this piece on cats in male pictures in dating profiles while the pandemic is breaking out in full force.

(Note not judging - I just find it an interesting place to be operating from)

I hope that study wasn't in any way tax payer funded.

> an online, anonymous, cross-sectional survey

Why believe the results from such a survey? Seems easily polluted by people outside the target population.

My wife told me that having a cat on my profile was a positive: it showed I was at least responsible enough to take care of a small animal.

Because nothing else about you as a man says otherwise?

Lucky you. When my wife saw the profile picture of me and my cat, she asked me why the hell I’m posting on dating sites and threw me out of the house.

Summarized:

"Women viewed men as less masculine when holding the cat; higher in neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness; and less dateable."

This is an entirely unsurprising result for anyone capable of observation and understanding revealed preference in day to day life.

Ok but also after reading about the reproducibility crisis in the sciences I am skeptical about all studies of this type

What a great candidate for the Ig Nobel Prize!

If it were one of my cats, I'd have my face and arms covered with bleeding scratches, and no cat in the picture.

This article seems kind of absurd throughout, then you get to the conclusion where they drip the "cats make you look gay" argument and you really start to question why you've read this stupid article.

I said this last time this study was posted and got people telling me how they left a date midway through as the guy said he had a cat and they assumed he was gay. So it may be society is stupid and not the article.

James Bond villains were often seen petting a cat. I'm sure they'd be great on a date.

This is absolutely hilarious.

My theory: the old joke that dogs have masters while cats have staff has always been true, and applies to this context too. Dogs can be trained to execute orders, cats cannot, therefore the dog owner is seen as, an often is, someone who gives orders and expects them to be followed, that is, an alpha male, or someone that is a better/stronger companion, at least when the choice is led by latent caveman and cavewoman instincts we still possess. A man willing to appear strong will almost always choose a dog.

Which could also explain why I've very often seen a lot more cats among left wingers and more dogs among right wingers, and bigger aggressive dogs among extreme right wingers who bring them around exhibiting both their strength and the master ability to dominate them. To me it's all driven by instincts, both in men and women.

> cats cannot [be trained to execute orders]

Sure they can. This does not work as well as with the dogs but cats are not dumb and prefer to obey rather than suffer.

Take the example of the cat of my family (she and I coexist so to speak, the rest of the family is there to serve her). I taught her to move away from my laptop (her warm bed that does sounds and the screen behaves funny) when I approach and snap my fingers. The alternative is that she gets squeezed by the lid that I closer on her with a stick (just in case).

She hisses but still leaves.

My dog is amazed by my leadership when seeing that.

The best resource on human mating strategies is David Buss, The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating.

Documented, empirical, and factually "cold".

Dataclysm was a nice data-driven breakdown of all aspects of online dating by one of the founders of OKCupid

Didn't know he had written a book. He had some interesting blog posts back in the day.

“Factually cold” is a yellow flag, and writing a book called “evolutionary psychology” is a red flag. People will accept any lie if you say it’s “the harsh truth we have to accept”, that’s why this site is so famously unnecessarily cynical.

Bit worrying Amazon reviews too, the “I hate my wife” marriage is a famous boomer pathology not a universal constant.

> You have to wonder why the divorce rate is 50%+, most marriages are miserable, marriages kill libido, many cheat, and so forth. Your dreams might be crushed reading this book so avoid it if you want to stay in Wonderland.

And:

> The most interesting topic I remember is the Coolidge Effect where males tire and withdraw from having sex with the same female partner. The Coolidge Effect has been tested many times on mammals and the same pattern can be observed (very predictable).

I think I was just reading how this isn’t true?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/women-get-...

You could also try to read the book, or its cover, for a start. David Buss is a renowned and serious scholar. If you think that "evolutionary psychology" is a "red flag," I suggest you email another renowned biologist, Richard Dawkins, and warn him of if[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxhzmIlgBLY

I think Richard Dawkins probably isn't very renowned anymore either; he's a sort of proto-guru, the kind who sounds impressive when you only meet him in book form but then social media is invented and it turns out he is ridiculous. Essentially one of the reasons online atheism died.

(ex https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/140123936567899750... https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/146403399255088332...)

As for evo psych, find me a study design that doesn't allow just making things up post facto.

What if the cat poses without a male?

How did this pass ethics review?

Are you concerned the cat's self esteem was harmed because it didn't get any dates?

guys with cats.. I don't know

This is a Seinfeld quote (from one of my favorite episodes, heh), for those downvoting thinking the commenter is making any kind of actual value judgement.

Merely commenting because you beat me to quoting the same scene

Male dateability centers around muscle mass. Pick up iron, not cats

based. and accurate tbh it's the biggest thing we can control physically maybe along with grooming. the "dad bod" shit is maximum cope from guys who arent willing to work off those extra 20lbs.

Would tigers count?

Tigers are a negative strike post tiger king doc.

That’s mostly good for dating other men. For women it’s only the psychological benefit you get from it.

Anyway, if you’re dating a lot you’re failing. Should be taking advice from people who only had to go on one first date, they know how to pick winners.

Being overweight certainly isn't helpful.

Most Americans are overweight and most Americans are in relationships, so if you put these two together it seems like it’s not a deal breaker. Might be one under 30 though.

(I looked those two things up separately but not together and am not sure what “overweight” means here. I, of course, am in perfect shape.)

The parent comment was that male date-ability centers around muscle mass. While 'centers' is a strong word it's obvious that being fit is an important factor to attractiveness. By overweight I mean people that are over BMI 25 (which unintended could also include 'roid people'). Over 30 I guess pragmatism wins and other things are more important. e.g. single mom in his 40s will look for caring man with stable life/income.

I don't disagree with you. Being on any extreme negatively affects date-ability outside that niche. There's definitely an inflection point, probably around 'doesn't look natural/healthy', where muscle mass contribution is negative.

Has this article passed QA? I mean - was it subjected to a treatment by a special team whose goal is to break it and expose all errors.

Curious that they didn’t address the opposite as well, that being — what is the impact of posing with cats on male perceptions of female dateability? If anything, guessing that has a lot more bias, given the average cat owner is female and over 50, at least in the US.

For anyone interested in stats on (US) pet owners, checkout this post:

https://www.pawlicy.com/blog/us-pet-ownership-statistics/

As one point of data, rare one at that, while I enjoy and respect animals — in my opinion, they should not be pets; that is, I would never be with anyone that had or wanted pets.

I'd also like to see that study but I also want to see them chart the impact of posing with multiple cats. Is there an elbow curve or just a linear trendline?

Once had a neighbor who feed 30+ street cats via an exterior basement entrance they left open — so there are definitely people out there that have lots of cats.

Shoot me for saying this but cat doesn't serve a purpose other than companionship. Dogs on the other hand are protective, loyal, submissive. These might play a subconscious role with cat/dog people. Cat also means laziness and no walking them outside, running with them, hiking, parks etc.

Also the article didn't mention if these people had cats or dogs in the past. Dog owners or anyone who participated interacted with dogs will have a bias towards cat owners.

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