Some married men might enjoy this news more than their wives, but UK researchers have found that husbands are more attractive to other women than single men.
Psychology researchers at the University of Stirling and University of Aberdeen have found that when deciding if someone is attractive, we take our cues from others, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.
In a review of research on the science of attraction led Dr Anthony Little, the researchers wrote that female birds and fish find a male more attractive if they have already seen him in the company of another female.
The researchers said this also rings true with humans, writing in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences that men were rated more desirable when they were surrounded by women than when alone or with other men.
For some women, including celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, who lost Brad Pitt to Angelina Jolie, and Shania Twain, who lost her now ex-husband to her former best friend, the term “mate poaching” is all too familiar.
The researchers said when it came to choosing a mate, following others’ judgement speeds up the process of assessing a potential mate and is more effective than through individual trial and error.
The researchers also stated that women found that images of men labelled as married were more attractive than those labelled as single.
