I recall an experiment done by the Stanford University Department of psychology. The experiment was designed to see how women would rate men based exclusively on his potential as a possible mate. (ie would she date him ?) The experiment worked like this: color photographs were taken of 10 men, of average to slightly above average looks. All men were well groomed and neatly dressed but not in suits and tie. At the bottom of the photos were a made-up name and his occupation.
There were two piles of identical photos. The only difference was that in pile # 1, the men had occupations listed as: artist or musician, restaurant manager, new car sales man, photographer etc etc. The 2nd pile had the exact same photos but this time the occupations were changed to: dentist, computer designer, recent law school graduate, son of major dept store owner, certified public accountant etc etc.
Four young female graduate students were chosen to be the "survey takers". On the test days, two women went down one side of a street in downtown with photos of pile #1. At the exact same time, the other two young women went down the other side of the street with pile #2.
The young grad students walked down the sidewalks and stopped other youngish women and asked then to rate the men in the photos as potential mates.
The results of the test demonstrated that, overwhelmingly, the women who saw only pile #2 rated the men as much higher than the women who saw only pile #1. Keep in mind, that it was on the same day, on the same downtown street, and presumably the same occupational/educational levels of the women.
Why did the women rate the men from stack number 2 higher ? Because the young women saw that the men in pile # 2 had a greater lifetime earning potential.
