Blondes are more aggressive than brunettes 'because they attract more male attention'

[Dumac]

I've never dated a blonde, and I don't think I ever will.

I personally find blondes unattractive. They seem to have a weird personality attribute that rubs me the wrong way. I can't quite put my finger on exactly what the attribute is, however.

 

[ElFenix]

Honestly, only the last one looks better as a blond. I think the problem is too much makeup. (I don't like glow in the dark red lips.)

this, though i think the last one is just the shiny-face photography rather than the hair color that makes me prefer the dirty blonde look.

i'm not much of a fan of scarlet johanson's face.

 

[Rubycon]

I prefer brunettes and redheads by a very large amount. I don't even really look at blondes, they just do not do it for me for the most part.

KT

:'(

 

[KeithTalent]

:'(

I'm nobody though, I'm sure you have much more impressive men looking your way. :awe:

KT

 

[AreaCode707]

:'(

I'm with you there, though I'm darker blonde in Washington than I was in California because of less time spent in the sun.

We've had this poll before and blondes lost out by a long shot to pretty much every other hair color.

 

[uclaLabrat]

As said before: It's easier for a blond to be hot, but a hot brunette generally is hotter than a comparable blond.

And also, I prefer brunettes and married a blond :-D

 

[MotF Bane]

Brunettes by far.

 

[aircooled]

Brunette's over blondes with a few exceptions.

I think Jennifer Aniston makes for a better blonde.

 

[RaistlinZ]

 

[Cogman]

:'(

If it makes you feel better, I actually prefer blonds. I don't, however, prefer unnatural blonds.

<- Natural blond.

 

[Terzo]

some pictures to help you choose. same girl, different hair. which are you more attracted to now?

Is that first one Kristin Kreuk? She just doesn't work as blonde. Very hot though.

I think we can't judge Christina/Scarlett/Tyra objectively with those pictures considering each of them has one with full red lipstick and one without.

The last woman works either way, though if forced I guess I'd give a slight preference to the blonde look.

I think blondes are stereotyped as being hotter, at least in the united states. To me, the iconic smoking hot woman is a scandanavian blonde. Norway/Sweden/Finland/Denmark are theoretically a bastion of supermodel women. Of course I'm going off of stereotypes, as I have yet to step foot in scandanavia, and I only know one norwegian chick (and I'd say her hair is more brown than blonde).

Another thing to consider is population. I was trying to think about blondes vs brunettes I know and realized I don't know any blondes. What percentage of the population is blonde anyways? I reckon the rarity might add to the hotness factor, more so than the blonde hair itself.

 

[Analog]

 

[syrillus]

Also, I must add: Kristen Kreuk looks creepy as a blonde in that 'shop.

 

[MJinZ]

Is that first one Kristin Kreuk? She just doesn't work as blonde. Very hot though.

I think we can't judge Christina/Scarlett/Tyra objectively with those pictures considering each of them has one with full red lipstick and one without.

The last woman works either way, though if forced I guess I'd give a slight preference to the blonde look.

I think blondes are stereotyped as being hotter, at least in the united states. To me, the iconic smoking hot woman is a scandanavian blonde. Norway/Sweden/Finland/Denmark are theoretically a bastion of supermodel women. Of course I'm going off of stereotypes, as I have yet to step foot in scandanavia, and I only know one norwegian chick (and I'd say her hair is more brown than blonde).

Another thing to consider is population. I was trying to think about blondes vs brunettes I know and realized I don't know any blondes. What percentage of the population is blonde anyways? I reckon the rarity might add to the hotness factor, more so than the blonde hair itself.

Real blondes? Not many at all. Most of the blondes I know are fake blondes, or very dirty blondes (almost not blonde).

 

[0roo0roo]

atots not exactly representative of males in general. probably many are voting based on what they can get. aka they've given up on getting the cheerleader.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Blonde is like that classic song that got too much airplay, seems everyone is a bottle blonde these days. That very rare true scandanavian blonde with very light skin still looks very hot to me, and some women with the right complection and a proffesional color job look as good or better as blondes but the vast majority of bottle blondes would look better with their natural color IMO.

In my younger days I would have said blondes are hotter, but as I have gotten wizer haircolor is far far down on my list of what makes a woman HOT.

 

[aaronsell]

I'm afraid you, and thousands of others for that matter, have been badly misinformed. I have never done any research that shows blondes are more aggressive, entitled, angry or "warlike" than brunette or redheads. This error was the result of a piece in the London Sunday Times. Below is an excerpt from the letter we wrote to the Times editor. It documents the many errors in the piece.

If you'd like to see my actual research, which shows that attractive women are more prone to anger, feel more entitled, and believe they win more conflicts of interest then you can see the actual article and the press release here: http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/topics/anger.htm

Note that the words “blonde” or even “hair” never appear there.

Aaron Sell, PhD
Center for Evolutionary Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara
sell@psych.ucsb.edu

Excerpt from Letter to the Editor:

To be clear, I have _never_ published any research about blonde women, nor have I ever conducted any research on blonde women, or about their supposed differences from other women. Yet I am quoted throughout Harlow’s article as having done research showing that blonde women are more aggressive, are more determined to get their own way, are more militaristic, are less likely to get into fights, are more prone to anger, are more confident, are more entitled, and feel more attractive. None of this is true. The article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that he cites as establishing these claims has no data whatsoever about women with blonde versus non-blonde hair. You can confirm this in 15 seconds by searching on the word “blonde” in the .pdfs I have attached.

In the article cited, my colleagues and I advanced a new theory about the evolved function of anger—that it functions as a bargaining system that leverages threats to inflict costs or withdraw benefits in order to prevail in conflicts. We reported empirical eleven tests of this theory, including that men who are stronger and women who view themselves as more attractive are more prone to anger, and feel entitled to better treatment.

Drawn by our article on anger, Mr. Harlow called to ask me about blonde women in particular. He said he was writing an article about blondes, and that he knew of other research showing that blondes feel more entitled. _I told him that my research did not look at blondes at all._ At his request, and as a courtesy to him, I reanalyzed our unpublished data to see if there was any relationship between being blonde and any variable I measured. There was not, and I told him so. (Although we had not taken hair color in the studies, being uninterested in it, I was able to recode the data retroactively based on photographs.)
Specifically, I told him, based on our data:

Blonde women do _not_ feel more entitled.
Blonde women are _not_ more prone to anger
Blonde women do _not_ feel more attractive than other women.
Blonde women are _not_ more militaristic.
(This last analysis about militarism controls for ethnicity—a necessary control because political attitudes are correlated with ethnicity and social class. Moreover, women of European ancestry constitute essentially the only ethnic group in the sample whose members could be blonde or not, and there is _no_ relationship among them between blondeness and attitudes toward use of the military. Any analysis of “blondeness” that does not control for ethnicity on questions about political attitudes creates the possibility that one could find a spurious correlation, because women of Asian and African-American ancestry (e.g.) are never blonde. I explained this to Mr. Harlow, and explained that this means _there is no evidence in my data that blondeness causes militaristic attitudes._)

The data aside, Mr. Harlow attributes statements to me, in quotation marks, that I have never said:

I have never published, researched, thought about, or used the phrase, “Princess Effect.”
I did not refer to Southern California as the “homeland of the privileged blonde.”
I never speculated on why blondes would be less likely to be in fights (which is not true anyway).
I have no evidence whatsoever on the effects of dying one’s hair blonde.

More specifically, the following quotes from the article are not only fabricated, but they make false claims about what our unpublished data—analyzed as a favor to Mr. Harlow— in fact show:

“Women with fair hair are more aggressive [false] and determined to get their own way [false] …”

“Even those who dye their hair blonde quickly take on these attributes, experts found.” [false, if the word “expert” is referring to us. I have no data and know of no research on the effect of dying one’s hair.]

“ ‘We expected blondes to feel more entitled than other young women — this is southern California, the natural habitat of the privileged blonde,’” said Aaron Sell, who led the study which has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” [false: Our study was not about blondes at all, and contains no data about blonde women. Nor are we working on any such study. More importantly, my data show _no_ correlation between being blonde and feeling more entitled or privileged—and I told him that. Moreover, I never said that Southern California is “the natural habitat of privileged blondes”—an offensive statement.]

“It [Sell’s research] showed that blondes were more likely to be treated better than other women [false: we never measured that] and were more willing to “go to war” [false: we never asked women if they would be willing to go to war; more importantly, the data do not show a relationship between blondeness and endorsing military force; see above]

“However, they (blondes) were less likely than brunettes or redheads to get into a fight themselves—possibly to ensure they preserved their looks” [false: there was no difference in whether blonde women had been in fights. Obviously, I did not speculate about the cause of a relationship that does not exist.]

“Sell suspects that blondes exist in a ‘bubble’ where they have been treated better than other people for so long they do not realise that men, in particular, are more deferential towards them than other women. ‘They may not even realise they are treated like a princess,’ Sell said.” [false: I never said, nor do I believe, that blondes exist in any metaphorical “bubble”; I have no evidence that they have been treated better than others, let alone that they don’t realize this. Furthermore, I have never used the offensive word “princess” to refer to people who are treated well.]

 

[lokiju]

some pictures to help you choose. same girl, different hair. which are you more attracted to now?

Hmm, I was inclined to say Blonde but then looking at the pics I preferred all the darker colored hair.

Odd considering the vast majority of all females I've been with have been blonde (even my wife is).

 

[Dumac]

I'm afraid you, and thousands of others for that matter, have been badly misinformed. I have never done any research that shows blondes are more aggressive, entitled, angry or "warlike" than brunette or redheads. This error was the result of a piece in the London Sunday Times. Below is an excerpt from the letter we wrote to the Times editor. It documents the many errors in the piece.

*snip*

Wow...

 

[TehMac]

Scarlett Johansson looks much better blonde than Brunette. But I generally like Brunettes more.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Unfortunately, the advent of bleached blondes reduces the desirability of the overall group.

 

[Terzo]

Wall of text

As Dumac said, I'm quite surprised you invested the time and energy to post here in an attempt to dispel the false statements made in your name.

Since I'm feeling stupid I just might even read through the actual paper. By the way, does this sort of thing happen often (journalists making false claims about research)? Are there any legal options you have available? This sounds almost like libel, except worse in a way since it makes false claims in regards to research (and by extension the authors) instead of just a person's character.

Oh, two follow up questions.
1. Do you know of any studies that show what the hottest/most attractive hair color is?
2. Do you prefer blondes or brunettes?

 

[Gothgar]

blonde, married to a brunette

 

[moshquerade]

Hey Aaron! Which do you find more attractive, blondes or brunettes? I have to agree the study results seemed far fetched. Most blondes I know aren't more aggressive than brunettes. I guess that's why I picked up on this article to begin with. Also, I don't think gentlemen overwhelmingly prefer blondes. I think it's different strokes for different folks.

Do you think they will print a retraction since you've called them on it?

http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/grads/Sell/index.html

 

[shiner]

As Dumac said, I'm quite surprised you invested the time and energy to post here in an attempt to dispel the false statements made in your name.

Since I'm feeling stupid I just might even read through the actual paper. By the way, does this sort of thing happen often (journalists making false claims about research)? Are there any legal options you have available? This sounds almost like libel, except worse in a way since it makes false claims in regards to research (and by extension the authors) instead of just a person's character.

Oh, two follow up questions.
1. Do you know of any studies that show what the hottest/most attractive hair color is?
2. Do you prefer blondes or brunettes?

3. What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?