Short women ‘more likely to be casual flings’
Warning for short women as tall men are more likely to see them as a one-night stand rather than a partner for everlasting love, study suggests
- In a study, men said shorter women were their preferred choice for a fling
- Women preferred taller men regardless of the nature of their relationship
When it comes to selecting the perfect partner, some people have a strong preference for height.
But short women beware – as tall men are more likely to see you as a one-night stand, a study suggests.
Researchers have discovered tall men gravitate towards shorter women for romantic flings rather than everlasting love.
An international team of researchers recruited more than 500 people from the general population as part of their study.
Female participants were shown two sheets of paper that featured five different minimalistic drawings of men ranging in heigh from five-foot-five to six-foot-one.
Short women beware – as tall men are more likely to see you as a one-night stand, a study suggests (Stock Photo)
Men received similar drawings featuring women ranging in height from five-foot-five to five-foot-eight.
Asked their ideal heigh in a women for ‘uncommitted’ short-term relationships, men typically chose women shorter than them.
But they tended to gravitate toward women who more closely measured their own height for long-term relationships.
The researchers, from universities in Cuba, Canada, Norway and the United States, said their findings are indicative of ‘assortative mating preference’.
Assortative mating is a form of sexual selection based on certain observable criteria that closely mirror theirs including relative height, social status, personality, and risk of passing along diseases to offspring.
This means that tall men are more likely to marry or remain in committed relationships with taller women, the team said.
Women, meanwhile, preferred men taller than them on average regardless of the nature of their relationship.
The authors of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, said: ‘Our results further corroborate a positive relationship between participants’ own heights and their mate height preferences, that is, positive assortative preferences for height.
Women, meanwhile, preferred men taller than them on average regardless of the nature of their relationship (Stock Photo)
‘However, assortative height preferences were qualified by relationship-context. Taller men preferred relatively shorter women for short-term relationships than for long-term relationships.’
A separate study published in 2013 in the journal Personality and Individual Differences reported that women care more about having a taller man than men care about dating a shorter woman.
Women preferred and were most satisfied with greater height differences than men, about eight inches, whereas men were satisfied with being just three inches taller.