This Trait Makes A Person More Desirable As A Long-Term Partner, According To A Study
I find people who moral police other people’s choices quite obnoxious. We don’t like our autonomy threatened, thank you very much. For instance, if a person has had casual sex, and the other person doesn’t consider that very “chaste”, it doesn’t work. Either they should be comfortable with the differences of opinion or not be with someone “fallen”. Moral outrage can make or break bonds, depending on whether your morals are aligned or not. For instance, if a guy gets mad at me wearing a bikini, and considers it promiscuous and unfair to him, he can take his moral outrage and shove it where it belongs. Moral outrage pertains to injustice, so there are always two sides to the coin.
Having said that, researchers from the University of Arkansas have found that moral outrage, basically outrage in response to a perceived injustice was viewed as attractive in potential partners. The university conducted four studies on 870 heterosexual participants and the results were published in 2021 publication of the journal Emotion.
The study participants were expected to rate the fictional dating profiles they were shown on attractiveness. It was found that both men and women found moral outrage to be attractive and desirable, especially when seeking long-term partnerships.
However, we meet people who are all talk and no action. They will speak at length about how unfair it gender pay gap is, how women deserve the promotion that are passed on to the men because of sexism, and how fat-shaming sucks. But they will conveniently get offended when a female authority in their workplace is assertive. They will make sexist jokes and say things like they will “allow” their wives to work. If their moral outrage is just a façade, they are probably wokefishing you!
“I’ve done previous work where I’ve looked at how prosocial behavior actually makes individuals be seen as better long-term prospects,” said Mitch Brown, psychology instructor and first author of the study published in the journal Emotion. “But I was interested in understanding how emotional displays could do the same thing, actually,” Brown added.
The study confirms that moral outrage is not enough, it has to be supported by actions for a person to be considered desirable. “Across four studies, we found that moral outrage serves as a signal that is utilized to infer mate goals and mate value, but only when such outrage manifests through demonstrated prosociality,” the study states.
You know how they say a person who is possessive (within healthy levels!) will also be mindful of not indulging in cheating behaviours? Researchers explained that people who display moral outrage are seen as more benevolent and trustworthy in relationships. This is why people seeking long-term relationships find this trait desirable. “This perceived outrage identified through the putative displays in dating profiles could implicate outraged mates as being especially capable of the monogamy necessary for a long-term pair-bond or being a benevolent partner, given the prosocial function of outrage,” the study says.
However, the study found that moral outrage was more important to women than the men. It’s not like men didn’t find this attractive but more women consider this as a trait they want in their long-term partners. It could be because women in general face more injustice than men do, so they want a partner who understands it and shares the moral outrage they feel. In fact, we’d love ourselves a man who makes sure he does his bit. Be it about anything – inequality, dishonesty, discrimination, infidelity – a woke man is an attractive man!
“Women incur a substantially larger minimal cost in reproduction (e.g., nine-month gestation, lactation) compared with men (e.g., single instance of sperm provision), which necessitates employment of stringent mate selection criteria to offset these costs,” the authors explained in the study.
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However, it’s important to differentiate moral outrage from personal anger. Would they be outraged only over things that directly affect them? Or would they care about issues that don’t affect them? Because then are you really benevolent? Like just because I am not black, it’s not like I will not care about racial discrimination against them. Just because I am a woman, it doesn’t mean I will not care about stereotypes men have to deal with. Benevolence and trustworthiness isn’t conditional. “Or perhaps moral outrage would be found in response to actions that violate one’s standards on political issues, such as abortion or capital punishment. Here, however, it would be important to distinguish anger at violation of moral standards per se from anger at a threat to one’s political agenda. Would anger be found if the violation occurred in a different society, or only in one’s own? Each of these possibilities seems worthy of pursuit,” says a study on moral outrage vs personal anger.
Eventually, I strongly believe it comes down to what you perceive as injustice and finding someone who feels strongly about the same! So don’t get distracted ladies by those abs or that pretty face. Don’t be tempted to give in to the charm of a fuckboi who has misplaced his moral compass and remains unperturbed by injustice. You deserve quality! Unless you want just orgasms. Then go for it! You deserve orgasms too!
