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Prismattic comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong
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(Caveats: Small N, college-age subjects, and WEIRD) Believe it or not, someone actually tried to test the jerk theory empirically and found support for it
Hat tip: Eric Barker.
Another caveat is surrogate behavior-- what's tested is which photographs women chose, not which men.
It's occurring to me that part of what annoys me about the "women prefer jerks" meme is the implication that women are distinctively irrational. There are men who chose women who mistreat them, sometimes one such woman after another, but I've never heard anyone say "men prefer bitches".
Just on the notion level, but I've wondered whether some women (especially young women) choose bad news men for the same reason that some men (especially young men) ride motorcycles-- risk and excitement. From what I've heard, one of the reasons women chose difficult men is the hope of being able to change them.
Another possibility is availability bias-- the stereotype is the woman who spends years complaining about the awful men in her life to a patient male friend who's wondering why she never chooses him. Women who are happy with their relationships aren't going to do as nearly as much complaining about them, and probably aren't going to be talking in comparable detail about how good the relationship is.
There, now you have. According to the Amazon Best Sellers Rank, it is currently ranked #560 overall in the Books category, #1 in Dating , #2 in Mate Seeking, and #4 in Love & Romance. Surely the idea isn't unheard of.
Partially this is because men are less often the one whose preference is at the center of the relationship (the standard cultural trope is a man pursues a woman, attempting to make her prefer him) and so there is less scrutiny of men's preference by both parties, and much more scrutiny of women's preference by men (in order to understand better how to make a woman prefer him).
Partially this is also because male attraction is determined less strongly by personality, and the "bitch/jerk" adjective is about personality.
I think the hypothesis would be that women choose men who are "jerks" partly because they are jerks, while men choose women who are "jerks" because they just don't care so much about personality traits, and/or despite those women being jerks.
Examining this hypothesis would require an operationalization of "jerk."
Wouldn't it, though? I wish that would happen, and I wonder why at least a sketch of a definition hasn't emerged yet.
Does this count? I think there are more too.
I'm almost certain that at least one has.
I saw a list of possible meanings somewhere in this discussion, but I don't remember a follow-up of what particular people have in mind.
Really? That belief isn't all that uncommon, and for reasons somewhat similar to the 'jerk' idea. Mind you the (overwhelmingly justified) belief that men are less picky than women when it comes to their mate selection makes such beliefs less emphasised.
Isn't there a stereotype whereby men prefer women who play by The Rules, which apparently consist of guidelines for emotional manipulation? That counts as bitchy in my book.
Also, can someone explain the "patient male friend" part of stereotype? I think it's one of these cases:
It occurs to me that a common factor might be that the two of them are both highly pessimistic about relationships-- neither of them is looking for someone they can be happy with.
Woman seems to expect to be happy with her boyfriends (after all, she doesn't date people she isn't attracted to, whom she would be unhappy with). Nice Guy may or may not be looking for someone he can be happy with in parallel with pursuing Woman.
I may be too hard on her-- I was doing the jump of assuming that if she really wanted to be happy, she'd be using more efficient selection methods, but that could be another of those bad advice schemas.
Actually, you're missing the part where her selection method may well be optimal, given her goals. She gets excitement, sex, and drama from the "jerk" boyfriends, and companionship, emotional, and other kinds of support from her orbiter(s). (PUA terminology for guys who hang around a girl hoping she'll realize he's perfect and stop dating the jerks.)
This is such a common thing that it seems evolutionarily optimized. Enough orbiters occasionally luck out to make it a viable minority strategy for males, and the win for the females is obvious.
It's only if you think idealistically ("far") that you'd even be surprised by the frequency with which this occurs.
(Also, one thing that sometimes happens is that the orbiter, after getting his lucky moment, actually becomes more confident about expressing his interest in women and quits orbiting them. Everybody wins!)
It is all of those cases, except it is also stipulated that the description must be cast in a more positive light.