Women looking for both a quick fling and a long-term relationship pick brains over brawn, according to a new study.

Instead of asking women to rate qualities they seek in men, as other studies had done, Mark Prokosch at Elon University in North Carolina, and his team, filmed fifteen college men performing a series of tasks on camera.

The volunteers performed a series of tasks, such as reading news reports, saying why they would be a good date, and explaining what would be the consequences of discovering life on Mars, as well as throwing and catching a Frisbee. Each potential suitor also took a quantitative test of verbal intelligence.

More than 200 women watched a series of these videos before rating each man’s intelligence, attractiveness, creativity and appeal for a short-term or long-term relationship. The team found the smarter the man, the higher his appeal.

Whilst the difference between one-night stands and a long-term relationship may amount to a boozy decision people make each weekend, it does have some evolutionary significance.

Mark Prokosch, who led the study, said:

Women want the best of both worlds. Not only a physically attractive man, but somebody in the long term who can provide for them.

To many women, a smart man will appeal because he is likely to be clever enough to keep his family afloat. But he may also pass on “good” genes to his children.

In potential husbands, women look for signs that a man might be a good provider and father. In one-night stands, women are on the prowl for little more than “good” genes, not to mention a good time.

Interestingly, women proved to be decent judges of intelligence, with their scores generally matching each man’s intelligence test results.

As for choosing a sex-partner, the men’s actual intelligence rating proved a reliable indicator of their appeal for both brief hook-ups and serious relationships, which was something of a surprise, since previous studies had suggested that, for women anticipating short-term relationships, a man’s intellect isn’t foremost in their minds.

This disparity in results could be due to women’s lack of awareness that intelligence also affects the attractiveness of candidates for quick flings – how intelligent women perceived a man to be, influenced his desirability as a long-term mate much more than his appeal for a one-night stand.

Although women are good judges of intelligence, they aren’t perfect. In many cases, women have rated good hook-ups as dunces, even though their intelligence scores indicated otherwise; noted Martie Haselton, an Evolutionary Psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles.

However, looks were still a more powerful predictor of sex appeal than brains, and Prokosch says:

If you had an option to pick from five different people, you would pick the most attractive one.

Creativity also proved to be another sought-after trait, and Prokosch’s team is currently working on an objective measure of creativity, similar to the intelligence test they used.

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Posted by Jonathan in Psychology, Sociobiology

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