1. James Moseley, Miranda Wilson, Mara Garcia
Do the stereotypes of men and women regarding their ideal partner hold true
James Moseley, Miranda Wilson, Mara Garcia
Introduction
Data
Discussion
Do the stereotypes of men and women regarding their ideal partner hold true? The short answer is yes. It is important to note that some of the categories in our survey could potentially mean different things to different people. This may have skewed some of the data as our survey did not account for individual interpretation.
Figuring out what the opposite sex most desires in the traits of their partners has been a question since the earliest days of humans. If you google traits in partners you come up with many results of the most desirable traits and the most important traits but we wanted to know what the everyday person had to say about the subject. Specifically we wanted to find out the differences between how much men and women valued different traits in their ideal partners. We therefore test two hypotheses: the null hypothesis (the difference in the average valuation for each category individually between males and females is 0); and the alternative (the difference in the average valuation for each category individually between males and females is 0).
Averages
Male
Female
Physical Appearance
7.09
6.43
Physical attributes
7.08
6.14
Hobbies/ interests
7.86
7.41
Occupation
5.27
6.67
Level of education
6.10
7.13
Ambitions
8.13
Religious views
6.16
7.32
Political views
4.99
5.52
Gender roles
4.83
6.40
Social Class
3.77
4.82
Race/Ethnicity
3.66
3.79
Age
5.94
6.12
Personality
9.02
9.36
History
5.56
6.25
Family Ideals
7.21
8.33
Mean Difference
Significance Level
Male - Female
P-value
0.66
0.018
0.94
0.002
0.45
0.152
-1.41
0.000
-1.02
0.01
-0.27
0.336
-1.15
0.013
-0.53
0.216
-1.57
0.001
-1.05
0.009
-0.13
0.732
-0.17
0.625
-0.33
0.027
-0.69
0.068
-1.12
Confidence Interval
Lower
upper
0.26
1.06
0.68
1.20
-0.12
1.02
-2.35
-0.47
-2.72
-0.66
0.12
-1.67
-0.63
-0.59
-2.33
-0.81
-1.97
-0.13
-0.71
0.45
-1.25
0.91
-0.68
0.02
-1.60
0.22
-2.41
0.17
Conclusion
We see the data showing that 5 of the 15 categories yielded a result that is statistically insignificant. We can interpret this as 5 categories not being more or less valued by either gender. The categories that were significant showed preference by a gender. Males showed a stronger preference for physical appearance by 2/3 of a point and attributes by nearly a full point on our 1-10 scale.
In essence, based on this data set we are left to conclude that for male and female college students at SLCC, we are 95% confident that on average males prefer physical appearance and attributes more than their female counterparts. We also conclude with 95% confidence that on average females tend to value occupation, education, religion, gender roles, social class, personality, and family ideals more than their male counterparts.
In other words the responses we received support the claim that males care more than females about how a mate looks while females tend to care more than males about the ability to provide and the emotional/social connection.
Methodology
The averages in each group showed that for the majority of categories women tended to rate more valuable.
The mean difference statistics tell us the magnitude of the difference between males and females. Negative values indicate higher preference by women.
Our significance level is based on a randomization model to see what the probability of seeing a result this extreme is.
The confidence intervals outlined above are based on a 95% confidence level.
To collect our data we approached Salt Lake Community College students at the Redwood Campus and asked them to take a short survey. The survey included a set of fifteen traits that people would think about when choosing their ideal partner. These traits are: physical appearance, physical traits, hobbies/interest, occupation, education, ambitions, religion, political views, gender roles, social class, race/ethnicity, age, personality, personal history, family ideals. Each of these traits were ranked on a scale of If students had questions about the survey they were asked to respond to it using their own interpretation. The data was loaded into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for evaluation.
To analyze the data, we determined that the mean difference statistic would be most appropriate because we designed our study to compare the average of two groups. What this does is it takes the average of our two groups individually and finds the difference between them. The mean difference gives us an idea of the magnitude of the difference between the two groups.
Once we had a statistic, we needed to determine which, if any, categories had a statistically significant outcome. The categories marked in red are those which yielded a p-value above a 5% threshold.
Resources
Survey responses from students at SLCC redwood campus.
Reference Material: INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICA L INVESTIGATIONS: Tintle, Nathan; Chance, Beth L.; Cobb, George W.; Rossman, Allan J.; Roy, Soma; Swanson, Todd; VanderStoep, Jill. Introduction to Statistical Investigations. Wiley. Kindle Edition.
Statistical Simulation:
Data Organization & Analysis: Microsoft Excel 2016