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Related links
- Andrea L. Meltzer
- SMU Department of Psychology
- Health Psychology: “Sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness for the trajectory of marital satisfaction”
- Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences
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Sweden, SMU psychologists partner to launch parenting program that reduces child abuseJournalist Victoria Woollaston reports in London’s Daily Mail about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.
The article, “Love? Trust? No, a GOOD-LOOKING wife makes for a happy marriage (according to men, at least…),” was published Nov. 20.
Meltzer, lead researcher on the study, is an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.
EXCERPT:
By Victoria Woollaston
Daily Mail
It appears that for men, the key to a long and happy marriage has less to do with compatible personalities and similar interests and more about how attractive the women they are married to is.A researcher from Texas has discovered that men with attractive wives have happier marriages and this marital satisfaction remains over time.
Yet the same can’t be said for women. According to the study, the attractiveness of a husband played no part in how happy or satisfied a wife said they were.
Psychologist Andrea Meltzer from the Southern Methodist University Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences polled more than 450 newlywed couples over a four-year period.
This involved four different studies with four different groups of newlyweds.
Before the studies, each couple member was rated for attractiveness by an objective and independent team of researchers.
Over the four years, each husband and wife were separately asked on up to eight occasions to rate how satisfied they were in their respective marriages.
Husbands across all four studies were more satisfied than their wives at the beginning of each marriage.
Over time, husbands with wives that had been rated as attractive remained more satisfied than their spouses.
The attractive wives in these marriages were also, on average, more satisfied and the researchers attributed this to the fact having a happier husband led to a happier marriage overall.
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