Why Women Love Guys Who Are Fearless

by Allen Thompson

It's October. Halloween. Haunted houses. Horror movies. Lotsa scary stuff goin on. Here's a little something you might want to keep in mind.

Zillman, Weaver, Mundorf, and Aust performed an interesting little experiment involving horror movies. They had 2-person groups (one male and one female) view a couple of horror movies and then rate the movies, and their companions, on various characteristics.

Actually, there was only one subject in each group. The other person was a confederate of the experimenter who behaved in either a distressed (frightened), brave (not frightened), or indifferent way. Sometimes it was the male who was the confederate and sometimes it was the female.

What they found was:

1) Males liked the horror movies most when the accompanying females displayed distressed behavior and least when the accompanying females displayed brave behavior.

2) Females liked the movies most when the accompanying males displayed brave behavior and least when the accompanying males displayed distressed behavior.

And the important stuff...

3) Females were more attracted to the males who displayed brave behavior than they were to those who displayed distressed behavior. And this effect was particularly pronounced when the male in question was not very attractive.

4) And in subsequent tests, the females were more willing to go along with the suggestions of the brave males than they were to go along with the suggestions of the distressed males.

So the moral of the story is...

If you're planning to go to horror movies, haunted houses, or anything else designed to scare you silly (like maybe a super-duper, death-infusing, roller coaster... or Richard Simmons), try not to be a wuss!

And if you are a wuss, and there's nothing you can do about it, then you might want to avoid these situations... at least until your ladies get to know you better.