Investment in Beauty, Exercise, and Self-esteem: Are They Related to Self-perception as a Romantic Partner?

Abstract

Men and women prefer certain characteristics that are interpreted as clues to the reproductive quality of potential partners. Physical appearance, for example, is an important characteristic for both sexes because it can signal youth and fertility in females and capacity for protection, dominance, competitive ability, and high social status in males. Therefore, we predicted that people would put significant effort into improving their physical attractiveness in order to compete in the mating market, and this relationship would be influenced by self-perception and socioeconomic status. In order to investigate whether investment in beauty and exercise are related to self-perception as romantic partners and self-esteem, this study was conducted with 205 men and women of lower socioeconomic status from Brazil. They were asked about their self-esteem (Rosenberg self-esteem scale), socioeconomic status, investment in beauty, time exercising, and self-perception as a romantic partner. Although no significant relationship between self-perception as a romantic partner and exercise was found, our results suggest that female investment in beauty is related to their financial condition, whereas male investment in beauty is related to greater evaluation in handsome face, beautiful body, sociability, and agreeableness, being correlation stronger when controlled by participants’ self-esteem. The results support Leary and Baumeister’s sociometer theory (2000 cited in Bale and Archer Evolutionary Psychology, 11, 68–84, 2013) and Penke and Denissen’s (Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1123–1129, 2008) findings, in which men would associate more characteristics of their self-perception in a mate market with their self-esteem.