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What you eat says something about how attractive you are as a date. Because singles who are willing to eat something that is new to them are more desirable. That is according to new research published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences . And also useful to know: refusing to eat something unfamiliar on a date can be a turn-off.
Study author Hannah Bradshaw and her colleagues were interested in investigating how being willing or unwilling to try new foods influences the dating choices we make.
“I was talking to a group of friends, and someone mentioned that he was on a date with someone who was reluctant to try new foods and would only eat things like chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese,” says Bradshaw, an assistant professor of psychology at Washington & Jefferson College. “I noticed that everyone seemed to find that an undesirable quality on a date.” So the scientist wondered what the impact of a person’s willingness to try new foods is, specifically in a dating context.
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You are what you eat?
Previous research has shown that eating habits are linked to stereotypes. For example , one such study found that vegans and vegetarians are perceived as less masculine than their meat-eating counterparts. Guided by the insights from these studies, Bradshaw and her colleagues conducted four experiments.
In the first experiment, 193 college students were given a brief description of someone of the opposite sex who was either willing to try new foods or reluctant. The researchers found that those who were willing to try new foods were rated higher as potential romantic and sexual partners.
In three additional experiments, in which 323 participants viewed dating profiles of people of the opposite sex, Bradshaw and her colleagues discovered something else. Those who are willing to try new foods are seen as types who have had a greater number of sexual partners and are more open to casual sex relationships .
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Trying new things
To test whether this applies specifically to eating habits, the researchers also examined other options, such as willingness to try things in general – like reading new books or listening to new music. But trying new things in general doesn’t seem to have the same effect.
“Our results show that people use information about a person’s willingness to try new foods when evaluating their dating partners,” Bradshaw tells PsyPost . “That is, people perceive those who are willing to try new foods as more attractive and less sexually impaired than those who are reluctant to try new foods.”
Does this study mean you should choose the most unfamiliar items on the menu during a dinner date ? Not necessarily, because studies like this always have limitations. For example, the study was conducted using a sample of university students in the US. Therefore, it is unclear to what extent these findings also apply to older or non-US students.
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