People Share 30 Things That People Who Are Having A Secret Affair Do That Immediately Give Them Away

Speaking about attraction, Nigel Barber said that both women and men usually see personality as the key component of it. "We look for a partner who is kind and understanding, who is intelligent, and possesses a sense of humor," Barber told Bored Panda. "An evolutionary approach helps us to understand what men and women look for in a potential sexual partner. The focus is on heterosexual relationships as these relate to reproductive success. There are a lot of similarities across gender (and gender categories) but there are also some noticeable gender differences."

According to the evolutionary psychologist, men are primarily interested in female signals of fertility and health that are lumped together under the umbrella term physical attractiveness. "These include unblemished skin, having a healthy glow, lustrous hair, and symmetry of face and body that signal an effective immune system," Barber explained. "A curvaceous figure gives a readout on reproductive hormones and is generally correlated with a woman's health and fertility. Put bluntly, men are attracted to efficient baby-making machines!"

"Research on internet dating found that in this context, men are primarily interested in physical attractiveness of a potential partner, implying that their main objective is physical gratification," Barber said.

"On the other hand, females screen prospective dates so as to select partners who are successful or show signs of affiliation to elite schools, sports, or clubs or drive luxury cars. So they behave as though seeking a permanent partner rather than having a brief fling."

Summarizing the analysis of communications on dating sites, Barber pointed out that women generally put a great deal more time and thought into their messages whereas men are much more flippant and monosyllabic.

"Once their social screens are satisfied, women are also interested in baby-making machines who are strong, tall, fit, youthful, healthy, and virile. (Modern women are more likely to pursue short-term sexual relationships than earlier generations, possibly because they have control over their own fertility)."

When it comes to the most common signs of attraction, Barber also highlighted some that can be found on this list.

"If a man is attracted to a woman, it is hard for him to keep his eyes off her, even though staring is often perceived as rude and offensive," he said.

But women too show unmistakable signals of attraction. "They look briefly at the object of their attraction before lowering their eyelids and averting their gaze. This looks like feminine modesty. In reality, it is a sexual come-on," the evolutionary psychologist explained.

"If people are physically attracted to each other, they tend to stand close together. They also mimic each other's actions unconsciously, whether it is sitting down or touching the face with a hand."

What's more, we can't always maintain a poker face as well.

"While we may often try to manage how we are perceived by others, and to conceal an attraction that is inconvenient or problematic, there is much that happens in the autonomic nervous system that is impossible to control," Barber said.

"If we are interested in someone, our pupils dilate, sending an unmistakable cue of our attraction. Other signs of being struck by Cupid's arrow include blushing hotly, being tongue-tied, and uncharacteristically losing one's train of thought."

This is all part of our mating game. "Sexual selection is the process that produced sexual attraction mechanisms during evolutionary history. For example, it produced the gorgeous plumage of peacocks," Barber said.

"Women are more modified by sexual selection than men are. For this reason, they are seen as more attractive, on average, than men are by female and male raters. Women also spend a lot more time and effort on their physical appearance because it is more consequential for them. These phenomena suggest that women compete more intensely over male attention than men compete over female attention. In the language of animal behavior, they bear the burden of advertisement."

And women seem to understand this. While Americans tend to think society places more of a premium on masculinity than on femininity, they are more likely to say it's important to them, personally, to be seen by others as womanly or feminine than men are to say it's important that others see them as manly or masculine.