西部落：老公丑点，靠得住？

Love or looks

A surprising new study suggests that less attractive men may actually make better mates. Experts Jim McNulty and Robi Ludwig offer perspective.

This morning on Today's Relationships, love and looks, ladies if you are smoking hot, well, guess what? You might want to think or you think you should have a hubby who is just as good looking as you are. But turns out a striking new study is turning conventional wisdom upside down.

Whether you think you're a nerd or not, why don’t you just come down here n’ join us, ok? Hollywood has been poking¹ fun at the phenomena² for decades, the ugly guy who wins over the beautiful woman from Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (~we might have a baby by and by~) to Sex and the City, where stunning³ Charlotte falls into an unlikely romance with Harry⁴.( “Believe me. I never thought a shecksay goddess like you would fall for a pups like me. )

So ladies, if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, should you ditch the good-looking guys and go for the geeks? (“Stop Harry.”) Maybe.

Jim McNulty is a social psychologist who conducted the study, and Ruby⁵ Ludwig is a psychotherapist, good morning. Nice to have you both here. Good morning (Nice to be here). So Jimmy did the study involved some 82 newly-wed couples and you found that the more unattractive the man, I guess in the relationship, then the happier the relationship was. But these are newly-weds, right? Aren't they supposed to be happy anyway?

They are newly-weds. They were happy anyway. Certainly, and they behaved positively⁶. And so we are just interested to know what role physical attractiveness actually plays in marriage. We know it matters in the beginning of relationships what about in marriage? Certainly it is the draw, yeah, in that physical attraction. Certainly, but once I know you does your physical attractiveness still matter? So what we did was we took some video tapes we had where people were discussing a personal goal. These newly-wed couples. And we recorded. We had the recordings⁷, went back and watched them for the positivity and the negativity in their behavior and also rated the physical attractiveness of the husband and of the wife and found out the way he.....(you rated them, not for the spouses⁸ rate them, OK ).

We had a team, no, it was the spouses, did not do the ratings. We had a team of objective raters. (Right!) And surprisingly, they are actually agreed fairly well, and that is kind of consistent with the literature. People… (So something most scientific study is what you are saying. But I guess there is some psychology⁹ though behind that.)No, It’s definitely a scientific study in the sense that the objective raters all agreed about who was attractive, and when they agreed that the husband was the more attractive person in the relationship, the behaviors that other people saw when they watched the video tapes tended to be more negative both the husband and the wife. So the flip¹⁰ side was also true when the wife was more attractive both people behaved more smoothly¹¹. And they would support the discussions. So they were discussing a personal goal. If you have a personal goal, does your husband help you meet that goal? So the husband is basically trying harder. I guess, in a sense(exactly. That’s…) trying harder to maintain the relationship. (That’s exactly what is going on. )He’s gonna do more if his wife or, you know, his girlfriend is more attractive.

Ruby, does this kind of add up to what you actually see, in your, being an expert of relationships?

Not necessarily. I mean, there are also studies that show that people are kind of drawn¹² to other people who match their attractiveness level. But having said that, certainly a partner is an extension of who we are, and how we wanna present ourselves. So if we feel that our partner is not living up to what's important to us, then that can somehow impact our marital¹³ satisfaction.

Is there some evolutionary¹⁴ concept that place into this?

Yes, yeah. First of all, beauty feels good, (Yeah) and it also signifies health. I mean, women are looking for a little bit different things too.(We are more pragmatic) I think in a relationship, they are gonna...he is gonna be a good father to your children.(That’s right) I mean you probably are influenced by power and intelligence. Sure, because that signifies being taken care of, having children who could be safe. So women are more pragmatic and men, I think, think more biologically. Who can I have these many children with? And also, you know, that if someone who is really good-looking and you are a woman that they can feel like I’m with somebody who is very youthful who makes me look successful. So our partners certainly do help us to feel a certain way.

What's the bottom line of this Jim, because this is not to say then though, if I am quoting you or taking this study correctly that if you are a woman and you are single, and you are looking for a mate, then you’re better off looking for a frog than looking for a prince charming? No, the headlines that are out there have taken a little bit too far. You know, this is an average finding. And there are many factors that matter to marriages. It’s surprising/ that this one does matter. But certainly there are other things and I think to take a message then is if you meet your partner's goals, that partner is gonna work harder to maintain the relationship. That’s kind of what we saw here.

Everybody should be working harder to maintain the relationship. I think that’s the bottom line. Jim McNulty and Ruby Ludwig, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

1 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

2 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

3 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

4 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

5 ruby   

n.红宝石，红宝石色

参考例句：

• She is wearing a small ruby earring.她戴着一枚红宝石小耳环。
• On the handle of his sword sat the biggest ruby in the world.他的剑柄上镶有一颗世上最大的红宝石。

6 positively   

adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实

参考例句：

• She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
• The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。

7 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

8 spouses   

n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jobs are available for spouses on campus and in the community. 校园里和社区里有配偶可做的工作。 来自辞典例句
• An astonishing number of spouses-most particularly in the upper-income brackets-have no close notion of their husbands'paychecks. 相当大一部分妇女——特别在高收入阶层——并不很了解他们丈夫的薪金。 来自辞典例句

9 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

10 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

11 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

12 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

13 marital   

adj.婚姻的，夫妻的

参考例句：

• Her son had no marital problems.她的儿子没有婚姻问题。
• I regret getting involved with my daughter's marital problems;all its done is to bring trouble about my ears.我后悔干涉我女儿的婚姻问题, 现在我所做的一切将给我带来无穷的烦恼。

14 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。