速配：爲何女性更挑剔？

Women are twice as choosy as men when they go speed dating, research suggests. Why might that be?

Trying to work out who is single in a bar, approach them and asking them out before you know anything about them is not a very efficient way of finding a girlfriend or boyfriend.

There is a solution - speed dating, where a group of singles meet at an event in a bar or cafe. The men move from table to table for a fleeting date with each woman, lasting typically between three to four minutes.

Afterwards the participants tell the organisers, often online, which people they want to see again.

A recent study into speed dating habits concluded that if men and women go to an evening and have 22 separate dates, men are keen to see about five women again, while women would only choose to see two again, on average.

The research was done by economists Michele Belot from the University of Edinburgh and her colleague Marco Francesconi from the University of Essex, who collected data from 84 speed dating events involving 3,600 people in the UK.

This controlled environment is something that excites some economists as they are perfect for observing market forces at work- in this case the dating market.

"This is something that evolutionary psychologists and biologists do recognise," says Belot. "We know that across a whole range of behaviours women tend to take fewer risks.

"They relate this to the fact that making mistakes are much more costly for women than for men because of childbearing. So obviously if you make a mistake in dating the wrong man and having a relationship with the wrong man, you might have nine months carrying a child, then caring for a child. While for men, the costs are lower."

Other academic worksuggests that because men historically have not been so involved in parenting, they devote more time to "short-term mating", so they're not looking further than a date.

A study in the US, on the other hand, suggests the difference might simply be down to the seating arrangements, because the convention is for women to sit still at the events, while men move round and approach each woman.

The researchers found that when the roles were reversed at speed dating events, and women moved round to approach the men, they found that women made more offers than they did at events when they sat still. One possible theory is that the person who moves has more confidence.

Belot and Francesconi's study also took all the data provided by each person from their profile, to work out what attributes people were looking for in a potential mate.

"For both men and women, education and professional status matters. We found that women prefer taller men and men prefer slimmer women," says Belot.

Perhaps this is not a big surprise. But it turns out - people are often ready to compromise on these preferences.

So, if a woman likes academic men, but she goes speed dating one night and no one is particularly academic, she will lower her expectations on this occasion, and instead pick men who next best fit her criteria.

Belot thinks one explanation is that people who go to a speed dating event assume that is representative of the pool of available single people.

But if you break out of the mould of what you think you want, it could actually be beneficial for society at large.

People marry people very similar to themselves - from the same socio-economic background for example. And economists argue that this stops social mobility between generations.

For instance, people from rich privileged backgrounds marry each other, while people from more disadvantaged backgrounds marry each other.

But speed dating shows that people are not too fixed in their views of who they should date, says Belot, if they are given the opportunity.據英國廣播公司報道，研究顯示，約會的時候，女性的挑剔程度是男性的兩倍。爲什麼會這樣呢？

於是，我們試圖在一間酒吧裏找出誰是單身的，然後接近他們，在你還不瞭解他們任何情況的時候，就把他們約出來，以此來尋得女朋友或男朋友。但實踐證明，這種方法不是特別的有效。

但有這樣一個辦法，就是速配的時候，一羣單身者出現在酒吧或者咖啡館。然後男人們開始從一個桌子移到另一個桌子，分別尋求與女人的約會，但這通常只持續三到四分鐘。

但隨後，參與者會通過網絡方式告訴活動負責人他們希望能夠再次約會的人。

最近的一項關於速配習慣的研究指出，如果一個男人和一個女人約會一晚上，之後再讓他們分開22天，那麼這段時間裏男性會渴望能再約會五個女性，然而女性一般卻只會想要再約會兩個男性。

這項研究是由來自愛丁堡大學經濟學家米歇爾貝洛特和她的來自從埃塞克斯大學的同事馬可·弗蘭切斯科所做，他們從英國84次速配活動中收集數據，其中約會人數達3600人。

這種可控制的環境讓一些經濟學家感到興奮，因爲它提供了觀察婚介市場動態的極好條件。

“這是進化心理學家和生物學家都清楚的事。”貝洛特說道。“我們知道，在整體行爲表現上，相比於男性，女性更傾向於選擇風險更小的做事方法。

“他們更證明了這樣一個事實，即相比於男性，女性付出的代價會更高，因爲她們一不小心就有可能懷孕了。所以，很顯然，如果你在約會的時候找錯了人，並且和他發生了關係，那麼你可能就要有9個月的時間挺着一個孩子，然後承擔起照顧這個孩子的重任。但對於男人來說，卻不存在這種情況，成本會低得多。“

其他學術研究表明，因爲男人從來都不會很投入於養育子女，他們只想花更多的時間來進行“短期交配”。所以約會的時候，他們從不會考慮以後。

另一方面，美國的一項研究顯示，男女之間的不同，最低程度上可表現在坐時的表現上，因爲向來的傳統是，女性要表現的矜持，而男性則到處活動去搭訕每一個女的。

研究人員發現，在速配時，當角色互換，即女人到處活動去接近男人時，她們能比安靜地坐着時製造更多的約會機會。這也許就證明了，更主動的人更自信。

貝洛特和弗蘭切斯科尼還對速配人員的個人資料進行了研究，想要弄清在速配時人們都在尋找什麼類型的人。

“其中發現男女雙方都比較在意對方的教育和職業狀況問題。而且女性更喜歡個子高的男子和男性更喜歡苗條的女人。“貝洛特說道。

也許，這不足以爲怪。但它卻證明了，人們更願意在這些標準上多加考慮。

所以，如果一個女人只喜歡學術男，然後快速約會一晚上，發現他不是特別的學術，那麼在這種情況下，她就會降低期望，寄希望於下一個也許最符合她標準男人。

貝洛特認爲這種原因也許只有一種解釋，就是速配的人把這看作是單身者的‘游泳池’，認爲速配的機會多的是。

但是，如果你改變一下自己一直追求的那種類型，這實際上可能會有利於整個社會。

你想，人們通常是和自己有很大相似性的人結婚，比如，和自己有相同的社會經濟背景等等。但是，經濟學家認爲，這會阻礙人羣間的社會流動。

例如，富人和富人結婚，窮人和窮人結婚等等。

但速配顯示，假如給他們提供更多的機會的話，他們想要和誰約會是不受限制的，貝洛特說道。