Do Women Prefer Alpha Men?

Women can be very fickle in their choices of men. While wanting to date "nice guys" seems to be the request frustrated women often make, many also find themselves in dead-end relationships with selfish and often arrogant men. So what do women really want - the nice guy or the alpha man?

A surprising study came out recently from Southampton Solent University in England, claiming that women's choices in men change during recession, but not in the way you'd think. It seems that women prefer dating men who describe themselves as "followers" rather than "leaders." The reasoning behind this? According to researchers, "a man who is a follower might offer stability: He may have fewer resources, but he may be less likely to abandon [her] for another woman or need to share his resources with lots of other women."

The researchers at Southampton showed more than 150 women a series of fictitious online dating profiles before asking them which men they'd like to date and which were marriage material. The descriptions contained information about the men's earning potential and hints of how dominant they appeared to be. Before viewing the profiles, however, the women took a language test that included words related to financial hardship such as "bankruptcy," to link dating back to a recession mindset to see if anything changed.

It seems the women would have chosen the confident bread-winners to date, but they preferred the men who were more shy and generally happy to be told what to do. (Although earning potential did factor heavily into who they considered to be marriage material.)

So in times of economic recession, women may see things differently. They look for stability, but not necessarily financial stability or career success with a man who has a take-charge personality. Instead, they prefer the easy-going and soft-spoken types. But when it comes to marriage, women are still concerned with financial stability and support more than anything else.

Are women's preferences starting to change? We are in a better place economically than we have been at any other time in history, so we aren't reliant on a man's ability to wine and dine us to impress. And while confidence in men still seems to be an agent for attraction, perhaps dating alpha dogs isn't the answer. Maybe now, there's even more reason to date those nice guys. And it seems that more and more women agree on this.