Men would rather marry their female assistants than equal-ranking women or their supervisors, according to social psychologists.

The results are based on a study of men’s ratings of imaginary women with different job titles, during which they judged them according to their appeal as a one-night stand, friend, or long-term partner.

Men’s preferences for less-dominant women may be rooted in the evolutionary drive to pass on genes to the next generation, according to study author Dr. Brian Lewis of the University of California in Los Angeles

In early human history, a man had limited resources to offer offspring, Lewis explained. If he dedicated them to another man’s child, he “got somebody else’s genes passed along, and his genes go nowhere.”

A man who carried genes that nudged him towards less-dominant women, where “he can exert some kind of influence” over her behavior, likely were more successful in supporting children he knew were his, thereby transmitting the genes that encode attractions to submissive women onto future generations, Lewis added.

However, in this day and age, most men probably don’t realize they prefer this type of woman, Lewis noted. “It’s not something that you’re necessarily aware of,” he told Reuters Health.

During the study, Lewis and his co-author, Dr. Stephanie L. Brown of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, based dominance on differences in rank in the workplace, where dominant, potential mates have the ability to “exercise their own will at the expense of a less dominant other,” they write in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

As part of the experiment, 120 male and 208 female undergraduates read scenarios about people of different status at work, looked at their pictures, and noted how much they would like to associate with them. All photos were deemed by judges to be of people similar in age and attractiveness.

Men said they would prefer a less-dominant women both as long-term partners and as friends they would enjoy doing things with, such as exercising and going to a party.

For women, a man’s status had no influence on his desirability as a partner.

In an interview, Lewis explained that this is the first study to look at relative dominance, meaning whether the potential mate is above or below the study participant himself. Previous research into preferences for dominance has looked at overall dominance cues, such as aggressiveness, or social status, he noted.

SOURCE: Evolution and Human Behavior, November 2004.