London - Sexist men are more likely to be attracted to Kim Kardashian than Keira Knightley, a new study reveals.
Research by two British psychologists has shown that the more oppressive attitudes a man has towards women, the more likely he is to prefer big breasts.
The findings shed light on the factors which influence the kinds of women men are attracted to, suggesting that larger breasts are associated with submissive femininity.
Previous studies have found that men who more strongly endorsed sexist attitudes were more likely to feel that it was important for women to be thin, wear make up, and be shorter than their partners.
However, the researchers say they believe their study is the first to investigate the link between breast size ideals and oppressive, sexist beliefs.
Viren Swami from the University of Westminster and Martin Tovée from Newcastle University surveyed 361 white, heterosexual men in London, ranging in age from 18 to 68.
They chose to exclude any participant who did not self-identify as being white, since physical ideals differ among different ethnic and cultural groups.
Each participant was taken to an appropriately “quiet and private location” and shown five computer-generated three-dimensional models of a woman, each identical except for the size of her breasts.
They were then asked which they found the most physically attractive.
Swami and Tovée then asked their participants to complete questionnaires to find out how sexist and negative their attitudes were towards women.
Participants were asked to rate their agreement with statements like, “I feel that many times women flirt with men just to tease them or hurt them”, and “intoxication among women is worse than intoxication among men”.
To measure how much the participants objectified women they were asked to rank the importance of 10 physical attributes in judging the appearance of women.
Findings showed that the largest proportion of participants – nearly a third – rated medium-size breasts as the “most attractive”.
Just over 15.5 percent of men chose small breasts as their favourite, and only 8.3 percent chose very small. Large breasts came next, as the preference of nearly a quarter of men, while very large was the choice of about one in five of those surveyed.
The researchers found that the preference for larger breasts was significantly linked to overt sexism, benevolent sexism, female objectification and otherwise hostile and unpleasant views towards the fairer sex.
“Our results showed that a greater likelihood of rating a larger breast size as physically attractive was predicted by men’s oppressive beliefs,” the researchers wrote.
“Specifically, we found that men who more strongly endorsed benevolently sexist attitudes toward women, who more strongly objectified women, and who were more hostile toward women idealised a large female breast size.
“Broadly speaking, the present results were consistent with previous studies indicating that men’s oppressive beliefs are associated with their attractiveness ideals for women.”
Of the various forms of sexism uncovered in the participants, findings showed that those who were so-called “benevolently sexist” were the most likely to prefer women with big breasts.
“Insofar as breasts are an index of a gendered difference between women and men, benevolently sexist men may perceive larger breasts as ‘appropriate’ for feminine women.
“In other words, in the view of benevolently sexist men, a feminine and submissive woman is likely to be someone with large breasts.”
The study, Men’s Oppressive Beliefs Predict Their Breast Size Preferences in Women, is published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour. - – Daily Mail