I said it before

A little over a year ago, I had a post inspired by a New York Times story that referred to some research sponsored by Dove finding that only 4% of women considered themselves to be beautiful.  The Times recently had another story which referred to the same study:   "a mere 12 percent of women are satisfied by their looks and only 2 percent think of themselves as beautiful."  Neither story gave a link to the Dove study, but a 1999 Gallup poll did ask people to rate their physical appearance.  As I mention in that post, it's true that only 4% of women rate themselves as beautiful, but 40% say they are "attractive" and 53% say "average," leaving only 3% at "below average" or "unattractive."  Also, 66% of women said they were "generally pleased with the way your body looks."

While checking to see if I'd missed any other relevant questions, I found a 2000 Gallup survey with a question very close to one asked back in 1950 and discussed in this post:  "If you were a young man and looking for a bride, which would you prefer--a young woman who is very pretty or a young woman who is not pretty but has a lot of money."  The 1950 asked the question of both men and women--the 2000 survey asked only men.   Women in 2000 were asked if they were a young woman looking for a husband and had to choose between a handsome man and a man with money.  That's a substantially different question, so I limit the comparison to men.  

Comparing men's opinions in 1950 and 2000:


        Pretty  Money   Other
1950     34%     24%     42%
2000     60%     24%     16%

That's a big change.  The obvious explanation would be increased affluence--if you don't have to worry about making ends meet, you are less likely to focus on money.  Breaking 2000 opinions down by income:

                Pretty  Money Other
Under 20,000      46%    37%    17%
20-30,000         69%    21%    10%
30-50,000         59%    20%    21%
50-75,000         69%    23%     8%
over 75,000       56%    25%    19%

People with incomes below $20,000 per year are more likely to choose money, but beyond that income doesn't seem to matter.  I also considered education, but that had no clear connection to opinions (people with more education might have been a bit more likely to choose "other").  So the historical change seems to represent some kind of cultural shift, not a direct result of increased affluence and education.   If I find any more questions involving choices between money and other considerations I'll discuss them in a later post.