Psychology Today Apologizes for 'Black Women Less Attractive' Post

The Atlantic Wire ^ | May 28, 2011 | Ujala Sehgal

[decimon]

Earlier this month, the popular magazine Psychology Today published an article by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa titled “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" that was met, expectedly, with mass outrage. The article used data based on another study to make several claims such as "black women are objectively less physically attractive than other women" yet "subjectively consider themselves to be far more physically attractive than others."

After some attempted editing of the title, the magazine retracted the post from its website in its entirety. Kanazawa in turn is facing an investigation by the London School of Economics, where he is a professor, after a unanimous vote for his dismissal by the student union.

Contributing writers to Psychology Today moved quickly to do some damage control. Dr. Kaufman, in his blog for the magazine "Beautiful Minds," wrote a post re-analyzing Kanazawa's data.

We retrieved the data from Add Health on which Satoshi Kanazawa based his conclusions to see whether his results hold up to scrutiny... Kanazawa mentions several times that his data on attractiveness are scored "objectively"... [However] the low convergence of ratings finding suggests that in this very large and representative dataset, beauty is mostly in the eye of the beholder. Because raters differ strongly in terms of how they rate... this source of variation needs to be taken into account when testing for average race differences in ratings of attractiveness. Kanazawa does not indicate that he did so.

Moreover, Kaufman noted that "the majority of [Kanazawa's] data were based on the ratings of attractiveness of the participants when they were teenagers." When the data was stratified based on age, he concluded that "as adults, Black Women in North America are not rated less attractive by interviewers of the Add health study."

[traumer]

Ain’t gonna touch this.....

[decimon]

Well, he needs to pay a visit at my office - full of stunning, smart, accomplished black women.

As far as I can tell, he didn't voice a personal opinion but his interpretation of some data about North American perceptions.

[jocon307]

Thank you for posting this and giving me the opportunity to comment on this story, which I had hear about before.

The one group of people that I do NOT find sexually attractive are asian (oriental) men.

Sorry, just don’t get any appeal from them at all.

In fact the only oriental guy I ever found sexy at all was they guy who played “the president” in the Mad TV sketches about the soap opera love story as shown on Korean TV.

OK, that may sound mangled, but he was hot that guy. The millions and millions others? Not so much.

[Erasmus]

I think that's the first stealth alliteration I have ever seen.

≤};^)

[hellbender]

Kanazawi has been skating on thin ice (from the PC perspective) before. Here's another of his articles:

Why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary, and evil

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200908/why-modern-feminism-is-illogical-unnecessary-and-evil

[PghBaldy]

Liberals don’t like people saying things they themselves secretly believe, yet are ashamed to say.

[Erasmus]

But most of all I’ve noticed opposites attract one another, especially when the other is perceived as ‘exotic’.

If that's so, I should be looking for a girl who's beautiful, dainty, young, Amish, and dumb.

≤}B^)

[ansel12]

A hot looking woman may have managed to keep herself “lonely” but it will not be because of a lack of huge numbers of men, that want to date her and be in her company.

[SatinDoll]

My advice to anyone who wants to marry: marry a person who, if they were the same sex as yourself, would be your best friend.

[GeronL]

The one group of people that I do NOT find sexually attractive are asian (oriental) men

meanwhile, asian women are hot. How sad for those ladies, heh.

Then again, its all a matter of opinion, isn't it?

[Erasmus]

Unless, that is, you count Eliza Doolittle’s enunciation of “In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, Hurricanes Hardly Happen.”

[JoeProBono]

[decimon]

Kanazawi has been skating on thin ice (from the PC perspective) before.

For all know he may be a total space cadet but it's good that he's inside the zoo rattling the cages.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I didn't think it would take nine posts to get to the First Wookie.

[Echo4C]

Do you have the names, ages, and phone numbers of these gorgeous lonely women?

You know, for science.

[decimon]

Thanks. I don’t know about the particulars but agree with his statement about the difference in the sexes being fundamental rather than socially constructed. Superficial traits like dress are socially constructed (cultural) but that is superficial.

[SatinDoll]

A “hot looking woman”, as you so crassly describe, is your perception. She may very well be someone unconcerned with being “hot”.

When these eager suitors discover she has a brain, and may even be smarter then they are, interest drops abruptly.

[Kirkwood]

What does it matter? Most of the people considered to be physically attractive require tons of makeup and fashion tricks to achieve any kind of attractive state.

[decimon]

Most of the people considered to be physically attractive require tons of makeup and fashion tricks to achieve any kind of attractive state.

And young women go way overboard with makeup. And some young women actually look much better without makeup.