We study partner preferences for education and attractiveness by conducting a field experiment in a large online dating market. Fictitious profiles with manipulated levels of education and photo attractiveness send random invitations for a serious relationship to real online daters. We find that men and women prefer attractive over unattractive profiles, regardless of own attractiveness. We also find that high-educated men prefer low-educated over high-educated profiles as much as high-educated women prefer high-educated over low-educated profiles. With preferences similar for attractiveness but opposite for education, two groups are more likely to stay single: unattractive, low-educated men and unattractive, high-educated women.

我们通过在大型在线约会市场上进行实地实验来研究合作伙伴对教育和吸引力的偏好。具有受过良好控制的教育水平和照片吸引力的虚拟个人资料会随机邀请与真实的在线约会者建立认真的关系。我们发现，无论自己的吸引力如何，男人和女人都比没有吸引力的人更喜欢吸引力。我们还发现，高学历的男性更喜欢低学历而不是高学历，就像高学历的女性更喜欢高学历而不是低学历。由于吸引力的偏好相似，而教育的偏好相反，因此两组人更可能保持单身：没有吸引力的低学历男性和没有吸引力的高学历女性。