Source: GWI Zeitgeist (full disclosure, I work for GWI, sharing this in a personal capacity)
This is based on global survey data.
[deleted] on
[deleted]
ToSAhri on
Of all the traits, the one that the largest % of men feel women should posses is caring.
Of all the traits, the one that the largest % of women feel men should posses is caring.
Kind of neat.
lordnacho666 on
It’s incredible how much agreement there is. None of the lines are longer than about 20%, and most of them look more or less the same.
Bapepsi on
Curious: What is the selection of character traits based on?
Weird_Devil on
I think it would be more beautiful if the qualities weren’t sorted by alphabetical order. Making it by difference from male higher to female higher or vice versa would’ve made it so much more readable.
KR1735 on
Funny how “dominant” is the lowest, and yet we live in a culture where young men gravitate towards people feeding them lies about being an “alpha.”
Historians will look back on this phenomenon as a mass delusion.
michigan_matt on
I’m really curious to see how the question was asked and framed. Was this a “pick the top 5” type ask?
If it was a simple “yes/no” for each trait, that implies “39% of men and women don’t desire a woman to be caring.” And I find it very hard to believe you would find anybody saying that.
Halfwise2 on
With no counter traits, some people will just check all the boxes. Which says a lot more about them than their preferred partners, imo.
I think a scale would have been better, with each trait paired with its opposite counterpart, and you place a point on a sliding scale.
chloralhydrat on
… this is quite crazy, when you compare what traits women think men should possess vs. what traits they think that they should possess:
Women think that:
women should be more ambitious than men
women should be more brave than men
women should be (much) more independent than men
women should be more reserved than men
women should be more strong than men
also that: W/M should be equally caring and dominant.
on the other hand that men should be (much) more a provider.
I wonder if these data are accurate, but if so… then I wonder if the women answering these questions really see no problem here.
Mooks79 on
What people say they want is often very different from what they actually choose.
efficient_slacker on
The one trait they left out was honesty
RichyRoo2002 on
What people choose in a partner is very different from this survey. Look at actions, not words
dranaei on
The researchers forgot to add the following
“It is what it is”
“Relax more”
conventionistG on
Seems that in most cases that it is women placing more pressure on themselves and men than the men. Am I reading it right?
DM_me_goth_tiddies on
lol so women just expect more from men and of themselves and men are just chilling, no standards and no expectations?
LtHughMann on
So generally women have bigger expectations of both men and women than men do
srphotos on
This is awesome, but it would be really cool if you could get both sets of scores on the same figure to make it easier to compare what the survey showed for “about men” vs “about women”.
TheUnEven on
It seems like women in general expect more from both men and women than men expect from themselves and women.
Zero-tldr on
Is there a link to the studie to see the set-up of the study?
kitsunevremya on
Interesting that women rate most of the traits higher than men across both. Women have higher expectations of people in general than men do, I suppose?
Inversalis on
Interesting how women have more ‘wants’ for both genders, whilst men seem to generally have lower expectations across the spectrum for both genders except in a few cases.
gpranav25 on
Some of the words seem ambiguous. For example what does “emotional” mean? If it means having a high EQ, then heck yeah. If it means getting emotional even more small things, then not so sure about that.
Money_Director_90210 on
What they say and what they actually respond to are very different.
ThiccStorms on
It’s so hard to decipher for my dumb brain
Kat_Calligrapher_883 on
People don’t know what they want or all people in relationship would be full of nice guys
BeastyGRae2 on
If I’m interpreting this right, both charts show that in general men have lower standards for their partner.
GodSpider on
Interesting that dominant was basically exactly the same on both men and women for both
Lex_Orandi on
The mutual lack of importance placed on resilience is alarming. Ambition and confidence without resilience is just delusion.
sOrdinary917 on
Conclusion: women are more demanding?
Sbrubbles on
The most interesting thing to me is how in both cases the blue dot is usually to the left. The key takeaway being that men expect less than women from both other men and other women.
Perhaps men just care less overall.
mrwho995 on
I think I’d be more interested to split opinions by gender and see separately what each sex desire among themselves and the other sex. Flipping back and forth I think that women seem to have less gendered expectations than men? But hard to tell, might be wrong.
misterjefe83 on
This reminds me of the study, not super scientific mind you, that okcupid did where people did all kinds of self reporting then literally messaged people who were the opposite of that lmao. The funniest part was women who on the whole rated dudes as uglier on average then went out and messaged those guys the most bc they felt didn’t have a chance with the “hot guys” or something. Basically in dating self reporting is kind of bullshit.
SanSilver on
Looks like women just want more.
mrwho995 on
This is one of those rare times where I think a gif could actually be useful here. Keep the two images of course, but then as a third, you have a gif of one fading to the other. I struggle tracking the changes flipping between the two, probably partially because of the scrolling animation Reddit adds, but a gif would do that very cleanly.
![[OC] The traits men and women most desire in each other (and themselves)](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/qdkkgvoq627f1-1024x1024.png "[OC] The traits men and women most desire in each other (and themselves)")
35 Comments
Tools used: Datylon
Source: GWI Zeitgeist (full disclosure, I work for GWI, sharing this in a personal capacity)
This is based on global survey data.
[deleted]
Of all the traits, the one that the largest % of men feel women should posses is caring.
Of all the traits, the one that the largest % of women feel men should posses is caring.
Kind of neat.
It’s incredible how much agreement there is. None of the lines are longer than about 20%, and most of them look more or less the same.
Curious: What is the selection of character traits based on?
I think it would be more beautiful if the qualities weren’t sorted by alphabetical order. Making it by difference from male higher to female higher or vice versa would’ve made it so much more readable.
Funny how “dominant” is the lowest, and yet we live in a culture where young men gravitate towards people feeding them lies about being an “alpha.”
Historians will look back on this phenomenon as a mass delusion.
I’m really curious to see how the question was asked and framed. Was this a “pick the top 5” type ask?
If it was a simple “yes/no” for each trait, that implies “39% of men and women don’t desire a woman to be caring.” And I find it very hard to believe you would find anybody saying that.
With no counter traits, some people will just check all the boxes. Which says a lot more about them than their preferred partners, imo.
I think a scale would have been better, with each trait paired with its opposite counterpart, and you place a point on a sliding scale.
… this is quite crazy, when you compare what traits women think men should possess vs. what traits they think that they should possess:
Women think that:
women should be more ambitious than men
women should be more brave than men
women should be (much) more independent than men
women should be more reserved than men
women should be more strong than men
also that: W/M should be equally caring and dominant.
on the other hand that men should be (much) more a provider.
I wonder if these data are accurate, but if so… then I wonder if the women answering these questions really see no problem here.
What people say they want is often very different from what they actually choose.
The one trait they left out was honesty
What people choose in a partner is very different from this survey. Look at actions, not words
The researchers forgot to add the following
“It is what it is”
“Relax more”
Seems that in most cases that it is women placing more pressure on themselves and men than the men. Am I reading it right?
lol so women just expect more from men and of themselves and men are just chilling, no standards and no expectations?
So generally women have bigger expectations of both men and women than men do
This is awesome, but it would be really cool if you could get both sets of scores on the same figure to make it easier to compare what the survey showed for “about men” vs “about women”.
It seems like women in general expect more from both men and women than men expect from themselves and women.
Is there a link to the studie to see the set-up of the study?
Interesting that women rate most of the traits higher than men across both. Women have higher expectations of people in general than men do, I suppose?
Interesting how women have more ‘wants’ for both genders, whilst men seem to generally have lower expectations across the spectrum for both genders except in a few cases.
Some of the words seem ambiguous. For example what does “emotional” mean? If it means having a high EQ, then heck yeah. If it means getting emotional even more small things, then not so sure about that.
What they say and what they actually respond to are very different.
It’s so hard to decipher for my dumb brain
People don’t know what they want or all people in relationship would be full of nice guys
If I’m interpreting this right, both charts show that in general men have lower standards for their partner.
Interesting that dominant was basically exactly the same on both men and women for both
The mutual lack of importance placed on resilience is alarming. Ambition and confidence without resilience is just delusion.
Conclusion: women are more demanding?
The most interesting thing to me is how in both cases the blue dot is usually to the left. The key takeaway being that men expect less than women from both other men and other women.
Perhaps men just care less overall.
I think I’d be more interested to split opinions by gender and see separately what each sex desire among themselves and the other sex. Flipping back and forth I think that women seem to have less gendered expectations than men? But hard to tell, might be wrong.
This reminds me of the study, not super scientific mind you, that okcupid did where people did all kinds of self reporting then literally messaged people who were the opposite of that lmao. The funniest part was women who on the whole rated dudes as uglier on average then went out and messaged those guys the most bc they felt didn’t have a chance with the “hot guys” or something. Basically in dating self reporting is kind of bullshit.
Looks like women just want more.
This is one of those rare times where I think a gif could actually be useful here. Keep the two images of course, but then as a third, you have a gif of one fading to the other. I struggle tracking the changes flipping between the two, probably partially because of the scrolling animation Reddit adds, but a gif would do that very cleanly.