Women’s shoe choices have always seemed like a pretty boring topic. Most days women wear flats or sneakers for comfort. On date night, to a party, or in a formal setting they might wear heels, although they can be pretty painful to walk in. As women usually wear heels in more formal situations, it begs the question, does it change the way people look at them? Researchers sought out to answer that question.

The researcher recruited 448 college students from the Northeastern United States. The participants were showed 2 silhouettes, a woman in heels and a woman in flats. They were then asked a variety of questions about the perceived attractiveness, femininity, health status, and more.

After conducting statistical analysis, the results showed the silhouette wearing heels was rated as being more feminine, more attractive, and of higher status than the silhouette wearing flats. However, there was no difference in perceived intelligence, and other personality variables between the two. Women rated the heels silhouette as having higher short and long-term mating potential than men did, rating both silhouettes about the same in that aspect. Men tended to rate the status of the heels silhouette higher than women did.

As the research was done only in the Northeastern United States with college students, more research would need to be done to broaden the demographics to increase the generalization of the results. It would be interesting to compare these results to one done in Japan, to look into the cultural difference in the perception of women in heels.

Original Article: https://www.psypost.org/2022/05/study-finds-women-in-high-heels-are-perceived-as-more-attractive-feminine-and-higher-status-63105
Study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921008357