Men who wear tops with large logos on them are perceived as less interested in committed relationships, and are more “cads than dads”, a new study has found.
The small study, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, attempted to see if there was a correlation between showy displays of wealth, like expensive clothes from luxury fashion brands, and attractiveness between the sexes.
Hundreds of students at the University of Michigan were shown two Ralph Lauren shirts, one with a large logo and another with a much smaller logo on it. The students were then asked a range of questions about what they thought about the person who would wear each of the tops and were then asked to rank their answers on a scale from zero to 100.
Participants thought that men who owned the large logo shirts would be more interested in brief sexual affairs and less interested in long-term, committed romantic relationships, compared with the men who owned the small logo shirts, explained the study’s author, evolutionary psychologist Daniel Kruger.
“Someone could interpret ‘brief sexual affair’ as cheating on one’s partner,” he told the Guardian, “we did not specify this but it is consistent with the general pattern of results.”
Kruger explained that the students rated men wearing the larger logo higher on characteristics like “flirts often”, “knowingly flirts with someone else’s partner” and “would date more than one person at a time”.
The study also found that the students believed men who wore the top with the smaller Ralph Lauren logo were more likely to want deeper intimacy.
“Smaller-logo men were perceived as safer bets for long-term relationships,” Kruger says. “These men were thought to be more stable and reliable, good with children and loyal partners.”
Kruger claimed the study had refined the understanding of men’s relationship between luxury clothing and their identity.
“Luxury brands have long been associated with status, though men may display luxury brands for different purposes,” he said. “Subtle displays may be related to more traditional social status and class, whereas showy displays may be flaunting cash that does not last. It is one way of distinguishing dads from cads.”
