Its authors—Mark D. Prokosch, Richard G. Coss, Joanna E. Scheib, and Shelley A. Blozis, from the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis-state in the abstract to their paper that, "Selecting a more intelligent mate often provides women with better access to resources and parental investment for offspring."

However, humans may have also evolved so that women look for intelligence in men in order to produce children that are physically superior-and, thus, use intelligence as a way to unconsciously determine the overall quality of her mate.

The California researchers studied the role of male intelligence with respect to the short-term and long-term preferences of women.

You see someone across a crowded room... and your heart flutters. Sure, to a certain extent, it's because you like what you see. But while we might think we have a mind of our own when judging how attractive someone is, a new study reveals that women are heavily influenced by the opinions of others.

To study this phenomenon, researchers at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland had female partners choose the more handsome out of pairs of male faces (the photos had been previously rated as being of equal attractiveness). Then, participants were shown a picture sequence in which each face was being looked at by another woman who was either smiling or appearing bored. When the initial test was repeated, the participants were more attracted to the faces that had been smiled at by others. This is called "mate choice copying" and is seen in many animal species such as guppies and finches.

The moral of the story: Ladies, the next time you go out on the town and your friend says, "Ooh, he's cute!" or "I don't know what you see in that guy," take your pal's opinion with a grain of salt and try to tune into your own instincts. Otherwise, you might end up pursuing - or missing - a match who's right for you.