A new study suggests that if you want to get yourself a long-term partner, you better be nice.

The study, which was published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that men perceive ‘nice’ women to be more feminine and sexually attractive, as well as being more worthy of a long-term relationship.

We’re a little bit sceptical about how they came to their conclusions though. In the experiment, they asked participants to divulge one negative, personal experience to a member of the opposite sex in three different scenarios. One simulation was face to face, while the other two were online. Photos of the chat partners were given to participants, but their responses were manipulated by researchers – and this is where we start to wonder….

In all three experiments, men preferred women who were more ‘responsive’ – and by ‘responsive’, they mean women who said things like “You must have gone through a very difficult time” in response to their negative story, instead of things like “Doesn’t sound so bad to me”.

Call us crazy, but is this not totally obvious? No one, man or woman, likes to have their feelings dismissed as being silly and unimportant.

Lead researcher, Gurit E. Birnbaum, said these results only relate to first encounters though:

“In such situations, people tend to rely on traditional norms of how men and women should behave. When people's behaviour fits with such expectations, they are perceived as more attractive.”

So after the first date, you can totally drop the act and be as ignorant as you like. Or you could just be polite all the time, like any normal human being!