There is a persistent belief that, in making dating choices, men are more influenced by physical attractiveness and less influenced by personality characteristics of potential dates than are women. This study was designed to test whether this is true of college students. On the basis of pre-test ratings, a set of nine facial photographs and nine personality descriptions was selected for each sex to represent a wide range of physical and personal attractiveness. Subjects (27 male and 27 female volunteers) were asked to indicate on a seven-point scale how much interest they would have in setting up a "trial date" with each of nine potential partners (picture-description combinations). All possible pairings of the stimuli were used an equal number of times. Subjects also completed the Spence-Helmreich Attitudes Toward Women Scale. Analysis of variance indicated that the subjects' ratings of the potential dates were greatly influenced by the attractiveness of the photographs and of the personality descriptions. No sex differences in response to the photographs' attractiveness emerged, but males were less influenced by the attractiveness of the personality descriptions than were females. A marginally significant interaction suggested that subjects of both sexes with "liberal" scores on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale were more influenced by the photographs than were subjects with "conservative" scores. (Author)