As it turns out, rule 2 may be the more important of the two rules

Fugère, M. A., Chabot, C., Doucette, K., & Cousins, A. J. (2017). The importance of physical attractiveness to the mate choices of women and their mothers. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 3(3), 243-252.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-017-0092-x

Abstract

Prior research investigating the mate preferences of women and their parents reveals two important findings with regard to physical attractiveness. First, daughters more strongly value mate characteristics connoting genetic quality (such as physical attractiveness) than their parents. Second, both daughters and their parents report valuing characteristics other than physical attractiveness most strongly (e.g., ambition/industriousness, friendliness/kindness). However, the prior research relies solely on self-report to assess daughters’ and parents’ preferences. We assessed mate preferences among 61 daughter-mother pairs using an experimental design varying target men’s physical attractiveness and trait profiles. We tested four hypotheses investigating whether a minimum level of physical attractiveness was a necessity to both women and their mothers and whether physical attractiveness was a more important determinant of dating desirability than trait profiles. These hypotheses were supported. Women and their mothers were strongly influenced by the physical attractiveness of the target men and preferred the attractive and moderately attractive targets. Men with the most desirable personality profiles were rated more favorably than their counterparts only when they were at least moderately attractive. Unattractive men were never rated as more desirable partners for daughters, even when they possessed the most desirable trait profiles. We conclude that a minimum level of physical attractiveness is a necessity for both women and their mothers and that when women and their parents state that other traits are more important than physical attractiveness, they assume potential mates meet a minimally acceptable standard of physical attractiveness.

https://i.imgur.com/wKsVtsJ.png

https://i.imgur.com/0mRE1Ji.png

https://i.imgur.com/sGVwSIZ.png

Selected excerpts

For women, the squared semipartial correlations (sr^2) for attractiveness ratings versus personality ratings (Table 2, last column) indicate that at least twice as much of the variance in women’s dating desirability ratings was explained by attractiveness ratings versus personality ratings across all levels of physical attractiveness. However, [...] for mothers, personality ratings (rather than attractiveness ratings) more strongly correlated with dating desirability ratings for the attractive and moderately attractive targets, while the reverse was true for the unattractive target. Furthermore, although both attractiveness and personality ratings were significant predictors of dating desirability, personality ratings were stronger independent predictors of dating desirability ratings for mothers when rating both the attractive and moderately attractive targets, while the reverse was true for the unattractive target. For mothers’ ratings, the squared semipartial correlations (sr^2) for personality ratings explained 1.58 times more variance for the attractive target and 1.36 times more variance for the moderately attractive target. However, for the unattractive target, the squared semipartial correlations (sr^2) for attractiveness ratings explained 1.13 times more variance than the personality ratings, suggesting that avoiding unattractiveness is a necessity for both women and their mothers.

---

Methodology

Sample description

• 80 women (mean age 18 yo, range 15-29)
• 61 mothers (mean age 49, range 37-61)

Stimuli and Measures

• photographs obtained from previous research (a dissertation that's no longer available online, apparently)
• photos were of three different white men with brown hair and stubble, taken under standard lighting with neutral facial expressions, pretested among women to ensure they adequately represented "attractive", "moderately attractive" and "unattractive" categories (poor guy)
• personality trait descriptions similarly pretested to ensure reproducible ordering

Design

• Each man's photo was paired with one of the three trait profiles
• The resulting design is a 3 (physical attractiveness level, within subjects) × 6 (trait description condition and photograph pairing, between subjects; see Table 1 and Figure 1) × 2 (generation: women versus mothers) mixed design.
• Participants were asked the following questions: “how attractive do you find this person,” “how favorably do you rate his personal description,” and “how desirable would you find this person as a dating partner for [yourself/daughter]?” They responded on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all attractive, favorable, desirable) to 7 (very attractive, favorable, desirable).

Limitations (acknowledged by the authors)

An additional limitation concerns the fact that our personality characteristics were all positive. It seems intuitive that women’s and mothers’ perceptions of dating desirability would be more strongly impacted by personality favorability if some men were associated with unfavorable personality characteristics. Future research should explore whether physical unattractiveness or negative personality characteristics more strongly impact women’s and parents’ mate choices.

The selection of personality trait profiles in this study was based on prior studies indicating statistically significant ordering preferences based on the desirability of the traits sans an accompanying photo. Still, quite tame compared to a certain Ray Perr Tinder experiment.

Interestingly, it should also be noted that the lead author, Fugère, in a PsychologyToday blog post, highlighted other considerations that should be kept in mind when reading studies that report on the import of attractiveness assessments of strangers:

http://archive.is/cRkGW

Would you agree that a minimum level of physical attractiveness is a necessity? Or would you choose a mate for yourself who possessed the traits you most desired, no matter their looks? Your answer may depend upon how long you’ve known that potential mate: In our research, women didn’t know the men in the photographs at all; the only information they could ascertain involved their physical attractiveness (from the photographs), as well as the three listed personality traits accompanying their photographs. Other research suggests that as we get to know, like, and respect each other more, our attraction to others intensifies (Kniffin and Wilson, 2004). The longer we know one another, the less important physical attractiveness becomes to beginning and maintaining a long-term relationship (Hunt et al., 2015).

Fair caveats. Although, that's a very generous interpretation of the Hunt 2015 study, which really just showed women friendzoned ugly men for a period of time that was directly proportional to how below them they were in attractiveness. Fair interpretation of the Kniffin and Wilson 2004 study though, although there's an argument to be made about how generalizable that study is when it comes to actual sexual or romantic (as opposed to platonic) interest and dating desirability.

In any case, it's a reminder that stranger photo and speed dating studies are most appropriately applicable to online dating and, perhaps, cold approaching, and less so to courtship within a shared social circle or acquaintance network.