Researchers from the University of Buffalo, the University of Texas at Austin, and California Lutheran University carried out a range of studies on 105 male participants. According to the study, “men’s attraction to certain traits in women can be directly affected by how realistic a romantic prospect their potential lover is”, the Independent reported.

In the hypothetical scenario, the guys didn’t have a problem imagining life with a smarter woman.

George Clooney may be happily coupled up with human rights lawyer Amal, but many men find a woman with brains a bit of a turn off, it seems.

Psychologists from the University of Texas, Austin, found that men gave different answers depending on whether they were rating a woman as attractive, or actually considering a date with her.

However, the trend was reversed in the second part of the test, where the men were given an intelligence test and then informed that they were about to actually meet a woman who had either performed better or worse than them on the same test. A 2013 report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, for example, found men experienced lower self-esteem in the face of the success of their wives or girlfriends. Just like before, the men were asked to gauge their initial impressions of the women and rate how attractive or desirable they found the women to be. The men who thought the women were smarter fell much less masculine when they were sitting by the smart ladies. Once done, their scores were read aloud, and the men were asked to move their chairs closer to the women they were paired with.

The authors say, ‘Feelings of diminished masculinity accounted for men’s decreased attraction toward women who outperformed them’.

Any man will tell you that they are attracted to intelligent women but, it turns, out that they are probably lying. However, they tend to feel threatened or intimidated by women who outsmart them.