Men, do smart women threaten your masculinity? A new study suggests they might — and that you might not want to date them because of it.

While men say they like the idea of dating a woman who’s smarter than they are, when it comes time to meet her, they’re less keen on the brainy lady, a study that will be published in the November journal “Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin” reveals.

In the first part of the study, researchers had 105 male participants read a hypothetical scenario about a woman who, among other traits, had either outperformed the male subject or underperformed him in a math or English course; the men were then asked to imagine how desirable that person might be as a romantic partner.

In this scenario, “men formed favorable impressions and showed greater interest in women who displayed more (versus less) intelligence than themselves.” (Research out this year supports the notion that men say intelligence is very important to them in a romantic partner.)

But in the second part of the study — where the men were told they would meet a woman in person — a woman’s intelligence worked against her. The participants took what they thought was an intelligence test, and were told that they would soon be meeting someone who had either scored better or worse than them on the test.

Faced with actually meeting a female who was smarter than they were, the men “distanced themselves more from her, tended to rate her as less attractive, and showed less desire to exchange contact information or plan a date with her,” the study revealed. (Similarly, a study published in the “Quarterly Journal of Economics,” which looked at people who were speed dating, found that “men do not value women’s intelligence or ambition when it exceeds their own,” though in this case it was ambition that significantly turned them off from a woman.)

Put simply: In a hypothetical scenario (one in which the man will never meet the woman), men showed greater attraction toward a woman who was smarter than them, but when they are faced with actually meeting a more intelligent woman, they showed less attraction and desire to date her.

The reason, the researchers conclude, has to do with threats to masculinity (which are far more acute when the man actually has to meet the woman versus when this woman is merely a hypothetical concept). “Feelings of diminished masculinity accounted for men’s decreased attraction toward women who outperformed them in the live interaction context,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers (as they often do in these kinds of studies) cautioned that more research was needed to further confirm that conclusion. And, of course, this preference for less-intelligent women in real life could be due to other factors. As the authors in the study published in “Quarterly Journal of Economics” note, “men’s avoidance of more intelligent or ambitious women could be due to fear of rejection by these higher quality women.”

Plenty of men aren’t threatened by a woman’s intelligence, and this study didn’t look at what would happen if a man was in a relationship with a woman more intelligent than he was.

MarketWatch asked psychologists about how men can overcome bias (if they have it) against smart women.

First, “remember that each of you has many positive attributes,” says psychologist Elizabeth Lombardo, author of Better Than Perfect: 7 Strategies to Crush your Inner Critic and Create a Life You Love. “Focus on appreciating her strengths, including her intelligence [and] stop comparing yourself to her.” Furthermore, you should “realize that this is an issue with your own self-esteem, not the fact that she is smart.”

Psychology professor Lora Park, one of the co-authors of the study, says that men who are threatened by a woman’s intelligence may want to improve their own performance in the future (in other words, work on boosting their intelligence) or “focus on other areas of your self-concept that may be important to you.” Lombardo agrees: “Take steps to boost your self-worth by focusing on your own values, strengths and contributions to others.”