Hi,
The dynamic system which swaps the details of the product based on the selected variant can only work on the product page. having it on the listing will require a complete overwrite of the system (we actually plan on working on that this year or next).
So on a listing, you can have the characteristic dropdowns.
Now, if you just want a dropdown selector for the products on the listings, you can instead create a custom field of the table "item" and of the type "dropdown". Custom item fields can display on the listings. However, they can't change the price of the product, or have a stock management per variant, etc, so it might not suit your needs in that regard.