'Beer goggles' are real - it's official

[Richi]

'Beer goggles' are real - it's official
13 August 2008 | New Scientist



THE next time you hear someone blaming "beer goggles" for their behaviour, you may have to believe them. People really do appear more attractive when our perceptions are changed by drinking alcohol.

There have been few previous attempts to investigate the idea that people seem to find others more attractive when drunk. In 2003, psychologists at the University of Glasgow, UK, published a study in which they asked heterosexual students in campus bars and cafés whether they had been drinking, and then got them to rate photos of people for attractiveness. While the results supported the beer goggles theory, another explanation is that regular drinkers tend to have personality traits that mean they find people more attractive, whether or not they are under the influence of alcohol at the time.

To resolve the issue, a team of researchers led by Marcus Munafò at the University of Bristol in the UK conducted a controlled experiment. They randomly assigned 84 heterosexal students to consume either a non-alcoholic lime-flavoured drink or an alcoholic beverage with a similar flavour. The exact amount of alcohol varied according to the individual but was designed to have an effect equivalent to someone weighing 70 kilograms drinking 250 millitres of wine - enough to make some students tipsy. After 15 minutes, the students were shown pictures of people their own age, from both sexes.

Both men and women who had consumed alcohol rated the faces as being more attractive than did the controls (Alcohol and Alcoholism, DOI: 10.1093/alcalc/agn065). Surprisingly, the effect was not limited to the opposite sex - volunteers who had drunk alcohol also rated people from their own sex as more attractive.

This contrasts with the Glaswegian team's results, where there was only an effect when men were looking at pictures of women, and vice versa. One explanation, says Munafò, is that alcohol-boosted perceptions of attractiveness tend to become focused on potential sexual partners in environments conducive to sexual encounters. He aims to repeat the experiment after showing students a video of people flirting in a bar, to provide some appropriate social cues.

Munafò also intends to study how the effect varies with the amount of alcohol consumed - although ethical constraints rule out exploring doses at which our ability to focus on a face breaks down. "We can look at smaller doses and we can look at slightly higher doses," he says.

As well as changing perceptions of attractiveness, alcohol also encourages us to engage in behaviour we would otherwise avoid. In a study by Robert Leeman of Yale University students reported they were more likely to engage in risky sexual acts after drinking - which could be due to alcohol lowering our inhibitions through a direct effect on the brain or by providing a convenient excuse for such behaviour.

[Lethargy]

...

Good article, but WTF? The desire for empirical validation of this phenomenon makes perfect sense, yes, but does it really need it?

Maybe this study will provide the foundation to later look at the mechanisms behind the effect though?

[Richi]

That's what I assumed, that further research will deduce why and how this effects manifests in the first place.

[fiveleggedrat]

So wait, is Swim to believe the general public is unaware of the fact that alcohol is psychoactive, and causes intoxication?

[ShawnD]

Originally Posted by fiveleggedrat

So wait, is Swim to believe the general public is unaware of the fact that alcohol is psychoactive, and causes intoxication?

It's not psychoactive because it's not a drug


Neat article, but I'd like some kind of numbers, such as "65% of the pictures were sexually attractive to sober people, while 72% were attractive to drunk people."
It wouldn't be overly scientific, but it would at least give us a ballpark of what the results are.

[silenius]

for the archive...:

abstracts of and links to the original research paper:
* http://www.erowid.org/references/refs_view.php?ID=7360
* http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/addi/abstract.00008514-200308000-00009.htm;jsessionid=LsJR01hpGvk1LmW9B72XwtTg2mh42 W9bL6Lyc9vvm1hvnQnZFsTV!-1124491571!181195628!8091!-1

[cra$h]

I don't believe that the person physicly doesn't look better like the famous video of some nasty old lady slowly fading into britney spears (the younger, better looking one), but one's standards for attractiveness goes way down, and you're in it just to fuck around (no pun inteded)

[Xeon]

Originally Posted by cra$h

but one's standards for attractiveness goes way down, and you're in it just to fuck around