BRISTOL, ENGLAND — When the ‘bots on Mystery Science Theater 3000 opined that “booze takes a dull party and makes it better,” they weren’t just telling a joke. Thanks to plenty of first-person experience and a band of English scientists, the truth about “beer goggles” can now be told.According to 84 heterosexual college students who worked with researchers at the University of Bristol in England, not only does drinking make members of the opposite sex appear more attractive, it does wonders for how people see members of their own sex, as well.
Fifteen minutes after imbibing either virgin beverages or drinks spiced up with as much vodka booze as equals a large glass of wine or pint-and-a-half of beer, research subjects were shown photos of 40 male and female college students.
Unsurprisingly enough to those with experience drinking, those who had imbibed in alcoholic beverages had a more charitable opinion about the appearance of those they gazed upon, while those still stone sober cut the models less slack.
Researcher and experimental psychologist Marcus Munafo reported “a roughly 10-percent increase in ratings of attractiveness,” observing that “there were no differences on those measures (related to mood) in the alcohol group compared to the no-alcohol group. This suggests that the effect we observed wasn’t due to a general change in mood.”
Adding to the surprise of researchers was the fact that it wasn’t just members of the opposite sex that began looking better after a few drinks. Munafo and colleagues opine that everything may look better under the influence of alcohol, but that in heterosexual situations rife with dating potential, “this might become targeted at opposite-sex faces.”
Future studies will focus on observing how subjects react to video clips featuring people at clubs and how they react to replicated social cues. In an attempt to determine whether “these effects are specific to faces or whether we would rate anything as more attractive after a drink,” as Munafo describes it, “totally non-sexual images will be presented, perhaps ranging from landscapes to lovable pets and other animals.
The goal, according to Munafo, will be “to see if alcohol has a more general effect on perceiving beauty in the environment.”
Additionally, researchers hope to better understand dangerous behaviors related to the ingestion of alcohol, including unsafe sex and violence. Given that the effects of intoxicants appear to become evident sooner rather than later, the information may help those “who are predisposed to such behaviors to anticipate those situations and prevent them,” as Munafo suggests optimistically.
The team’s findings were presented in the August 6th online version of Alcohol and Alcoholism.
