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Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to Marcus Munafo, a behavioral psychologist at the University of Bristol in the UK about a new study showing that drinking a glass of beer or wine really does make the person across from you seem more attractive.
(What’s your study about?) We took some social drinkers and brought them into the lab and we randomly gave them a beverage, some of which were alcoholic and some of which weren’t. we then asked them to rate the attractiveness of males and females. We then saw how even a small amount of alcohol has an affect on how people find someone attractive. (So what happened?) We found that when people had a drink they found others more attractive. A couple interesting things: the amount of alcohol we gave people was modest, about a pint and a half of beer. So the effect occurred even at relatively low amounts of alcohol. The second this is everyone was rated as more attractive: men rated other men even as more attractive. (The effect also lasted longer in men?) That’s right. On a second day, when people were sober, we asked them to re-rate subjects, and in those cases, amongst men only, they continued to rate female faces as more attractive. (How come you decided to do this study?) This is part of a broader research program where we’re studying the result of alcohol on our mental processing.