The science of beer goggles

(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.