Drinking Alcohol Does Make The Opposite Sex Appear More Attractive to You
In the annals of alcoholic debate, there are two heavily academic theories about why, after a night at the bar, you would go home with a stranger whom you would, in any other situation, absolutely abhor.
kate a la mode
One theory holds that drinking loosens up your inhibitions, allowing you to be with the person you would be with if you weren't so shy.
The other, which is gaining traction this spring, says that alcohol really does help to make ugly people more attractive in your eyes:
Roehampton University researcher Lewis Halsey and two other academics found in a study submitted to the journal Addiction that alcohol can reduce your ability to perceive symmetry in prospective mates.
The researchers, of course, are relying on the idea that attractiveness is related to facial symmetry, which is a debatable if not widely held belief.
Anyway, Halsey and company examined 100 students and divided between drunk and sober.
Turns out that sober subjects could ID photos of symmetrical faces better. They also said that such pics were more attractive. The drunk kids not so much: They were more likely to go for asymmetrical mugs.
The research concludes that ...
... People who are alcohol-dosed are subtly less able to perceive vertical, bilateral asymmetry in faces, with gender being a possible moderating factor.
Interestingly, women had a stronger resistance to the beer goggles:
... Alcohol-dosed females were shown to demonstrate greater symmetry preference than alcohol-dosed males.
And this explains every free Long Island iced tea ever.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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