There’s yet another twist in research news about drunkenness and the perception of beauty.
The 2013 Ig Nobel psychology prize was awarded to Laurent Bègue [FRANCE], Brad Bushman [USA, UK, the NETHERLANDS, POLAND], Oulmann Zerhouni [FRANCE], Baptiste Subra [FRANCE], and Medhi Ourabah [FRANCE], for confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive. (See: “‘Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder’: People Who Think They Are Drunk Also Think They Are Attractive,” British Journal of Psychology, epub May 15, 2012.)
Now, new research has identified a related phenomenon, a twist which could perhaps be described as ‘The Complementary Inverse Beer Goggles Effect’. A research team led by Professor Marcus Munafò MA(Oxon), MSc, PhD(Soton) who is Professor of Biological Psychology at the School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, UK, have attempted to find out whether drunken people might be rated as more attractive by others who are completely sober.
Their experimental research project discovered that although somewhat drunk people can indeed appear more attractive to others, the effect quite rapidly falls off if they drink much more. For those who wish to conduct their own research, note that the optimal dose for one to look one’s most attractive was found to be around 250 ml of wine (at 14% alcohol). See: Increased Facial Attractiveness Following Moderate, but not High, Alcohol Consumption (forthcoming in Alcohol and Alcoholism) Before embarking on any practical applications however, you might also want to check this 2012 paper: ‘The imbibing idiot bias: Consuming alcohol can be hazardous to your (perceived) intelligence’