REAL LIFE NEWS: BEER GOGGLES DO EXIST
by Hazed
A new study confirms what everybody knows: beer goggles really do exist. That is, people look more attractive after you’ve had a few drinks.
The University of Bristol’s Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group (which sounds like a fun place to work) conducted tests in their laboratory to check whether drinking alcohol changed people’s perceptions of what they find attractive.
Volunteers were given either an alcoholic drink or a non-alcoholic placebo and were then asked to look at pictures of 20 male faces, 20 female faces and 20 landscapes, and rate how attractive they considered them to be.
The alcohol group scored images from all three groups more highly than the placebo group. This confirms that beer goggles really are a thing – at least in laboratory conditions.
Now the team intends to run further tests in a less artificial environment – the local pub.
Researcher Olivia Maynard said: “It’s a bit of fun, but there is a serious message. If alcohol does change perceptions of attractiveness then that could be a factor in the kind of risky behaviour you see when people are drunk, such as unprotected sex.”
