Those beer goggles really work

Beer goggles – the pithy metaphor for the idea that drunk people tend to find others more attractive – could actually have some scientific validity.

Beer goggles – the pithy metaphor for the idea that drunk people tend to find others more attractive – could actually have some scientific validity.

New Scientist reports that University of Bristol scientists have tested the beer goggle theory by randomly administering alcohol or a similar tasting placebo beverage to 84 students.

The students were then shown photos of people and asked to rate them for attractiveness. The result? The students given the booze where overwhelmingly more inclined to rate the people in the pictures as attractive than those that imbibed the non-alcoholic beverage.

The finding held whether the students were looking at people of the same or opposite sex, even though the students tested had self-reported as heterosexual.

The researchers want to do further tests to see how different amounts of alcohol affect the beer goggle phenomenon, but there is one big hitch; ethical rules prevent the scientists getting their subjects absolutely walloped.

Read more about alcohol issues