A drink of alcohol makes you more attractive, according to a study of college students. But the protocol and the conclusions have limits, underlines the British Health Service.
Is alcohol a beauty potion? This is what a study published in the March edition of the journal suggests. Alcohol and Alcoholism. She concludes that the same face appears more attractive after a drink than sober. In a specialized column, spotted by our colleagues from Slate, the British Health Service (NHS) points out the limitations that make this study unreliable.
The disinhibiting virtues of alcohol are well known. Work, carried out on 40 sober students, delivered more surprising results. The researchers presented the young people with 36 photographs. The “models” were photographed sober or after having consumed alcohol (one then two glasses). Depending on the amount ingested, faces appear more or less attractive. Thus, the face of a sober person is rated less well than that of a person who has drunk a glass of wine. But the result is the opposite if the model has had two drinks.
Many pitfalls
To conclude that alcohol makes you more attractive is an exaggeration, concludes the NHS in its column. The sample is small and only includes students. The research was carried out “under very artificial conditions”, and does not show a marked preference for people with alcohol. “Photographs of people who had a second drink were not considered as attractive as those who had not, and the apparent effect of alcohol on perceived attractiveness was only slight,” reads. on the NHS website. The authors’ conclusions therefore cannot be applied to the general population.
The British Health Service does not deprive itself of a spade aimed at researchers and funders, the European Research Advisory Board in mind: “It is perhaps true that a small quantity of alcohol helps someone relax, and therefore appear more affordable, but the need for a taxpayer-funded study to confirm this is questionable. “
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