One Drink = Looking Good. Two? Not so Much

March 9, 2015 – Message to party animals:  One drink and you look good.  Make it two and you are an unattractive mess.  That’s according to experiments conducted by the University of Bristol in the U.K. and reported in the Alcohol and Alcoholism journal.

Forty noble students volunteered to get a bit tipsy.  They were photographed sober then after one drink and again after a second drink.  A second group of sober students then rated the photos based on a sober photo compared with the person after one drink or a photo of a sober person against their photo after two drinks.

Photos of participants who had one drink were rated more favorably than their sober photo.  But for participants who had had two drinks, it was their sober photo that was judged more attractive.

So what makes the difference?  It could be that the photo after one drink showed pupil dilation, which is perceived as attractive, and the facial muscles may be more relaxed.  Or maybe rosy cheeks look happy and healthy.

Other research shows that people who have a drink see other people as more attractive.  So had the students rating the photos had a drink themselves, the results might have skewed differently.

It’s all pretty obvious and you have to wonder why researchers think their observations are so ground breaking, but no doubt the volunteers really enjoyed the project.