'Beer goggles' aren't real

Question

Alcohol doesn't make someone seem more attractive to the consumer, but increases the likelihood of them approaching someone they already find attractive.

Comments

This claim appears to be true. The guardian is a secure, trusted article. The information presented also makes sense but was backed up by a study. The beer goggles may not be real, but the alcohol itself makes people more confident to talk to those they find attractive. So its the social aspect rather than the blending together of physical attractiveness.

Answer 1

This claim from the Guardian article is true. Research from ScienceAlert, another credible organization, found that  alcohol doesn’t actually make others seem more attractive; however, it can boost people's confidence to approach someone they already find to be good-looking. In the study cited in the article, 36 male participants in their twenties engaged in two drinking sessions—one with alcoholic cocktails and another with mocktails. They rated the attractiveness of strangers in photos and videos, with the added context that these individuals might participate in a future study, making the evaluation more realistic. Each participant paired with a regular drinking buddy to recreate a real social drinking setting. The participants then rated the attractiveness of 16 different people during each of the two visits on a scale from 1 to 10, after consuming enough alcohol to reach a BAC of 0.08%. After rating the attractiveness of strangers, the men were asked to choose four people they would most like talk in future experiments. Analysis of the data revealed no correlation between the participants' perceptions of attractiveness and their level of intoxication. Thus, it can be said that alcohol doesn't make someone appear more attractive; it's more of a way to give its drinker a bit of "liquid-courage". 

Comments

Your answer to the claim makes the claim really true which I have investigated myself. With your evidence that you have given us, I would expand why these sources are credible and what makes them credible. You can add their expertise on the claim and where they got their information and what is their title in this claim. I would also included the links to the sources you have used so people can investigate on their own to make your claim credible. Why did you use ScienceAlert for their research? You did a great job on expanding on the research that they did and what the participants had to do for this research for the organization to make their claim.

Answer 2

This claim is true. The original source for the information linked in the original Guardian article is the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, and both authors of the study have respective PHD's in Psychology, and medicine leading me to trust the validity of the study. The study notes how there was no correlation between attractiveness ratings and blood alcohol content, but there is however a correlation between the attractiveness of individuals subjects would choose to approach and BAC. Subjects with a higher BAC choose a more attractive person (according to their own ratings) to approach than subjects without alcohol on average, meaning there isn't a difference in perceived attractiveness while intoxicated, but there is a difference in confidence when approaching others romantically while under the influence of alcohol.

Reference to the study: https://www.jsad.com/doi/epdf/10.15288/jsad.22-00355?role=tab

Answer 3

The claim that alcohol does not make someone appear more attractive is true. According to the Journal of Studies of Alcohol and Drugs, alcohol does not change your perception on someone's appearance, but instead increase the likelihood of someone approaching someone else while being under the influence. Often referred to as "liquid courage", there is a sense of an increase of confidence when under the influence, which allows for someone to put themselves in situations that their sober selves wouldn't typically be in. In one of the studies they ran, they had pairs of men were put in two different scenarios, one with alcohol and one without. In both scenarios, the men did not find the women more or less attractive after drinking, but there was a change in how much they interacted with people. They found that alcohol breaks down the introverted wall we have up, and allows for people to be more social. 

Source:

https://www.jsad.com/do/10.15288/jsad-FT.08.30.2023-23/full/

Answer 4

This claim is true. The term "beer goggles" is just a phrase someone made up. Alcohol doesn't make someone more attractive but what it can do according to the NIH and a mental health study is: make you feel relaxed, more confident, and slow down how your brain process information. all of these things can make it easier to talk to someone you find attractive. at the end of the day there drinking alcohol doesn't change they way someone looks, it just makes you feel good enough to talk to them. 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10052738/

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/alcohol-and-mental-health

Answer 5

The claim 'beer googles' aren't real is appearing true.The Guardian uses a research study done by Stanford, a reliable source due to it having respectable scientists who use true methods of research. The most recent study was done in 2023 which means it's pretty recent as we understand alcohol and its effects. This claims article uses multiple examples of fact checked research and direct professor and scientist quotes. The Stanford research explains alcohol doesn't make people appear more attractive but, "makes you more likely to approach people you already find attractive."(JSAD,1) This makes sense as A study done by the Journal of Neuroscience mentioned in this blog states that alcohol significantly reduces the amount of anxiety one may feel in social situations as well as if enough is drunk, losing your ability to detect environmental threats and forgetting about your insecurities. This applies to the social aspect of it being "easier" to approach people when intoxicated though agreeing with this claim, not finding someone you wouldn't sober, more attractive when under influence. 

Answer 6

The user posted the statement “Alcohol doesn't make someone seem more attractive to the consumer, but increases the likelihood of them approaching someone they already find attractive.” and linked an article by the guardian as proof. The Guardian is a credible source and has linked the study into their article, making it easy for readers to personally look into the study. The research study was conducted by Molly A. Bowdring, a professor at Stanford and Michael A Sayette, a professor at University of Pittsburgh. The study found that while alcohol does not increase the perception of a person's attractiveness it does increase the confidence a person has under the influence and their likelihood to interact with people they find attractive. Though Bowdring did find an opposite conclusion in 2008 where she found that alcohol increases a person's perception of attractiveness in opposite sex attraction but not same sex attraction. The Guardian does a good job at reporting this as well as the fact that other researchers believe that alcohol does increase the perception of attractiveness stating “Monk added that different methodological approaches may explain some of these mixed findings; to move on, the field needs larger studies to see if they can be replicated.” Overall, I believe that while the title “‘Beer goggles’ study finds alcohol does not make people seem better looking” is misleading. One because the term beer goggles as well as the picture of a man wearing beer goggles implies that beer goggles are included in the study when they are not. Instead the researchers gave some participants alcohol and others not and had them rank attractiveness and likelihood to approach on a computer. Though, the rest of the article does a good job on reporting the study and findings. In conclusion, I believe that the claim is true unless future research is able to disprove it. 

Additional Sources: Perception of physical attractiveness when consuming and not consuming alcohol: a meta‐analysis - Bowdring - 2018 - Addiction - Wiley Online Library

Answer 7

The claim is true, alcohol doesn't make people appear more attractive, it simply lowers inhibition and raises your confidence. According to multiple sources and the NIH, there is no such thing as "beer-goggles" as there is no legitimate change in how people rate attractiveness while they're drunk. The "beer-goggles" effect is more physiological than visual. 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10052738/

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/alcohol-and-mental-health

Answer 8

The claim that "beer goggles" aren't real may or may not be true, but cannot be supported solely by the study referenced within the claim. The study uses a group of 36 same-sex male friends, with 20 of them being white. No women or persons of other identification were included in the study, despite the article by The Guardian generalizing the study's results to all people. The fact that the participants were friends may also lead to similarities in results, and as the pool was predominantly white, it is again difficult to generalize the results to all people. The study does, however, reference the idea that alcohol will give people "liquid courage," which has been supported by other studies.

https://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsad.22-00355?role=tab&journalCode=jsad

While this study found that alcohol does not seem to affect attractiveness ratings, there are studies which argue that alcohol does increase attractiveness ratings. One of such studies was conducted in 2008 by the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol, detailing that 84 male and female participants were tested with male and female facial stimuli immediately following alcohol or placebo consumption, and 24 hours later. The study found that attractiveness ratings were higher in the alcohol group compared to the placebo group, for both same-sex and opposite-sex facial stimuli. These effects were also shown to have lasted 24 hours later in male participants rating opposite-sex faces.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18684808/

Another study conducted in 2014 at Southwest University in Chongqing, China supports the idea that alcohol lead to increased attractiveness ratings. This study was conducted with 103 male and female participants, randomly assigned to alcohol or placebo groups. Both were asked to assess the attractiveness of both faces and landscapes, with three levels of attractiveness, being high, moderate, and low. The study found that attractiveness ratings for moderate and low-attractiveness faces were significantly higher in the alcohol consumption group than the placebo group, and that high-attractiveness face stayed the same. For landscapes, only low-attractiveness stimuli were rated significantly higher by those who ingested alcohol compared to the placebo group. Researchers concluded that alcohol consumption tends to lead to increased attractiveness ratings for low-attractiveness stimuli, and this effect does extend past faces, but the effects of alcohol consumption on attractiveness ratings depends on the initial attractiveness of the stimuli.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24858916/

Despite this, there are also studies which, like the one referenced by The Guardian, argue that alcohol does not affect attractiveness ratings with convincing research. Thus, it is difficult to say whether the claim that "beer goggles" aren't real is true or false, and further research must be done.