Why you can’t put on ‘beer goggles’ – but you can pluck up Dutch courage

Previous studies have indicated that ‘beer goggles’ are a real thing. Photo / Getty Images

Previous studies have indicated that ‘goggles’ attractiveness effect is real, but new research suggests it is an urban myth.

A few stiff drinks are sometimes considered a necessity for nervous lonely hearts looking to find love, and can help liven up conversation.

But scientists have found that the phenomenon of “beer goggles” – where a person appears more attractive after a couple of glasses of alcohol – is nothing but an urban myth.

The US study found, however, that drinking makes people more gregarious, proving Dutch courage to be a real thing.

Research by the Stanford Prevention Research Centre found that a person is emboldened by alcohol and 71 per cent more willing to talk to someone attractive when drunk than sober.

Dr Molly Bowdring, a psychologist at Stanford and the study’s lead author, asked 18 pairs of young men to drink vodka in a lab, relaxing and drinking socially.

The friends were shown photos of women and ranked how attractive they found them, both before and after drinking. They were also asked how likely they would be to talk to the most attractive women in another future experiment.

Effort to mirror natural drinking experiences

Previous studies have indicated that “beer goggles” are a real thing, but Dr Bowdring’s experiment was more realistic than any that had been conducted before.

“Despite efforts to more closely mirror natural drinking experiences outside the lab, we did not find support for the ‘beer goggles’ effect in this study,” she told The Telegraph. “We did, however find support for ‘liquid courage’, such that people were more likely to select to interact with the most attractive people after consuming alcohol.”

Participants had to reach a 0.08 per cent blood alcohol level, the legal drink-drive limit in the US and UK, before giving the “drunk” ratings and picking the four most attractive people.

The scientists used a ratio of 0.8 grams of 100-proof vodka per kg of body weight and mixed the spirit with cranberry juice. The cocktail was carefully crafted in order to hit the 0.08 per cent blood-alcohol level.

“We adjust alcohol dosing to participants’ weights,” explained Dr Bowdring. “A 150lb (68kg) male received about five ounces, or just over three standard drinks, of vodka to consume evenly across 36 minutes.”

The findings showed that alcohol made people more likely to pursue an attractive individual. “Odds of selecting the top four attractive targets after consuming alcohol were 71 per cent times that after consuming no-alcohol control beverages,” the scientists wrote in a paper published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Dr Bowdring said she suspected that “as studies move closer to mirroring naturalistic drinking experiences – eg having real, immediate potential to interact with the people being perceived – we may more reliably observe both the ‘beer goggles’ and ‘liquid courage’ effects”.

The study involved only young men, but researchers expect its findings to also hold true for women.