The Myth of Beer Goggles?

A new study casts doubt on the idea that alcohol causes people to seem more attractive - the famous "beer goggles" effect. Psychologists Olivia Maynard and colleauges, of Bristol, UK, conducted an unusual "real world" experiment. Rather than doing their testing in the laboratory, they went into three Bristol pubs in the evening (5-11 pm) and recruited volunteers on the spot. With a total sample size of 311, it was a very large sample. Each participant was breathalyzed to estimate their blood alcohol level, and then asked to rate the attractiveness of a series of people via photographs. It turns out there's no correlation between breath alcohol (BrAC) and rated attractiveness.