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Pretty Women Scramble Men's Sense Of The Future
Adam_Trask writes "Psychologists in Canada have finally proved what women have long suspected - men really are irrational enough to risk entire kingdoms to catch sight of a beautiful face." The methodology is not air-tight, but how many scientists figure out a way to use Am I Hot or Not at work? See also "Women Live Longer Because Men Are Dumb."
Firstly: "Psychologists in Canada" + "The methodology is not air-tight" = verifiably-true???!?!?!
"But we hypothesise that viewing pictures of pretty women was mildly arousing"
Duh! Thats what the internet was invented for...
"If there's the prospect of getting a very [strike]attractive[/strike] rich partner it may pay a man to take more risks than if an average partner was available."
Thats better...
"If you are less attractive, with few potential partners, then it pays to take risks"
I.e, go for the cute ones! Nice...thats where I am going wrong...lol
Is it a boat?
Isn't this just millions of years of evolution at play? The only reason we are all here today is because our ancestors were successful in finding a mate and passing on their genetic information... and we simply are the product of that evolutionary background.
The fact that both males and females were tested, and only males showed this behaviour tends to confirm this. For reproduction, females must spend far, far more resources than males do (as my old ecology prof used to say, 'sperm are cheap'). They can therefore afford to be more selective when it comes to mates. Males, on the other hand, aren't assured of passing down their genes, thus the evolution of such behaviour.
I don't know if scientists have a name for this most delicious of male irrationalities, but I like to call it the Jerry Springer Phenomenon.
In other news today, the Earth has been reported to be round!
What are those? Whats this pretty? Is it like a simple command line or like a Gui..
My wife is a sales associate at a small electronic retail store full of insanely high-priced gadgets. The people she works with are average looking while she is quite stunning. Her sales are more than three times the next highest sales associate. I once witnessed her sell two high end IPaqs and a Tablet PC to the same guy who didn't even know what he was going to do with them.
Until this article I wasn't sure if it was her beauty, or some Jedi mind trick. Now I know.
I would have found it much more interesting
if the study had included the impact of exposure
to statistically attractive males and females
to both male and female subjects.
Clearly the interest of advertisers lies in
gaining a favorable irrational reaction.
But I notice that advertising geared toward
women generally includes images of attractive
females, not of attractive males. Thus I
think the negative results obtained by
exposing females subjects to statistically
attractive males is unsurprising.
I found the reasoning of the sociobiologist
interviewed in New Scientist to be facile.
If this study had been done 50 years ago,
they would have interviewed a psychoanalyst
and obtained a similarly affected "expert"
deep analysis.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
if they'd get the same results if they tested gay men (with the appropriate pictures). Or if they showed pictures of attractive men to straight men.
It would be interesting to see if this breaks down on gender lines or sexual preference lines.
The news item title sounds like a description of the "plot complication" in "Back to the Future III" where Doc Brown meets the schoolteacher.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Women have been exploiting this built-in feature in men for years!
Unfortunately there are no vendor patches available at the time beign. A temporary fix is not to have any contact with these 'women' (this should not be a problem for usual /. reader)!
NOTE: Even pr0n should be avoided while doing important decisions.
Knowing these facts helps preventing such exploitaition in the future.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
"Pretty Women Scramble Men's Sense Of The Future"
No where is this more apparent than comparing the work of Noastramus before, and after, he met the fetching Marie Rocque on a trip to Nice.
Previous to this, his qautraines were known for their poetic quality and predictive power.
After Cupid's arrow struck him, his writings were reduced to doggerell of no predictive ability, such as "Purple space alien destroy Russia in 1983", "Small Bears of Shicageau Win World Series 2001", "Cylons Led by Picard Destroy Babylon 4 in 2525", and "Matrix III Better than Matrix I".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Women, by contrast, made equally rational decisions whether they had been shown pictures of handsome men or those of average attractiveness.
Perhaps this is because women tend to be less aroused by visual stimuli than men are.
No I don't have a source for this except for anecdotal evidence, but that anecdotal evidence is rather persuasive. Visual porn is overwhelmingly designed with the male (gay and straight alike) in mind, while tactile stimuli (sex toys, vibrators, etc.) are marketed primarily to females. I don't think this is by accident.
Perhaps if the women were asked to make those rational decisions while being massaged by a skilled masseur, their decision-making ability would be found to be impaired in a similar way to the males' impairment when confronted with visuals of attractive women.
How 'bout it, researchers? Design me a study!
That's really easy. Beer often helps you get sex. Marketers and consumers know this, so their commercials are "hey drink this, get laid".
I would venture to say that the number of times someone has gotten laid because of their computer components is around 10. And 6 of those were probably Steve Jobs.