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Attractive Women Make Men Temporarily Stupid
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Telegraph reports that men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive. This leads to speculation that men use up so much of their brain function or 'cognitive resources' trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks. Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived. Researchers recruited 40 male heterosexual students and had each one perform a standard memory test. The volunteers then spent seven minutes chatting to male or female members of the research team before repeating the test. The results showed that men were slower and less accurate after trying to impress the women. The more they fancied them, the worse their score."
It's not true love if you recover from it.
From TFSummary:
How about the even more simple explanation of just being distracted by the beautiful woman and imagining her naked with her legs wrapped around you is taking up all of your resources? "Trying to impress" doesn't need to come into it at all (and likely doesn't because usually having your mind so completely occupied that you become a dumbass doesn't really impress people), and seems like a stretch of a conclusion to come up with. Far more likely that thought of sex have simply completely taken over the brain and body, as they so often do..
Like the old joke says, men have a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to operate one at a time. ;)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Researchers recruited 40 male heterosexual students and had each one perform a standard memory test.
I have to wonder why the researchers didn't expand this theory to include homosexuals, bisexuals, or asexuals -- before publishing results claiming every man out there can be rendered temporarily stupid by an attractive woman. I smell a rat -- had they done this and the results turned out differently, they'd have to explain why this effect only happens to heterosexual men, or they'd have evidence of a neurological basis for attraction that isn't tied to gender. Neither conclusion would make them popular with the people funding the study. I don't know what this is, but it isn't science -- at least not the kind I grew up with.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Now there is a concrete argument for gender segregation of boys and girls in school.... I wonder how women react around rich men?
I could have told you that.
It's embarrassing is what it is, to be turned into a drooling moron and then realise later just how stupid you sounded.
Anecdote is not, nor ever will be, the singular of "data". Sure, everyone may know this. Sure, the outcome may seem obvious to everyone. However, it is not empirical fact until it is studied and established as such. How many common sense "truths" have turned out to be not so true when properly analyzed over the history of human scientific endeavor? In the case of this study, anecdote and assumption about human behavior has now become data, and can be used as such in psychology and sociology to continue to study and describe how and why we are the way we are.
Now that we have established the phenomenon (doot dooo do-do-doot) as data, perhaps we can look into the actual physiological mechanisms which control it.
I would think that above all else, the type of people who read a "news for nerds" site would appreciate research for research sake. :-/
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I used to get tongue-tied thinking I was unworthy of this gorgeous woman & becoming nervous & basically being an idiot. But now with advancing age I realize Beauty is only transitory. Today's "hottie" will probably be a "fatty" by the time she's 30 or 40 (see Pierce Brosnan's wife as an excellent example).*
In other words, they all get ugly eventually, just like me. So that gives me confidence.
*
* http://www.beforeandaftermarriage.com/celebrity/fat-keely-shaye-smith
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
CORRECTION: This story is worthless.
Another story: Men were given a huge meal of food they love. After eating, they did less well on tests.
Even more: Men were subjected to adversarial behavior from women who were being seductive, but had no interest in the men. The men responded with confusion, and later did less well on tests.
The story was done in the Netherlands. 'Nuff said.
And nobody cares. Seriously, what difference does it make?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
This explains why the average Slashdotter is so smart. They found the best solution to this problem: stay away from women, however beautiful they may be, altogether!
The next time someone gives you crap for living in voluntary solitary confinement in your mom's basement, at least you'll know you're making the smart choice.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Too bad I don't have any mod points. For a totally off comment and asshole statement like yours, a negative moderation is most definitely called for.
Maybe beautiful women just make the stupid psychological tests seem less important by comparison.
--Mizerai
I go to lots of conferences where supposedly there are lots of brilliant men. But, when I meet them, they are just as stupid as the rest of the guys.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
This is the same the other way around as well. Women will do crazy things when attracted to a male (i.e. put foil in my microwave or fall down when getting out of the car).
If you wait a few year , time will catch you, and men will start to be more and more intellectual beast. That is until they start to speak to your attractive daughter.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's just you. The thing to consider is that just about every one of those women has an ex-husband.
Besides, I like dogs and poodles have more personality than the average celebrity, you insensitive clod!
This study seems like a barely concealed reason to bring attractive women into the lab
Taking them along to meet with the grant committee would probably explain the funding.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Durrr... sorry to double comment on the same post, but I wanted to address this.
Some things count as so obvious as to not require scientific inquiry. Hot women give get males wood. You don't need
to publish this to claim it, end of story.
Yes, and for centuries it was so obvious that no scientific scrutiny was required that the sun went around the earth, not the other way around. It was also completely obvious that a heavier object would fall faster than a lighter object. It was also obvious that things would get cold because the cold of the surroundings would flow into them. It was also so obvious that time passes at a constant rate, regardless of our perceptions and reference frames. It was also so obvious that humans are the only organisms to experience emotion and pain.
Obviously there are a great many things that are so obvious as to not require scientific inquiry.
Point being, a great many things are so obvious. A great many of those obvious things also turn out to be correct in light of empirical data. However, we are not allowed to treat those scientifically and draw scientific conclusions from them until they are established as empirical data. This is one of the fundamental requirements for science, and I would think people on a "news for nerds" site would get that. Taking the obvious for granted as true is exactly the kind of mentality that brings about pseudoscience. Science requires empiricism, even for the bleedingly obvious.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Any male, twenty or over and somewhat attractive, who has ever had to spend time around high school girls can tell you that they get just as stupid around guys they think are hot.
uh... thing is, with girls, it's often an act. Women are much better at deception than men, and they're smart enough to know that stupidity is a turn on for guys... so their feigned stupidity fuels our stupidity, which lets them know it's working, and they can be even bolder in their feigned stupidity... it's a vicious feedback loop when it works right.
We'd be wise to consider the words of the great philosopher Steven Wright, who said, "I never really believe what women tell me."
The Admin and the Engineer
This viewpoint is shortsighted to the max. Yes, many women who "had it" in their younger years fail to uphold their appearance and lose that edge. So do men; in fact, they usually lose it faster. (Yeah...ever notice those 20-something guys that bulk up for the chicks? Those guys are usually fat and balding in their 30s.)
On the other hand, I've seen some people in their 30s or approaching 40s that look frozen at 25. Most of those folks are very attractive, but the dfference between them and their peers is that they knew that their bodies were something that needs maintenance to keep looking and working good.
And maintenance doesn't mean a small pizza pie at 8pm, followed by beer and TV. (That seems to be commonplace in my "college" town...which is really an extension of NYC.)
Yeees, I think like most of the desperate /. crowd you'd do anything, provided it's vaguely female :)
/hitches belt in a manly fashion.
Myself excluded, of course.
At a certain level of nerdiness, even attractive women fail to garner my interest. If I'm engrossed in a math problem, there's basically nothing that will distract me. I've received a lot of flack from my male friends over the years for this. I completely zone out and focus on the problem at hand. I am most definitely not a dual-core processor! Single core FTW.
"I know a lot of women who dumb themselves down..."
You suspect that it might happen. You have heard that women do it. But you don't witness it on a regular basis. It is an urban myth spread by intelligent women to make you believe that they (or their gender) are more intelligent than they appear to be. Some desperate men go along with it because they believe that it will curry favour with those few women who might consider them as a mate.
Don't be a mug.
Are you joking? You don't find that process incredible? What's a good piece of music? Just waves transmitted through the air? What's the DNA? Just arrangements of atoms? The Princess Bride? Just a sequence of words? Or perhaps I should ask you whether a wood is just a bunch of trees. You seriously need to re-consider what the word "just" means.
I'd ask you what your criteria for judging something's value is as "natural drugs to make you feel like it's way more than it is" implies how you feel about something is not a valid method of assessing how important something is to you. Except that the natural alternative criteria is intellectual analysis and I don't think you've intellectually considered the perpetuation of the species via the incredibly complex yet elegant combination and multiplication of the DNA of separate organisms into new growing and developing organisms if you dismiss it as 'nothing very special'.
And incidentally, you're not talking about "love". Your example actually defines "lust".
You should think more about what you're describing. The whole process ROCKS!
Regards,
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The researchers forgot one simple fact: Women always do the choosing. Which is why men say thy got lucky. They got lucky since they were picked.