We all know about the beer goggles effect: how a few-too-many drinks (and an inner keg of desperation) can transform the homeliest of strangers into a prime candidate for vomit-free sexual intercourse (for a few hours at least). But according to a group of researchers in the Journal of Individual Differences, the beer goggles effect may also work in reverse—making the wearer more attractive to him or herself. In layman's terms, this is also known as Buffalo Bill syndrome.
Researchers asked 19 people in a French bar to rate their own attractiveness and blow into a breathalyzer. The drunker ones apparently believed themselves more fit to start aggressively putting the moves on someone. But these researchers didn't stop there in the pursuit of scientific breakthroughs: they also set up another experiment where they gave some participants an alcoholic minty lemon drink and others a non-alcoholic "placebo." All the participants, however, were told they were drinking an alcoholic beverage.
After a short break to let the real and imagined alcohol take effect, researchers told the 86 young men that they were making an "advertisement" for the drink. They videotaped them talking about the drink and then played the tapes back to the participants. Once again, the ones who thought they were drunk—whether they actually were or not—believed that their image on the video was more attractive. Now, exactly how a dude believes he's drunk when he's stone cold sober is a mystery for future scientists to unravel.
