Scientists in England gave 84 heterosexual college students chilled lime-flavored drinks that were either non-alcoholic or given a dose of vodka equivalent in alcohol to a large glass of wine or a pint-and-a-half of beer.
After 15 minutes, the volunteers were shown photos of 40 other college students from both sexes. Both men and women who drank booze found these faces more attractive, "a roughly 10 percent increase in ratings of attractiveness," said researcher Marcus Munafo, an experimental psychologist at the University of Bristol in England.
The researchers also asked volunteers to rate their mood, "and there were no differences on those measures in the alcohol group compared to the no-alcohol group," Munafo added. "This suggests that the effect we observed wasn't due to a general change in mood."
The discovery that the effect is not specific to the opposite sex was surprising.
"It's also surprising to see this effect is happening at lower doses than you might think," Munafo said.
