Beer Goggles – They’re Not Just Urban Legends!

In what was easily one of the coolest experiments performed, researchers at an English University have proven the existence of beer goggles for the first time ever – finally giving you a valid excuse for waking up next to the creature from the Black Lagoon the morning after.

The researchers provided a group of college students with lime-flavored drinks – some virgin and the rest laced with vodka. After 15 minutes, the students were shown a series of pictures and asked to rate the people based on their attractiveness in the academic version of hot or not. On average, the students who drank rated the pictures 10% more attractive than the non-drinkers – that’s enough to raise someone out of the one-night stand category to might-call-the-next-day category.

While the existence of beer goggles has long been accepted in drinking circles, the researchers were also surprised to discover that the 10% increase in do-ability applied across the board – meaning heterosexual students also rated members of their gender higher than the non-drinkers.

Experimental psychologist Marcus Manufo, a professor at England’s University of Bristol, said the research would build a better picture of what happens when drinking – helping to decrease problem-drinking and even violence drinking. “Everyone knows about beer goggles,” he said. “But some of our results suggest that there's more going on than we might have thought.”

Manufo said researchers were already planning future studies to see just how widespread the increased attractiveness level is and if it applies to other behaviors as well. Sadly, they already have all the volunteers they need.