In addition, drinking alcoholic beer made it easier for participants to view explicit sexual images, and the effect was greater for women than for men.
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The researchers found that drinking beer had no effect on levels of the hormone oxytocin, which is thought to act as a “social lubricant” and assist bonding between individuals.
In the study, participants who drank alcoholic beer were able to recognise happy faces more quickly.
The team from University Hospital Basel in Switzerland tested 60 healthy people drinking alcoholic and non-alcoholic beer. The volunteers were randomly assigned to either drink a small glass of alcoholic beer or a non-alcoholic beer. (The amount was proportional to their body size.) The others quaffed a nonalcoholic brew.
“Alcohol facilitated the recognition of happy faces on the FERT [face emotion recognition] and enhanced emotional empathy for positive stimuli on the MET [multifaceted empathy test]”. After completion of the tests, the subjects and controls switched their roles and repeated the process.
This study appears to be scientific proof for the fact that beer goggles do exist, and people really do appear to be more attractive after a few drinks.
Professor Wim van den Brink, from the University of Amsterdam, former chairman of the ECNP Scientific Programme Committee, said: “This is an interesting study confirming conventional wisdom that alcohol is a social lubricant and that moderate use of alcohol makes people happier, more social and less inhibited when it comes to sexual engagement”. This was especially marked in women and in those who had been more inhibited socially, the findings showed.
Further, the alcoholic beer also enhanced participants’ emotional empathy, particularly in those with lower levels of initial empathy.
But the researchers made one important distinction: Although the ladies who lager were not as offended by the sexual images as their sober sisters, the drinkers were not more sexually aroused, either.
The findings, being presented at a conference, attempt to overcome a lack of evidence about alcohol’s effect on sexual arousal and how we relate to others after we’ve imbibed a drink or two.
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“These effects of alcohol on social cognition likely enhance sociability”.
