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Dear Science, You will never figure out attraction by putting people in a lab and asking them what they like. It's more complicated than that. You'll understand

• oasisbob 15y ago
  "It is important to remember that this study explored first-impressions of sexual attraction to images of the opposite sex," says Alec Beall, a UBC psychology graduate student and study co-author. "We were not asking participants if they thought these targets would make a good boyfriend or wife -- we wanted their gut reactions on carnal, sexual attraction."
  • extension 15y ago
    That is just grazing the surface of what is wrong with an experiment like this. For example: - people may react differently to photos than they do to real people - people may react differently in a lab than they do in a real life courting situation - people may lie about their attractions for unfathomable reasons - people may not even know what they are attracted to - the people in the photos can't necessarily fake emotions convincingly These kinds of issues confound most psychological experiments but you really can't dismiss them when it comes to sex.