When we’re talking, our hands talk too. According to a study published in PloS ONE, left-handed people tend to gesture with their left hand when talking about things they feel positive about and gesture with their right hand about negative things. For right-handed people it’s the opposite. People also tend to associate good things with the side of their dominant hand. When looking at a picture of space aliens, lefties thought those on the left were smarter, happier and more attractive. Righties preferred the aliens on the right. Apparently when we’re talking, our preferences are “at hand”.
Women’s preferences about clothing are affected by their hormones. In a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, pictures of men and women were shown to single women 18-27 years old before they shopped from a study-created website. Pictures of attractive men resulted in sexier clothing purchases – regardless of the women’s fertility. Pictures of attractive women affected purchases only if the women were ovulating and usually only if the study participants thought the pictures were of local women. Also, although half the women were in a committed relationship, relationship status didn’t affect shopping behavior – unconsciously taking the “i” out of committed.
Women also prefer men in red. In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, researchers showed young women photos of men. In some photos men were wearing articles of red clothing or standing in front of a red background. In other photos there was no red. Consistently the women were more attracted to men associated with red – and this was true whether the women were English, German, Chinese or American. Supposedly red makes men look more powerful and it’s the power that creates the attraction. – which gives new meaning to “seeing red”.
Men must see less red – as in stop signs and traffic lights – during summer because they have more car accidents in summer. A study by a British insurance company found in the past 5 years 25% of male drivers had at least 1 summertime crash or very near miss compared to 17% of female drivers. In 2009 men made 16.4% more insurance claims in summer than in any other season. Twenty-nine percent of these men admitted being distracted by women’s low-cut tops and short skirts. According to behavioral psychologists, men are more easily distracted because they’re more visually oriented – or maybe in summer they’re just more “shortsighted”.
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