Study Claims Pretty Women Pose Health Risks
A study out of the University of Valencia claims that beautiful women can actually be a threat to the health of men. According to researchers, being in the presence of an attractive female can cause a spike in cortisol levels comparable to what would be expected in extremely stressful situations like jumping out of an airplane. Cortisol is often referred to as the stress hormone, as its secretion is activated by stressful situations.
The study involved 84 male students who were asked to sit in a room and solve a Sudoku puzzle in the presence of two strangers, one male and one female. When left alone with the female, the participants experienced greater increase in levels of cortisol in their saliva. However, being left alone with the male stranger did not produce the same effects.
“For most men, the presence of an attractive woman may induce the perception that there is an opportunity for courtship," the researchers explain. "This study showed that male cortisol levels increased after exposure to a five-minute, short social contact with a young attractive woman. It provides evidence that interpersonal interaction can influence the secretion of cortisol.”
However, these short-term increases in cortisol levels will not necessarily result in adverse health implications and this study did not address the socio-cultural influences that shape gender relations and interactions between men and women. And though men have been shown to put themselves at risk to impress beautiful women, other researchers claim that staring at women can actually promote longevity.
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stress hormones
It took a study to figure out that women cause men stress and that the men will get ideas about a hot chick in the room... lol.
Only a man who knows no women would think to do a study like that.
Any normal man could have told you all that.
Hot women = sexual thoughts
Hot woman = stress
Seeing the strange in the familiar
As a sociologist, I think that studies like this are absolutely necessary. So many of the things "we just know" turn out to have no basis in anything empirical.
Inferno's comment also brings up something else: I'm kind of disappointed they did not attempt to determine if a similar effect occurred with gay men and attractive males (or with women as the subjects, or any of the other variations). What about those who self-identify as asexual or genderqueer?
I'd also be interested in seeing how they determined if a woman was "attractive" without risking pretesting bias.
Pretty Women
This effect should be studied in the presence of ugly women as well, then see if there are any difference. I would also be interested in seeing a study that measures the effect of a woman's presence when she is wearing a burkha. I don't mean this in any way to be disrepectful toward other cultures, but I wonder if the practice of covering women from head to toe is somehow related to differences in cortisol sensitivites among different social groups.
I suspect that the effect under study is not merely visual. I would like to see another study exposing the subjects to women at different stages of their reproductive cycles, wearing or not wearing scents, showered and unshowered.