Contact lenses increase pulling power
Samena Chaudhry Birmingham
Swapping glasses for contact lenses can dramatically increase success with the opposite sex, research on students who are short sighted in a nightclub has found (New Scientist, 1 Oct 2002).
The team, led by June McNicholas at the University of Warwick, took 38 male and female students aged between 18 and 25 to a nightclub in London and told them to "go and pull." The students were split into groups of those who wore their normal form of sight correction, those who swapped contact lenses for glasses, and those who swapped glasses for contact lenses just for that night.
The students were not told that eight monitors would be patrolling the club, attempting to corroborate their reported experiences. Most people who swapped to contact lenses reported increased self confidence; 75% of those who swapped to glasses reported feeling less confident. And feelings of increased "pulling power" and improved self confidence were found among wearers of contact lenses.
Overall, twice as many students wearing contact lenses reported pulling that night compared with those wearing glasses. And those wearing lenses instead of their usual glasses were three times more likely to report hugging, four times as likely to report kissing, and six times more likely to report fondling than when wearing their glasses.
The researchers say that this is only a preliminary study but believe it shows that choice of eyewear may have a significant impact on how attractive a person looks and feels.
 
But does it really make a difference?
There are probably also more fundamental explanations, according to McNicholas. "Anything that obscures our eyes is obscuring one very important method that we have of making social signals to each other. Girls getting ready to go out will emphasise their eyes with make up. But they can't do that if those glasses magnify their eyes, for example."
The apparently negative impact of glasses in a nightclub situation could be reversed in other forms of interaction, such as in a job interview, McNicholas notes.
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