Women who looked at a man surrounded by red or white rated the man surrounded by red a little over one point higher on a nine-point scale of attractiveness, a statistically significant bump.
Another experiment featured a man in a color photo, dressed in either a red or a green shirt. A pool of 55 women rated the man in red as significantly more attractive — on average, nearly one point higher on the same nine-point scale. They also thought he was more desirable, according to a second, five-item measure that asked viewers to rate, for example, the likelihood that they’d want to have sex with him.
Although red means different things in different cultures, the finding of women (but not men) drawn to men in red was consistent across countries.
And it’s true about red power ties: Women in a follow-up study perceived men wearing red T-shirts to be significantly more likely to be high in status than men wearing blue T-shirts, in addition to the men in red seeming more generally and sexually attractive. Five smaller studies (20-38 participants) comparing women’s responses to men in red or gray, including their sense of the men’s status, established a chain of evidence that red may enhance sexual attractiveness because red is a status symbol, according to the authors.
The power of red holds throughout the primate world. Female primates (including women) are “extremely adept at detecting and decoding blood flow changes in the face,” the authors wrote, “and women have been shown to be more sensitive to the perception of red stimuli than are men.”
Are men aware that red may work in the bedroom as well as the boardroom? The authors suggest red might make men more likely to strut their stuff. “A man who wears red may feel dominant,” they added, “which influences his self-confidence and behavior and in turn may impress women.”
http://www.psypost.org/2010/09/women-more-attracted-men-red-1856
Another experiment featured a man in a color photo, dressed in either a red or a green shirt. A pool of 55 women rated the man in red as significantly more attractive — on average, nearly one point higher on the same nine-point scale. They also thought he was more desirable, according to a second, five-item measure that asked viewers to rate, for example, the likelihood that they’d want to have sex with him.
Although red means different things in different cultures, the finding of women (but not men) drawn to men in red was consistent across countries.
And it’s true about red power ties: Women in a follow-up study perceived men wearing red T-shirts to be significantly more likely to be high in status than men wearing blue T-shirts, in addition to the men in red seeming more generally and sexually attractive. Five smaller studies (20-38 participants) comparing women’s responses to men in red or gray, including their sense of the men’s status, established a chain of evidence that red may enhance sexual attractiveness because red is a status symbol, according to the authors.
The power of red holds throughout the primate world. Female primates (including women) are “extremely adept at detecting and decoding blood flow changes in the face,” the authors wrote, “and women have been shown to be more sensitive to the perception of red stimuli than are men.”
Are men aware that red may work in the bedroom as well as the boardroom? The authors suggest red might make men more likely to strut their stuff. “A man who wears red may feel dominant,” they added, “which influences his self-confidence and behavior and in turn may impress women.”
http://www.psypost.org/2010/09/women-more-attracted-men-red-1856
