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Study: Talking to Pretty Women Makes Men Stupid

Trying to impress women can take up all the male brain's power, experiment finds

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 4, 2009 8:20 AM CDT

(Newser) – Men literally lose their minds when talking to women they find attractive, a new study finds. A group of Dutch psychologists—inspired to carry out the experiment after one of them forgot his address while talking to a pretty woman—tested the memory skills of 40 heterosexual volunteers before and after they spoke to attractive women. They found the men's cognitive skills were seriously impaired after trying to impress the women, the Telegraph reports.

A similar experiment using female volunteers found that their memory skills were unaffected by talking to handsome men. The researchers believe that men, programmed by evolution, tend to use so much of their brain function when trying to impress women that little is left for anything else. "When a man meets a pretty woman, he is what we call 'reproductively focused,'" one psychologist explained. "But a woman also looks for signs of other attributes, such as wealth, youth and kindness. Just the look of the man would be unlikely to have the same effect."

Dutch researchers discovered that talking to attractive women temporarilyleft men with greatly reduced memory skills.
Dutch researchers discovered that talking to attractive women temporarilyleft men with greatly reduced memory skills.   (Shutter Stock)
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We conclude men's cognitive functioning may temporarily decline after an interaction with an attractive woman.' - Researchers at Radboud University
in the Netherlands

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 17 comments
Harley Devilzon
Jul 16, 2010 7:54 PM CDT
that explains why I can't remember names... but I'm not reproductively focused. I swear!
brawne
Sep 5, 2009 7:03 AM CDT
Makes you pretty darn normal. Even I look at pretty breasts. Which by the way I just saw this on Season 2 of the Wire--maybe the most perfect breast on film. You'll know them when you see them. Young, real and perfect. Because it isn't size--it's shape and the perfect droop with an upswing to perfect nipple. Rarely seen anymore.
brawne
Sep 5, 2009 6:56 AM CDT
Oh, if American women were as happy as the French. French women, of which I'm half, are lovely and kind. In person--here on Newser, the American side just rips right out of me, but in person: very French. Between divorces I met a lovely man and afterwards, I said thank you. He was shocked. Why? Because sex is a giving. If he had given me a honey-cured ham I would have thanked him also. I married at 18, so I spent my youthful attractiveness in a monogamous marriage, but when that ended let's just say the wheels fell off. And forty-three is not a bad age for a woman. And don't say cougar--hate that. Men have been doing it for years and we just call them rich. Well, a woman has to be fit, attractive and rich. Very few men will bang an old ugly rich broad but women do it every day. Back to that study about women checking out the wallet and car. And as my friend Mary said in those heady times--you can never go lower than the square root of your youngest child plus fifteen. Hey, women actually ponder shit like this.
 

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