Thread: drinking improves verbal creativity

"Men who drank themselves tipsy solved more problems demanding verbal resourcefulness in less time than sober guys did, a new study finds. Sudden, intuitive insights into tricky word-association problems occurred more frequently when men were intoxicated but not legally drunk, say psychology graduate student Andrew Jarosz of the University of Illinois at Chicago and his colleagues."

Vodka Delivers Shot Of Creativity - Science News

Having watched a few dozen drinking driving arrest video, I would agree there's a lot of creativity to being drunk....

And then there's sex.

Men get creative with grammar when they want to impress fertile women

Underlying this is the eternal question about how men and women show these behaviours without any of them realising what's happening.

Originally Posted by adelady

Underlying this is the eternal question about how men and women show these behaviours without any of them realising what's happening.

you're sure they don't ?

Fairly.

The first research results I saw on this stuff was about comparing the amounts of tips tucked into the skimpy garments of strippers. Turns out when researchers added up the various amounts received on different days and lined them up with the women's menstrual cycles - they received most tips on their most 'fertile' days. There's been a lot of work done since on what it is that men find attractive - but nothing shows up that men are really aware of why they find some women more attractive than others or why particular women are more attractive on some days rather than others.

There's been a lot of work done since on what it is that men find attractive

Do they think it's smell?

Now you're asking. You'd think 'smell' would be hard to pick up in that environment - maybe something below sensory level like pheromones but that'd still be difficult.

If I recall just some of it, I think it was more about subtle changes in appearance, posture, behaviour. Really, really subtle. We're talking strippers here - their stock in trade is already pretty blatant, so the differences were hard to pick up. It's not like a demure little office worker having just a bit of sway in her hips every now and again.

And the researchers weren't at all sure they'd put the whole thing together anyway. (Surprisingly enough I've not made any effort to follow this up. Though I'd be interested if any more of these results landed right in front of me.

maybe something below sensory level like pheromones but that'd still be difficult.

That would be my guess--given the most like organs to produce pheromones are already mostly exposed for strippers.

Tried to find some research but much like diet and a few other things got a deluge of dubious pop-science and pseudoscience ads. Google scholar at a glance had a few about female attraction to male pheromones but not much that might explain the extra stripper profits. Use of birth control pills might throw a lot of this out of kilter as well.

Use of birth control pills might throw a lot of this out of kilter as well.

That rings a bell. If I track this down, I reckon you'd be right that this was taken into account some way or another.

I've got a horrible feeling that this was probably one of those short pieces in "New Scientist". I read it near religiously for 10+ years - as a nice contrast to the job, children, laundry, chauffeuring sports teams, school committee lifestyle.