Movies and television shows are full of scenes where a man tries unsuccessfully to interact with a pretty woman. In many cases, the potential suitor ends up acting foolishly despite his best attempts to impress. It seems like his brain isn’t working quite properly and according to new findings, it may not be.
Researchers have begun to explore the cognitive impairment that men experience before and after interacting with women. A 2009 study demonstrated that after a short interaction with an attractive woman, men experienced a decline in mental performance. A more recent study suggests that this cognitive impairment takes hold even w hen men simply anticipate interacting with a woman who they know very little about.
What do you all think?
ruemara
I’ve seen it happen. But I think I’ve seen it happen to both genders.
jharp
God gave men two heads but only enough blood to use one at a time?
Corner Stone
Women are evil, and agents of same.
I thought we all knew that?
Gravenstone
O/T, but I think the Republican field has now officially given up on the 2012 campaign. Romney is now on tape saying” Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that”. Said in the context of things he intends to get rid of to address the national “budget problems”.
If the Republican candidate, whomever it winds up being, gets even a double digit percentage of female votes, something is desperately wrong.
TBogg
Boners.
Now where is my grant money?
Jager
I thought I was the only one that had that problem.
BGinCHI
This explains Fox and Friends.
Drum Circles And Weed
True.
BGinCHI
@TBogg: Ann Coulter already got a grant for that.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Cro- Magnon didn’t have that problem. He just flashed his fresh dino meat and it was back to the cave for dinner and some hanky panky.
srv
I don’t know, but I do know that Atlas Shrugged is now on Netflix and we can all learn much from strong, beautiful women.
Corner Stone
I prefer a woman with a good personality.
KyCole
Did they use my ex-husband in this trial?
BGinCHI
@srv: I’m going to rate it without watching it so I can see how it feels to be Franklin Graham.
New Yorker
So there IS a scientific basis for the term “thinking with your dick”. It would explain several of the more disastrous moments in my romantic history.
Mustang Bobby
I think the same thing applies to gay men in the presence of another man they find attractive. So, yeah, the Boner rulz.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Men: they are who we thought they were.
Chris Wolf
A little downtime for the brain sounds like a good thing.
Let’s get stupid.
Soonergrunt
@srv: What the fuck does strong beautiful women have to do with Atlas Shrugged?
Soonergrunt
@John Cole, top: My wife would suggest that the effect described never goes away.
kindness
Dude…what do you mean what do you think? You never went through puberty & teenhood? All the hormones are in there, dopamine, a little adrenaline & thoughts of sex. That’s all it takes.
Linda Featheringill
Three times in my life I met someone who was just so utterly completely gloriously great to look at, with all of my criteria met [as opposed to society’s criteria]. Two men and one woman. My IQ immediately dropped down to about 50% of what it normally is.
Once I was looking back at the object of my desire and walked right into a street sign. And said desirable object witnessed this act of undignified silliness.
Another time, I sort of lost the ability to speak or rather I had forgot the socially acceptable small talk that we employ to move from one thing to another. I undoubtedly looked pathetic.
The third time, being a bit more experienced and realizing that there was no way I could handle the situation with dignity, I just sort of faded into the background and moved off. Just because it looks good to you doesn’t mean that you are allowed to touch it.
So yes, I have sympathy for all those who go through that.
Laertes
It’s tough to comment. This just conjures up an endless stream of awkward memories.
Soonergrunt
Little side note–I took my son out doing parallel parking lessons.
If you live in OKC metro, you might want to avoid parking on the street from now on. Or upgrade your auto insurance.
I’m just sayin.
Baud
@Linda Featheringill:
I honestly don’t remember ever meeting you, Linda.
LanceThruster
I think evolutionarily, there must be some basis for this pattern. For men to do their part (spread their seed), there are probably advantages in not overthinking things. For women, who seek to find acceptable seed donors, it helps winnow out the candidates by eliminating those who reveal their ineptness by even a slight reduction in mental processing capacity.
Furthermore, it also explains the attractiveness of the ‘bad boy’, in that genetically, someone willing to disregard standard social conventions to get what they want is a survival ‘plus’ as far as propagation of the genetic line goes.
As the intro to Vonnegut’s “Galapagos” states (paraphrased). You all come from a long line of persistent swimmers…champions, every one!”
Our ‘selfishness’ and singularity of purpose has served us well (as far as propagation goes) to this point (though it may have reached a point of diminishing returns).
As Colin Quinn noted in his recent comedy special, “We didn’t evolve from that tribe that starved to death waiting for thier turn at the dinner table.”
Just Some Fuckhead
Fight or flight. Uh, neither. What? Uh, what?
EJ
@Linda Featheringill: Years ago I crashed my bike straight into a tree because I got distracted by an attractive woman. Up till then I’d just assumed that sort of thing only happened in goofy 1960s French comedies, I couldn’t quite believe that it had happened to me in real life.
Of course, in the French comedy version she would have run over to see if I was OK and we would have immediately hit it off, sadly, that did not happen.
Anne Laurie
“Seeing titties, or even thinking they might see titties, makes men stupid.” My dad told me that almost 50 years ago, and nothing in my experience since then contradicts that.
Hell, IME women-with-nice-titties can get gay men to act stupid. Social training (pretty women expect to be treated ‘better’; men of all preferences are socialized to understand that ‘pretty’ women are more deserving) counts, too, for our highly socialized species.
PIGL
Shorter: she put a spell on me. No, for realz.
Jager
This explains “are you going to believe me or your lying eyes”.
I’ll never forget the night I heard my girlfriends key in my door just as I was removing another woman’s bra. I have no clear memory of what was said between the three of us, the last thing I heard was “show me your face bitch” I guess she knew then for certain I was just another weak confused man with a bad operating system. The make up sex was over the top! Why is that?
Linda Featheringill
@Baud:
Ah, yes, but I remember you!
AnnaN
While many humans would say that life is full such uniquely sweet moments as becoming tongue tied by another person’s attractiveness, I am afraid the response of Republican politicians is: “Oh my God! Kill it! Or at least legislate it back into the dark ages! HALP! HALP! DOES ANYONE HAVE A BURKHA!”
kindness
Linda’s on a roll, look out.
Linda you should be able to touch one of those one time in your life. You owe it to yourself.
Linda Featheringill
@kindness:
We live in hope. :-)
asiangrrlMN
File this one under “duh!”. I can haz research moniez naow?
David Koch
Is this another post on Kucinich?
Wiesman
I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure it was Nate Silver who used a similar study to explain why John McCain might have been more likely to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate after meeting her. I’m not joking.
The reason I think it was Silver was because I seem to remember he also talked about the effect of a pretty girl at a poker table. I’ll try to find the link, but I think it was before the 2008 election, so it’s probably lost. (He was still at his own blog then, not with The NYT.)
handy
You think so, Doc? I wonder how they felt when somebody pointed a gun at their head? Same decline in mental performance as well? No, they couldn’t test that? How about a baseball bat to the knee caps?
burnspbesq
I thought the toxic effects of excess testosterone were well documented. This is news?
MikeJ
[looks down, kicks dirt]
HobbesAI
This exact study is done frequently, because its cheap, and easy to run. Normally the control is run without any woman present, rather than with a less attractive woman.
The gender switched version of this test is run less often, but generally shows a similar though slightly less significant effect.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I recall two former coworkers, at different times, who knocked themselves out watching a secretary from one of our consultants who had stopped by to deliver something. One walked into a support piling in the parking garage; the other overbalanced his chair to watch her walk down the hall.
The woman had been a stripper at a local bar before landing the administrative assistant job. Only woman I ever met who looked good in a sweater dress.
Damned good secretary, too.
shep
It’s called cognitive load, probably the result of trying to think up an effective lie.
rannndumb
Mens always haz important bidness to discuss, and we can’t do it with purty ladies present. Excluding women from public discussions is just following natural law!
muddy
I was pleased this week when a man hollered at me across the parking lot (“Gorgeous red hair!!”), it was well done in tone and not like mindless cat-calling I thought.
Then he stepped in a pothole and got his foot and leg wet. I pretended not to notice that part, I thought it was kind of me.
Svensker
@TBogg:
This is why we love you.
(Speaking for myself only, of course.)
Ha ha ha. Still laughing.
Bighorn Ordovician Dolomite
@shep
Tee hee hee…..you said cognitive load….tee hee
Svensker
@EJ:
I was eating in a restaurant in L.A. when Cary Grant walked in, beautifully dressed and looking magnificent. I stabbed myself with my fork. Literally.
J.W. Hamner
I liked this part:
For men, talking to a woman is much like being a Republican.
Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago)
@HobbesAI: Glad to hear it; I was feeling neglected.
I can most definitely attest that the condition is not restricted to men. Half my time in college was spent tongue-tied around men I was crushing on. Yet somehow it seems like these studies are always about men looking at women. I can’t imagine why.
Anonymous At Work
Jharp nailed it. Married with Children, Season 2, Episode 10, Peg: God played a cruel trick on men. He gave them two heads but only enough blood to use one at a time.”
Corner Stone
@muddy: Can’t I tell you that your hair looks nice, and frames your supermodel-esque cheek bones at the same time I hoot at you in a semi-restrained manner?
shep
@Bighorn Ordovician Dolomite:
Can you believe he was wondering why men couldn’t hold two thoughts at the same time?
muddy
@Corner Stone: My cheekbones don’t enter into it, sadly. Must you hoot though? A little odd at your age.
beergoggles
@Mustang Bobby: At least in the case of us gay men, it’s petty easy to find out if the other guy is as attracted to you by how stupid he acts. But in retrospect, it’s a good thing we have a cruising etiquette that does not involve actually talking unless both parties are interested.
muddy
I used to date a guy who would complain that I did not shift gears in the car at the correct time. Knowing he was minding my shifting I would be grinding the hell out of them, when ordinarily there was none of that. Being self-conscious takes up a lot of your attention.
SW
It’s called immaturity and unfortunately ti doesn’t correlate well with age. The moment we see an attractive woman we begin to calculate how we could possibly manage to make ourselves attractive to her. The energy represented by this frantic calculation consumes all of the processing power we have available. It represents something like trying to project a sort of alternative reality field. We aren’t sure exactly what she wants, but we are pretty sure it isn’t the guy who was looking back at us when we shaved in the morning. No, what this requires is some enhanced version of that sucker and it takes a lot of energy to conjure up that guy at a moment’s notice. And while we are doing that, we are essentially shut down to very interaction, in the moment that was our only hope of making an impression. And as we know, the entire process makes us stoopid.
Corner Stone
@muddy:
I could snap in rhythm while I follow you, like West Side Story. Does that work?
God! Women!!
eugene
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Now crown our asses!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYKIcnj1MJY
Calming Influence
Luckily the only attractive woman I interact with on a regular basis is my wife. Since she’s running the show anyway, my mental performance is not an issue.
muddy
@Corner Stone: Okay, that’s on. I would love to walk around with a finger-snapping entourage. I never knew I wanted one until now.
Canuckistani Tom
@jharp:
I’ve always thought of the problem as poorly written software. It takes 13ish years to start running, and then won’t shutoff. It chews up large amounts of system resources, and even runs when we’re asleep.
AA+ Bonds
Sounds adaptive for a species that probably didn’t care about consent a hundred thousand years ago
AA+ Bonds
@Canuckistani Tom:
Poorly written from your perspective; handles the primary purpose admirably from your genes’ perspective, and they’re the part subject to “design” in the evolutionary sense
muddy
I know a woman who calls men’s genitals the part that fell out of their brain. It has just enough brain to think it ought to be in charge, but it’s not thinking clearly as it is warm down there.
Mnemosyne
@AA+ Bonds:
When you have a species that doesn’t care about consent, you end up with duck anatomy. It’s probably more a sign of a species that developed language late.
Bloix
Fifty years ago, my family and another family went on vacation on Cape Cod. The two moms were getting cones at an ice cream shop. Paul Newman walked in. My mom’s friend took out her wallet, paid, and put the ice cream cone into her purse.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
Bloix
It was William Kristol whose IQ dropped by 50% when he met Palin. Of course, he didn’t start out with more than 85 or so to begin with.
AA+ Bonds
@Mnemosyne:
Naturally whether there is enough evidence to conclude that coercive sex is adaptive in humans is hotly debated and I am not really taking a position either way
But arms races between sexes are probably not a necessary result of coercive sex, just one that appears in some cases
I didn’t mean for this to get so creepy so believe it or not I’d like to drop it before this thread repeats Internet Argument #49,605
AA+ Bonds
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick:
Anyway you can live and die without sex but for your genes it is the ultimate goal if they can be spoken of as having such things
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@AA+ Bonds:
humanity has more than equipped itself to survive without every person believing that procreation is imperative or obligatory.
BruceFromOhio
I think that when she looked me in the eye and smiled, all I wanted to do was fucking die in the moment so my life could end in perfection.
26 years on, she can still do that to me if she wants to, so she reserves it for those really, really special moments, like when asking me to brush the snow off her car on a really cold morning.
Corner Stone
Aren’t all men kinda like that doof in the “Fiat 500 Abarth” car commercial?
newhavenguy
Cole, you’re just too hot for me to think straight.Aw, shit, mixed up my porn/TPM/Balloon Juice tabs. Again. Never mind.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie:
There is some truth to this. To wit: wifey and Nigella Lawson are both well-endowed.
priscianusjr
The late Ralph Kramden said it best:
“Homina homina homina … “
Jess
@Baud: She was the one walking into a street sign.
I almost did that as well. The guy I was scoping starting cracking up and I saw what I was doing and stopped in time. That was more than 20 years ago, and we’re still buddies, and still hook up from time to time. He’s still pretty damn hot, I have to say…but fortunately he’s long forgotten the street sign incident.
ruemara
@BruceFromOhio: One day, I get someone who feels like this about me. And it’s not my cats.
I’ve truly not ever felt that level of durrr brought on by a beautiful male. It’s not like I haven’t had the opportunity, since I once worked in a building that housed a male modeling agency, but if they’re not witty with some sort of creative talent, my libido shuts down faster than the flick of a switch.
Arclite
John, I think this explains why your posts have been so good lately. You just haven’t been interacting with many attractive women lately.
HeartlandLiberal
Absolutely. It is a chemical reaction. We live to have sex and reproduce ourselves. It is the most powerful innate drive in our being, second only to food and water. After that, sex ueberalles, bro. Your brain wants to do it even after you reach the point in life where the rest of your body just laughs at you performance wise.
I am surprised that you were seemingly surprised by these findings. They are not only intuitively obvious, but I have seen it so many times in my 66 years I quit trying to count centuries ago.
estamm
Duh. I’ve been married almost 20 years, but whenever I meet a really hot woman, I still experience brain freeze.
brantl
Everybody’s nervous interacting with desirable persons of the appropriate sex. It must suck to be bi-sexual, the only people you’re really comfortable around are old friends and family.
Jeff Fecke
@BGinCHI:
I know. Doocy is adorable.
John Weiss
This is news?
Eric
Seinfeld already demonstrated this with Costanza