Single dudes: Are you holding a guitar at this moment? If not, you are not reaching your Maximum Attractiveness Potential, according to two (2) recently published studies.
A French study that was just published suggests women are more attracted to a guy hefting around a guitar, and that supports another study published in Israel last year.
Here’s the French study:
This experiment tested the assumption that music plays a role in sexual selection. Three hundred young women were solicited in the street for their phone number by a young male confederate who held either a guitar case or a sports bag in his hands or had no bag at all. Results showed that holding a guitar case was associated with greater compliance to the request, thus suggesting that musical practice is associated with sexual selection.
Specifically, researchers took an incredibly gutsy 20-year-old actor and had him introduce himself to 300 young women between about 18 and 22, say “I think you’re really pretty,” and ask for each of their numbers. One-third of the time he was carrying a guitar case, one-third of the time a sports bag, and one-third of the time nothing. About 31 percent of the women gave him their number when he had the guitar, compared to nine percent when he had the gym bag and 14 percent when he was carrying nothing.
In the study out of Israel, researchers had a Facebook profile with a photo of a man send friend requests to 100 single female students at Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University. Half the time, the profile featured a boring non-guitar guy, and half the time the profile had a dude strumming a guitar. Only five out of 50 accepted the request from the guitar-less profile, but 14 out of 50 responded positively to the profile with the guitar.
Note: you don’t actually need to play the guitar, apparently. Just carry it around with you and wait for the ladies to hurl their numbers at you.