“When you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.” Seems like someone should have told ol’ Tony ‘Scarface’ Montana to cut out the middle man and simply start a band. After all, everyone knows the old line goes that most guys start playing an instrument to ‘get chicks’, and now science is helping prove there’s some truth to that claim.
New research has shown that simply being in close proximity to a guitar is enough to instantly increase a man’s sex appeal, with researchers from the University of South Brittany in south-west France finding that carrying a guitar can increase the chances of a guy getting a date by a third, reports the Daily Mail.
The French study found that women were 31% more likely to give their phone number to a man carrying a guitar – double the percentage of those who would give their number to the same man when he was empty-handed.
Professor Nicolas Gueguen, who specialises in behavioural sciences at the University, hired a 20-year-old actor to approach 300 women aged between 18 and 22 at a shopping centre in Brittany. The man approached women then told each girl he met that they were ‘really pretty’, asking if he could have their phone number to arrange a future a date.
For the first 100 ladies, the man was carrying a sports bag, for the next 100 he was holding a guitar case, then was empty-handed for the final 100 ‘samples’. The results found that women were more willing to hand over their number when the man was rocking a guitar, with a 31% hit rate with the instrument, while only 14% gave them his number when he was carrying nothing. While the sports-bag toting man was seen as the biggest turn-off with only 9% of women offering up their digits. Researchers from the University of South Brittany in south-west France found that carrying a guitar can increase the chances of a guy getting a date by a third
Professor Guegun’s findings believe that women see a musical instrument as a sign of intelligence and that the man is willing to learn new skills, enjoys various hobbies.
They concluded that a guitar is seen as a sign of wealth and status, which may have a link to how musicians are portrayed in the media.
The University of South Brittany findings mirror those from a similar study carried out by the University of Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion University last year, the Daily Mail points out.
For the Israeli study, Facebook friend requests were sent to 100 single women with a message reading: “I like your photo,” half of the requests were sent by a man seen strumming a guitar in his profile picture, while the other half showed the exact same person, but instrument-less.
The empty-handed man only received five accepted invitations, just 10%, while 28% accepted the request or replied to the message to the profile of the man playing a guitar.
Professor Guegun and the team at the University of South Brittany carried out an additional study repeating the Israeli study, but using females to send friend requests – with or without guitars – to men. And (surprise, surprise) they found there was no difference in the response rate of men responding to requests compared to whether the profile picture featured a guitar or not, with Professor Guegun concluding that it is only women who find playing an instrument attractive or not.
Simply Google image search ‘sexy guitarists,’ and you’ll find a whole substrata of contradictory *ahem* research proving otherwise. Science, doesn’t always get it right.
