Beer, Music and Science

Loud music in bars encourages people to drink more, unless it drives them off. That's old news now, and we can attest from personal experience anyway.

The results, published online in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, show that the louder the music, the more swiftly the drinkers finished their beer, ordered more – or left.

But though I was not very impressed by that conclusion, I was very impressed by the research of Katherine Sanderson of Nature. She simply looked at some of the other publications of Nicolas Guéguen, Professor of Behavioural sciences at the Université de Bretagne-Sud who led the study. A few examples of his published research from his website:

1. Semantically induced love and helping behavior

2. The domestic dog as a facilitator in social interaction: An evaluation on helping and courtship behaviors.

3. The effects of women’s cosmetics on men’s courtship behavior.

4. The effect of a woman’s smile on men’s nonverbal behavior.

5. Women’s eye contact and men’s later interest: Two field experiments

Well done to Katherine for the spotting them, that is real research. And well done to Nicolas for getting away with it.