The study conducted by an Austrian research team has proven what we have known all this time – playing music makes you more appealing to potential partners, as reported by Music Radar. This paper, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, looked into the evolutionary basis for musical talent and how it pertains to Darwin’s concept of sexual selection.
According to this concept, particular characteristics are transmitted across generations since they can boost the likelihood of someone finding a mate, not just aiding in their survival. The exploration, called “Darwin’s sexual selection hypothesis revisited: Musicality increases sexual attraction in both sexes”, sustains Darwin’s views, using a group of 23 male and 35 female students, all of whom were heterosexual. Excitingly, the results confirmed the hypothesis!
Experimenters presented participants with a series of pictures of the opposite gender, while playing solo piano music in the background. They informed the participants that the music they were listening to was composed by the person whose face they were observing. Afterward, they asked them to rate the faces according to how sexually appealing they were and how likely they would be to go on a date, have a one-night stand, or even start a long-term relationship with that individual.
After the test, the outcomes were compared to a control group who judged the faces shown to them without any knowledge of the people being musicians. Scientists uncovered that both male and female participants found the people in the musical set more desirable for long-term dating, but just the female members rated the ‘musical’ faces as more appealing sexually compared to the control group.
The scientists determined that music has an effect on how attractive a person finds someone of the opposite sex, particularly for women. Interestingly, men seemed to be less influenced by music when it came to rating female faces.
“Music is part of every human culture,” the study concluded. “As music psychologists, we try to get a better understanding of how music affects our feelings and thoughts as well as our behaviour. Our research field keeps growing worldwide.”
