No Strings Attached: Carrying A Guitar Improves Your Chances Of Getting A Girl's Number
Having trouble landing a girlfriend? Pick up a guitar (and you don't even need to know how to use it).
English theorist Charles Darwin was the first to explore the relationship between music and sexual selection in his book The Descent of Man. In it he explains, "It appears probable that the progenitors of man, either the males or females or both sexes, before acquiring the power of expressing their mutual love in articulate language, endeavored to charm each other with musical notes and rhythm."
A study conducted by the Université de Bretagne-Sud, France claims that carrying around a guitar can substantially increase a man's attractiveness to the opposite sex, Pacific Standard reported.
A team of researchers led by behavioral science expert Professor Nicolas Gueguen conducted a field study to test musical talents and perceived attractiveness. A 20-year-old "good-looking" male was recruited to test the hypothesis.
The participant was asked to frequent a local shopping center and ask 300 women for their phone number while either carrying a guitar case for the first 100, a gym bag for the second 100, and nothing for the final 100.
Their findings revealed that 31 percent of women gave the man their number when he was carrying the guitar case, 14 percent complied while he was carrying nothing, and only 9 percent fell for the gym bag.
Gueguen and his colleagues speculate that a woman's attraction to musical talents could actually be a subconscious appeal to physical and intellectual abilities.
Sexual selection experts have argued whether this observation is part of a larger reoccurring theme in psychology known as neophilia, or a desire for something new.
The results of the study were published in the journal Psychology of Music.