Psychologists from Edinburgh University have been studying chat-up lines, and they’ve recently published their results in the Journal Personality and Individual Differences.

205 undergraduates (142 female, 63 male) rated 40 vignettes (compiled from books, websites and films); in each vignette, a man approached a woman and the subjects judged whether she would continue the conversation or not.

The researchers anticipated that pickup lines could serve for humans much as tail-feather displays serve for peacocks (a display of male fitness for reproduction, and the ability to protect the female (in this case, with human intelligence being analogous to the peacock’s tail)); a theory that was originally advocated by Geoffrey Miller, in his book The Mating Mind.

The chat-up lines used by the men fell into four broad categories. Culture related, Compliments, Sexual references and Humorous lines.

The survey then revealed that whilst women were more likely to favour lines suggesting that a man was a ‘nice guy’, or at least fun to be with, men were consistently over-optimistic that they would succeed, if their opening line was sexually explicit.

Unsurprisingly, the study found that women rated the chat-up lines depending on their personalities, with extroverted women preferring more humorous approaches and tough-minded women finding ‘nice guy’ pick-up lines a turn-off.

Dr Peter Caryl, one of the psychologists conducting the study said:

The interesting difference appeared when we compared the sexes. Despite being deeply unpopular with women, men are unreasonably optimistic about how well their sexually explicit lines will go down.

While the woman’s attractiveness will be known in a face-to-face encounter, the man may need to make a rapid assessment of her personality, and he could potentially achieve this through his opening remark.

Some may be used by men to identify sociosexually unrestricted women who may be sexually available. Some may just signal to the woman that the man is interested, at which point his looks or voice may actually determine the outcome.

The study suggests that men’s chat-up lines helped to pigeon-hole them into one of four categories: the friendly and considerate ‘nice guy’; the industrious and enterprising ‘provider’; the confident and strong ‘leader’, and the fickle and conceited ‘bad mate’.

Dr Caryl said:

I can’t imagine anyone being turned on by this ‘bad mate’ kind of guy, but some women seem to be less put off than others. If you look like George Clooney, you may be able to get away with a whole range of things

In contrast, the top-rated pickup lines weren’t lines at all, but scenarios in which a man gave help to a woman at a bus stop, sought her advice in buying a watch or commented on a painting at an art gallery.

As anticipated, opening gambits which revealed wealth, and those demonstrating personal qualities such as generosity, the ability to take charge, and physical fitness, were judged likely to appeal to women. In line with the mating mind hypothesis, gambits displaying a cultured background or artistic talent were also judged likely to be effective.

However, there are a number of problems with this research that the authors seem to have failed to take into account:

We are not told whether the object of the exercise is to establish a sexual or platonic relationship with the woman. Any seductionist worth their salt would be aware that women are often keen to keep men around, in order to increase their sense of self worth and attractiveness. In that case, sex would most likely only happen if she was drunk, wanted to make her existing boyfriend jealous or felt that her biological clock was ticking - and there was nobody better available.

Next, the scenarios seem to be a mix of warm and cold walk-ups. So, where two people know each other already, there is obviously a very much greater likelihood that they will continue the conversation, after the vignette has ended, than if the woman was approached cold.

Also, the initial emotional state of the man or woman is often disclosed in the vignettes; this may lead the experiment volunteers to make a judgement before they have digested the whole scenario. And in real life, these emotions would also cloud the approach, and would need to be dealt with, to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome. For example (bold type added):

A woman wanders past a man in a bar. The man taps her on the shoulder, smiles and says:

M: I’ve got a riddle for you, wanna hear?
W: (sigh) maybe… go on then.
M: What has 148 teeth and can hold back the incredible hulk?
W: I give up.
M: My fly.

Or

A man, looking more than slightly nervous, approaches a woman in a club and says:

M: Hi… my name’s John, uh how do you like me so far?

Thus, the experiment is reduced to merely “Can the public predict the outcome of media constructed dating scenarios?” which is a shame, because I suspect that with a little more thought, the experiment could have been extremely useful and informative.

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Posted by Jonathan in Psychology, Sociology