If you want to extract a woman’s phone number, then picking the right soundtrack for the attempt will significantly increase your chances of scoring.

That’s according to French psychologists, who found that an “average-looking man” doubled his chances of success when the object of his desire had been softened up with a “romantic ballad”, as opposed to a “neutral” ditty.

A team from the University of southern Brittany and the University of southern Paris tried out their chat-up line on 87 female volunteers aged 18 to 20.

They first spent five minutes in a waiting room listening either to Je L’aime a Mourir (I Love Her to Death) by Francis Cabrel, or L’heure du The (Time For Tea) by Vincent Delerm.

Thinking they were taking part in a consumer survey, they then moved to a different room to “discuss the difference between two types of biscuit with the 20-year-old man”.

After the pair had chewed over the comparative merits of the biscuits, the man pitched:

My name is Antoine, as you know. I think you are very nice and I was wondering if you would give me your phone number. I’ll phone you later and we can have a drink together somewhere next week.

The researchers asked Antoine to “to gaze and smile at the participant” while she mulled her response.

The result was that 52.2 per cent of those who’d been wooed with Je L’aime a Mourir agreed to the liaison, compared to just 27.9 per cent who’d been offered L’heure du The.

The scientists conclude in the journal Psychology of Music:

It was found that women previously exposed to romantic lyrics complied with the request more readily than women exposed to the neutral ones. The difference was significant. If you’re having trouble getting a date, picking the right soundtrack could improve the odds.

And in case men out there think it’s just women who can be manipulated by mush music, the researchers previously demonstrated that “men spent more money in florists when romantic music was being played“.

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 1:30 AM GMT

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Women with higher levels of emotional intelligence appear to experience greater sexual satisfaction, according to research.

The study, conducted by the Twin Research Department at King’s College London, suggests that greater emotional intelligence (the ability to monitor and manage feelings and emotions in one’s self and others) is linked to higher numbers of orgasms.

The findings suggest that low emotional intelligence is a risk factor for female orgasmic disorder, one of the most common sexual problems suffered by women – where up to 30 percent of women find it difficult or impossible to reach a climax during sex.

The study, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, involved a total of 2,035 female twins from the TwinsUK registry, ranging in age from 18 to 83.

Professor Tim Spector, director of the Twin Research Department, said:

These findings show that emotional intelligence is an advantage in many aspects of your life including the bedroom. This study will help enormously in the development of behavioural and cognitive therapies to improve women’s sexual lives.

The TwinsUK registry consists of adult twins who have agreed to take part in studies to investigate the causes of common disorders – using twins makes it possible to disentangle genetic and environmental risk factors.

All participants completed questionnaires giving details of their sexual behaviour and performance and also answered questions designed to test their emotional intelligence.

A significant association was found between emotional intelligence and frequency of orgasm both during masturbation and sexual intercourse.

Women in the bottom 25 percent of the emotional intelligence range had twice the normal risk of infrequent orgasm.

Andrea Burri, a Psychologist and lead author of the King’s study, said:

Emotional intelligence seems to have a direct impact on women’s sexual functioning by influencing her ability to communicate her sexual expectations and desires to her partner.

Ms Burri continued that there was a possible connection with a woman’s ability to fantasise during sex.

Emotional intelligence seems to have a direct impact on women’s sexual functioning by influencing her ability to communicate her sexual expectations and desires to her partner.

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 4:18 AM GMT

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Oxytocin, a hormone best known for cementing the bond between a mother and her newborn child could also play a part in selecting a partner.

Other research along this line has hinted at the importance of Oxytocin in certain social situations between adults. For example, people administered with the hormone made overly generous offers in an economic game that measured trust; whilst men who got a dose of Oxytocin proved better at remembering the faces of strangers a day later, compared to subjects who received a placebo.

According to this new study, published in the journal Hormones and Behavior, researchers found that men and women who inhaled a spritz of the hormone rated strangers as more attractive.

Angeliki Theodoridou, a Psychologist at the University of Bristol, who led the study said:

[When Oxytocin courses through our blood,] we are more likely to see people we don’t know in a more positive light

This effect adds to the hormone’s known role in human relationships.

The researchers tested 96 volunteers in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, where participants received either a spray of Oxytocin or a placebo. Subjects were then asked to rate pictures of 48 men and women for attractiveness, and 30 for trustworthiness. The team also tested for mood.

The results showed that subjects who received Oxytocin tended to rate both male and female strangers as both more attractive and more trustworthy – regardless of their mood.

The research didn’t examine how Oxytocin could affect social judgements, but Theodoridou speculates that the hormone dampens brain activity in a region involved in processing fearful emotions, called the Amygdala – A previous study had found that Oxytocin tempered Amygdala activation in volunteers who saw a face that had previously been paired with a slight shock.

Although Theodoridou’s study shows that Oxytocin acts similarly on both men and women when rating strangers, sex differences could emerge in real-world situations, noted Jennifer Bartz, a Psychologist at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York. More research is needed to see if this is the case, she said.

Regardless of Oxytocin’s social effects, greedy entrepreneurs have already been trying to cash in. One company already touts a spray that claims to engender trust in others, although it offers little more than testimonials as proof for its efficacy.

Could a similar spray spark romances between total strangers? Theodoridou doesn’t think so. “I would not endorse any of these products,” she stated.

Posted by Jonathan as Biochemistry, Psychology at 2:27 AM GMT

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A unique study of twins separated at birth suggests that genes may help determine the age at which a person first engages in sexual intercourse.

Psychologist Nancy Segal of California State University in Fullerton, USA, looked at 48 pairs of twins who were separated at birth as well as 23 individual twins to see how genes influenced their sexual maturity. Using this methodology, the researchers were able to avoid the influence of a common family environment, which might have led them to overestimate the effect of genes.

Lead researcher, Nancy Segal said:

It’s not like there’s a gene for having a sex at a certain date. Instead, heritable behavioural traits such as impulsivity could help determine when people first have sex.

In comparing the twins sexual histories, Segal had each of the participants take a sexual life history interview, composed of a sexual meaning survey, a sexual life history timeline, and a sexual behaviour questionnaire.

Segal’s team found that genes explained a third of the differences in participants’ age at first intercourse (which was, on average, a little over 19 years old) – by comparison, roughly 80% of variations in height across a population can be explained by genes alone.

It might be argued that conservative social mores might delay a teen’s first sexual experience, causing scientists to underestimate the effect of genes, and indeed, the research team acknowledge a less pronounced genetic effect among twins born before 1948, compared with those who came of age in the 1960s or later. Other factors may also make the effects of genes harder to discern, for example, Segal’s team found that female participants who felt unhappy and unfulfilled in their home life were more likely to have sex at a younger age.

As for the specific genes involved, another team of researchers had found that a version of a gene encoding a receptor for the neurotransmitter Dopamine is associated with age at first intercourse. Others have linked the same version of the gene – called DRD4 – to impulsive, risk-taking behaviour.

The study “Age at first intercourse in twins reared apart: Genetic influence and life history events” is published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Posted by Jonathan as Biology, Psychology at 6:41 AM GMT

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Women should forget small talk and flirting if they want to chat-up a man, because according to new research, the way to a man’s heart is by giving him no room to misunderstand your intentions.

A study by Scientists at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, USA, found that while women may be attracted to men who have a way with words, men prefer a direct, no-nonsense approach when being chatted up by women – since they had trouble ‘reading’ hints, even if they were accompanied by coy smiles and  body language; according to the research reported in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Researchers asked a group of forty women for their top chat-up lines (or things they might say to a man to indicate that they were interested in dating or spending time with him), they then put the fifty most popular suggestions to a panel of 38 women and 32 men, asking the participants to rate how effective the lines would be in practice.

The lines fell into ten categories:

• Directly asking someone on a date
• Hinting at a date
• Statements of commonalities
• Insistence on calling or giving of a phone number
• Compliments
• Directly asking about relationship status
• Statements of personal interest
• Sexual humour
• Questions of familiarity
• Saying a subtle “Hello”

The women believed that giving subtle cues or talking about common interests would perform better than they actually did – assuming the men would respond to the same things they thought women responded to best – whilst the men responded differently. Women also thought that offering their phone number would not go over very well, when in fact, the men concluded that direct approaches such as invitations to dinner or the cinema were most appealing, followed by an exchange of phone numbers and then straightforward questions such as “Do you have any plans for later?” and “What are you doing tonight?”.

Some women also rated the direct approach highly, but most women were impressed with those lines which were designed to establish some common interests between them and the man who was chatting them up (which men rated 5^th).

The least successful tactics were smiles or lines such as “Do I know you from somewhere? You look very familiar.” or “Hello, how’s it going?”, which offered no indication as to the type of interaction desired. These were slightly less successful than supposedly humorous lines, such as “Where have you been my all life?”, “Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?” and “Your shirt matches my bedspread – you belong in my bed”, for both men and women.

Psychologist Dr Joel Wade said:

The direct indication of a possible date as well as the hint of a possible date gives the man a clear signal – instead of sending mixed non-verbal signals that the man must decipher.

He added that straightforward suggestions removed any “uncertainty regarding the outcome of the interaction“.

Posted by Jonathan as Anthropology, Psychology at 3:09 AM GMT

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A five question quick and simple assessment may help determine if a woman has low sexual desire, otherwise known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

In a study, released this month in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 263 women were recruited at 27 centres throughout the United States. These women took the simple decreased sexual desire screening test, and their answers were then reviewed with a clinician who was not an expert in female sexual desire.

Independently, and while being unaware of the non-expert clinician’s opinion, an expert in female sexual dysfunction conducted a standard diagnostic interview with the study participant.

The results found that the decreased sexual desire screening tool and standard diagnostic interview were in agreement in 85.2 percent of all the cases.

Irwin Goldstein, M.D., Co-author of the study and Director of Sexual Medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, California, said:

This simple screening tool can be a great first line test to see if a woman has low sexual desire. I am encouraged that this study may help improve the dialogue about a woman’s sexual health in the doctor’s office.

Dr. Goldstein, who is also Editor-in-chief of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, says that many health care professionals are often reluctant to talk to their patients about sexual health for several reasons, including limited time with a patient, lack of training, embarrassment, and the absence of effective treatment options for women.

The entire test consists of the following questions that women answer with either a Yes or No:

1. In the past was your level of sexual desire or interest good or satisfying to you?
2. Has there been a decrease in your level of sexual desire or interest?
3. Are you bothered by your decreased level of sexual desire or interest?
4. Would you like your level of sexual desire or interest to increase?
5. Please check all the factors that you may feel may be contributing to your current decrease in sexual desire or interest:

• An operation, depression, injuries or other medical condition
• Medication, drugs or alcohol you are currently taking
• Pregnancy, recent childbirth, menopausal symptoms
• Other sexual issues you may be having such as pain, decreased arousal or orgasm
• Your partner’s sexual problems
• Dissatisfaction with your relationship or partner
• Stress or fatigue

If a woman says “No” to any of the questions in 1-4, then she does not qualify for the diagnosis of generalized acquired low sexual function. If the women answers “Yes” to questions 1-4 and “No” to the factors in question 5, then she may have generalized acquired low sexual desire.

Dr. Goldstein said the screening tool should be made a key part of any women’s health check up.

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 10:00 PM GMT

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The implication of two studies into hormonal changes associated with Sadomasochistic (S&M) activities including spanking, bondage and flogging suggest that it could bring consenting couples closer together.

Scientists from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb measured levels of the stress hormone Cortisol in thirteen men and women at an S&M party in Arizona, before, during and after participating in Sadomasochistic activities.

Lead researcher Brad Sagarin found that during S&M scenes, Cortisol levels rose significantly in those receiving stimulation, but dropped back to normal within 40 minutes if the scene went well. However, there was no change in those inflicting the activity.

In a further experiment, the Researchers measured testosterone levels in 45 men and women, at an S&M event in Colorado. The results of that experiment showed that there was a significant increase in receiving women only.

Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa, Italy, said that the boost might help women cope with the aggressive nature of S&M activities, or that it could be another sign of stress. However, in both studies, couples who said the party went well also reported increases in relationship closeness.

Richard Wiseman, a Psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, added that almost any shared activity would be likely to promote interpersonal closeness, saying:

It doesn’t have to be tying up your partner or placing clamps on their nipples, it could be something as simple as cooking a meal together or even doing the housework as a duo.

Nick Neave, a Psychologist at the University of Northumbria, said the results were interesting, but future studies should control for whether participants experienced orgasm – which is associated with reduced stress and an increase in hormones associated with partner-bonding and affection.

The study appears in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 2:54 PM GMT

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Does the internet change adolescents into aggressive assholes? Or do socially incompetent teens naturally gravitate towards spending time on the internet?

In a research paper published by the Journal of Adolescent Health, researchers at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan said that they had found evidence that teenagers addicted to the Internet exhibited more aggressive behaviour than their non-addicted counterparts.

In a study polling 9,405 Taiwanese teenagers about their Internet activities and behaviour, the researchers found that those with signs of “internet addiction” were more likely to say they had hit, shoved or threatened someone in the past year.

This link remained, even when the investigators accounted for other factors — including the teenagers’ scores on measures of self-esteem and depression, as well as their exposure to TV violence.

Based on their responses, twenty-five percent of male respondents and thirteen percent of females were diagnosed as being addicted to the Internet – which according to the research team was described as being a preoccupation with online activities, “withdrawal” symptoms like irritability or moodiness if unable to access the internet for a while and skipping real life activities in order to devote more time to online ones.

Among those people considered to fit the “addicted to the Internet” profile, thirty-seven percent had reported aggressive behaviour the previous year. Although, the type of Internet activity also appeared to be a factor.

Online chatting, gambling, gaming, and spending time at online forums or pornography sites were all linked to aggressive behaviour. In contrast, teens that devoted their time to online research and studying were less likely than their peers to be violence-prone.

According to the researchers, certain online activities may encourage adolescents to “release their anger” or otherwise be aggressive in ways they normally would not try in the real world. Although, whether this eventually pushes them to be more aggressive in real life is not yet clear, the researchers said.

So, the findings do not prove conclusively that Internet addiction breeds violent behaviour in teens. Since, “it is possible that violence-prone teenagers are more likely to obsessively use the Internet”, explained lead researcher Dr. Chih-Hung Ko.

However, Dr. Ko recommends that parents and teachers talk to children about their Internet use and their general attitudes toward violence, and then intervene as early as possible to prevent teenagers from becoming addicted to the Internet.

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 12:46 AM GMT

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Men and women sin in very different ways, according to an article published in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

In an article headlined: “The Unsuspecting Resources of Weakness”, Monsignor Wojciech Giertych, personal theologian to Pope Benedict XVI and the Papal household, says there is “no sexual equality when it comes to sin“.

Addressing the century-old question of why people sin, Monsignor Giertych offers the simple and straightforward answer that women are prouder than men, but men are more lustful.

Details of the methodology are sketchy, and little information is given as to how the conclusion was reached, but it seems that this view was formed by his own experience of the Confessional, and was supported by an analysis of confessional data carried out by 95-year-old Father Roberto Busa, a Jesuit scholar who has also carried out a computerised study of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Monsignor Giertych said:

When one looks at vices not from the view of their opposition to grace but at the difficulty they create, it is clear that men experience them differently from women.

Traditionally, the seven deadly sins are considered: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth (although they are not actually listed anywhere in the Bible) – As opposed to Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness and Humility – However, in the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory I drew them into the Catholic Church’s teachings, and they were also widely spread by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell“. So, Catholics are supposed to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year, whereupon the priest absolves them in God’s name.

The full list of sins, as ranked by the study, is as follows:

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 12:40 AM GMT

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Women have traditionally been viewed as being more social and cooperative than men. However, recent evidence shows that this may not in fact be the case.

Psychologist Joyce F. Benenson from Emmanuel College and colleagues from Harvard University and the Universite du Quebec a Montreal wanted to compare male and female levels of tolerance towards same-sex peers.

Other studies have shown that men maintain larger social networks with other males, when compared to women, and tend to have longer lasting friendships with members of the same-sex than do women. So, for this study, the Psychologists recruited male and female college student volunteers, and asked them to complete surveys about their relationship with their roommates.

The findings, reported in the journal Psychological Science, revealed that males are more tolerant than females of unrelated same-sex individuals. Further, the males in the study rated their roommates as being more satisfactory and less bothersome than females did. In addition, the researchers found at three different collegiate institutions that females were more likely to switch to a new roommate than males were.

Then, in a further experiment, the participants read a story in which a the main character’s best friend was described as being completely reliable until one day when they promised to hand in a paper and didn’t. After reading the story, the participants were asked to judge the best friend’s reliability – The results of this experiment (which only related one negative behaviour of a formerly reliable hypothetical friend,) showed that women downgraded the best friend’s reliability significantly more than men did.

The researchers caution that their definition of tolerance may be limited and more work needs to be done to uncover the fundamental processes suggested by their findings; but they surmise that gender differences in tolerance may be based on the different functions and expectations that same-sex friendships serve for males and females.

Dr Benenson said:

At the most primitive level, females may have lower thresholds than males for sensing negative visual, auditory, or olfactory information in unrelated same-sex individuals.

She went on to explain that the effort that we put into relationships with unrelated same-sex individuals may also depend on our short and long term needs during that specific time in our lives.

Females may simply weight negative information more heavily than males do, because negative information disrupts the establishment of intimacy, which serves a more important function in same-sex relationships for females than for males.

Posted by Jonathan as Anthropology, Psychology at 8:24 AM GMT

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