Neuroscientists — and anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of attending a frat party — have already proven that drunk men tend to overestimate their own powers of seduction. A recent study suggests that sleep deprivation causes similar effects in men’s brains, resulting in a significant inability to judge whether women want to have sex with them.
Researchers from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine studied a sample group of 60 college-aged participants; 31 men and 29 women. When subjects were well-rested, both genders rated men as being more generally DTF. But when the participants were surveyed after a night without sleep, “men’s rating of women’s sexual intent and interest increased significantly, to the extent that women were no longer seen as having lower sexual intent than men.” Sleep deprivation didn’t noticeably change the female responses.
As with drunkenness, this lapse in judgement is caused by inhibition of the frontal lobe — the neural center of logical reasoning and social behavior that would normally remind you that, no, the supermodel over there does not want you to grind up against her, no matter how smoulderingly you gaze at her with those crusty, bloodshot, raccoon eyes.
(Image: Sebastian Miellet, Flickr.)
