Closing time effect
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"Closing time effect" refers to the
social psychologists
who used scientific testing to gather evidence in support of the idea.
The first experiment
college campus, experimenters asked individuals the following question: "On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 indicates 'not attractive', 5 indicates 'average', and 10 indicates 'extremely attractive,' how would you rate the opposite-sex individuals here tonight." The experimenters took this survey at 9:00 pm, 10:30 pm and at midnight. Results showed that individuals' perception of people's attractiveness
in the bar increased the later it got.
Theory
The freedom of potentially going home with someone in the bar is threatened as the night comes closer to ending, according to the
Dissonance theory has also been suggested as an explanation, proposing that as the night progresses, individuals’ intentions to leave with someone becomes stronger; however, leaving the bar with someone who they may find unattractive causes dissonance
, increasing the perceived attractiveness of the potential mate.
Other studies
Following the first
Females showed no changes over time in their photo ratings of males.[4] Madey, Simo, Dillworth, and Kemper (1996) found the effect in a nightclub near a university, but only for participants not in a relationship.[5] The authors argued that only participants not in a relationship should experience a threat to their choice of companion. Sprecher et al. (1984) did not find a closing-time effect.[6]
Effect of alcohol
Johnco, Wheeler and Taylor (2010) measured the attractiveness of participants over a night while also controlling for the
covariate in a repeated measures design, with 87 participants at a beachside pub in Sydney
, Australia on four consecutive Saturday nights, between 9 pm and 12 am. They found that both perceptions of attractiveness as well as BAC increased as a factor of time. They concluded that BAC explained a significant portion of the increase in opposite-sex attractiveness but that a substantial effect remains after adjusting for BAC.
Other possible explanations
One other possible explanation about the cause of this perception of higher attractiveness is "mere familiarity or exposure".[7] Previously seen stimuli may be perceived more positively than new stimuli. Another explanation comes from the commodity theory (Brock, 1968). According to commodity theory, as people find mates in the bar and leave with them, there is a scarcity of individuals left in the bar. This scarcity increases the desirability and perceived attractiveness of those left in the bar.
References
- PMID 27453805.
- ^ "Pennebaker et al. (1979)".
- S2CID 144441964. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
- ^ "APA PsycNet". Psycnet.apa.org. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
- .
- S2CID 143468416.
- doi:10.1037/h0025848. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
Sources
- Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic.
- Gilley, M. (1975). Don't all the girls get prettier at closing time. In The Best of Mickey Gilley (Vol. 2). Columbia Records. Written by Baker Knight, Singleton Music Company. New York: Broadcast Music, Inc.
- Halberstadt, J., Rhodes, G., & Catty, S. R. (2003). Subjective and objective familiarity as explanations for the attraction to average faces. In F. Columbus (Ed.), Advances in psychology research (pp. 91–106). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
- Nida, S. A., & Koon, J. (1983). They get better looking at closing time around here, too. Psychological Reports, 52(2), 657–658.
- Pennebaker, J. W., Dyer, M. A., Caulkins, R. S., Litowitz, D. L., Ackreman, P. L., Anderson, D. B., et al. (1979). Don't the girls get prettier at closing time: A country and western application to psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 5(1), 122–125.
- The attractiveness of average faces is not a generalized mere exposure effect. Social Cognition, 23, 205–217.
- Brock, T. C. (1968). Implications of commodity theory for value change. In Psychological foundations of attitudes (pp. 243–275). Academic Press.