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Taiwan study finds sight of sexy women makes men act dishonestly

Taiwanese university study finds sight of sexually attractive women makes men behave dishonestly

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Models at Taipei Game Show.

Models at Taipei Game Show. (CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- A study carried out by a team of Taiwanese professors has found that when presented with the sight of a foxy females, men are more likely to behave dishonestly, reported Psychology Today.

The results were from a joint study on the effect images of sexually attractive women have on men, which was carried out by Chiou Wen-bin (邱文彬), a psychologist at National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYU); Cheng Wen (鄭雯), an assistant professor at the Teacher Education Center at NSYU; and Wu Wen-hsiung (吳文雄), a professor at Kaohsiung Medical University (KMU).

The outcomes of the study, titled "Sexy women can tempt men down the road of immorality: Exposure to sexy stimuli leads to increased dishonesty in men," (性感美女能誘使男性墮入不道德之路), have since been published in journals and magazines around the world, including Evolution and Human Behavior, Psychology Today, Pacific Standard, and the Daily Mail.

When the professors set on their research project, their hypothesis was that from an evolutionary standpoint, when men are stimulated by a motivation to mate, they may exhibit dishonest behaviors to enhance their sexual desirability to prospective female mates. The researchers decided to measure this behavior by exposing male subjects to images of sexually appealing women and then provide them tasks with options to see if they acted dishonestly.

To carry out the study, Chiou recruited 74 heterosexual men in their early 20s to view photographs of women and rate their sex appeal. Half of the subjects were shown photos of women who had been previously been rated as sexy, while the other half were shown images of woman who were rated low in terms of sex appeal.

The men were then given what they were led to believe was an unrelated task, which once completed, they were told they would receive an envelope with NT$120 in cash. However some men received envelopes with an extra NT$50 coin. What researchers wanted to then measure, was whether they would be "honest" and return the extra money or be "dishonest" and pocket the extra money for themselves, and of those who pocketed that money, if there be a correlation with being exposed to images of sexually appealing women.

Taiwan study finds sight of sexy women makes men act dishonestly
(CNA image)

As a result, only 54.1 percent of the men who viewed images of sexually desirable women, returned the extra cash, while 78.4 percent of the men who had seen less sexually appealing women returned the bonus money.

Chiou then ran a second study, in which 90 men were shown the same images, after which they were assigned mathematical puzzles with a reward of NT$20 for each one solved within five minutes. After the time elapsed, it was found that 60 percent men who had seen the sexually arousing women had overestimated the number of puzzles they had solved.

Meanwhile, only 33 percent of the men who saw images of less sexually enticing women claimed more than their fair share of the reward. On average, the group that saw more alluring women took NT$62 more than they deserved, while the group exposed to less desirable-looking women only took NT$24 more than they should have.

The professors concluded that there indeed seems to be a correlation between an increased stimulation in the motivation to mate and a change in behavior in men that could more immediately appeal to a prospective mate and that this can be seen in everyday life:

"The present findings suggest that ubiquitous sexual stimuli in daily life may be more closely associated with men's morally questionable behavior such as dishonesty or cheating than previously thought. For men whose mating motivation is heightened by exposure to sexual stimuli, dishonesty appears to be a tactic for projecting characteristics preferred by women (e.g., large economic resources)."

The authors of the study said that daily modern life is now replete stimuli to intentionally trigger the mating motivation in males, including models at car and IT expos, sensual social media photos, online pornography, and sexy models used in advertisements for fitness, lingerie, hot spring hotels, and cosmetics.

Based on the findings, Chiou suggested that men examine or recall whether their own immoral thoughts or impulses were associated with previous sexual stimuli. However, the paradox is that although men are attracted to sexy women, it is easy for them to want to use improper means to pursue them, or in other words, "When men see beautiful women, their honesty declines," said Chiou.

The following are examples of promotional models at typically seen at many trade fairs in Taiwan.

Taiwan study finds sight of sexy women makes men act dishonestly
(CNA image)

Taiwan study finds sight of sexy women makes men act dishonestly
(CNA image)

Taiwan study finds sight of sexy women makes men act dishonestly
(CNA image)