The study to appear in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, announced by PTI London, reported by the Independent and carried by some media in India too is reportedly based on five studies involving over 1,300 people.
Contrary to the impression of most people that they look more intelligent when ordering or holding a glass of wine, the opposite is true, according to this research. Researchers have termed this phenomenon imbibing idiot bias. "The results suggest holding wine can selectively reduce perceived intelligence. They also suggest that imbibing idiot bias may be costly in professional settings involving alcohol," researchers said.
In one of these five studies, men and women rated the intelligence of people holding a glass of beer, wine or water (hard liquor like whisky or vodka, does not seem to have been a part of the Study-Editor). Results show that those holding alcohol glasses were rated as significantly less intelligent.
In another study, people were asked to rate a speaker's arguments when he or she was holding a beer or a soft drink. Their arguments were viewed as less persuasive, and the speaker was seen as significantly less intelligent when drinking beer.
In a third study, 300 senior managers rated people being interviewed for a job over dinner. Interviewees could order wine or a soft drink. The managers rated the job candidates as significantly less hire-able when they ordered wine.
The study appears to be surprising in that the results have been obtained by imposing an unfair and irrelevant situation. Notwithstanding the fact that no differentiation has been apparently made between beer, wine or liquor in the study, the situations chosen by the researchers have been rather bizarre and work-related though imbibing the beverage is more of a social and lifestyle situation. Perhaps, it might been interesting if the researches chose President Obama with his picture or a video showing him drinking beer and then with a soft drink or water and then conducted a survey on the same people. Perhaps, his drinking beer in public every once in a while, might already have reduced his chances of being ‘hired’ by the electorate in November- no disrespect intended in an attempt to show how absurd the studies appear to be-editor |