Do sexy people make us dumb?

Have you ever felt tongue tied or self conscious around an attractive person? Perhaps you've felt foolish for having this response. According to social scientists at Radboud University in the Netherlands, it's more common that you might think.

Associate Professor JCTM Karremans and colleagues found that "Impression management requires careful monitoring and modifying of one’s own behavior to optimize the overall impression an individual wants make on the interaction partner, making it an effortful and cognitively demanding endeavor." In other words, so much of your brain power is taken up with trying to make a good impression that verylittle is left with which to function normally. 

The one finding ladies might have suspected all along is that this effect seems to be more pronounced with men when interacting with a female colleague they perceive as attractive. So the otherwise intelligent guy might get a bit mixed up when the pretty lady walks in. 

So the science confirms it - when we're trying too hard to make a good impression, we're likely to achieve the opposite! (According to this study: especially the men)

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Shelley from Morningside shared a story that confirms it's not just the gentlemen: "I worked for an international shipping company. There were 6 women in our office when an extremely handsome Danish man (marketing exec from our head office in Denmark) walked in. He asked a fairly simple question and 5 of us (who were more than capable of answering the question)  just stared in amazement and couldn't speak. The remaining lady starting babbling non stop! The 5 of us who were suddenly struck dumb just looked at each as if to say "Who's gonna answer this beautiful artwork of a man?" Needless to say when he walked out we all fell to pieces. I was one of them left dumb struck at the site of this man! I've never experienced that before or again!"