Do attractive TV anchors make men unable to remember the news?

The experimental study reported here employed one of the most compelling visual cues of female sexual attractiveness (low waist-to-hip ratio) to test the influence of news anchor sexualization on audience evaluations of her as a professional and their memory for the news that she presents. Male participants saw the sexualized version of the anchor as less suited for war and political reporting. They also encoded less news information presented by the sexualized than her unsexualized version. Conclusions were drawn in line with evolutionary psychology expectations of men’s cognitive susceptibility to visual sex cues. Women participants, on the other hand, did not vary across conditions in their assessments of the anchor’s competence to report on war and political news. Moreover, they encoded more news information presented by the sexualized than unsexualized anchor condition.

Source: “Sexual Cues Emanating From the Anchorette Chair: Implications for Perceived Professionalism, Fitness for Beat, and Memory for News” from Communication Research

via Miller McCune via the excellent Vaughan Bell

This would seem to be further proof that being around attractive women makes men stupider.

Related posts:

An easy way for women to be more attractive to men and men to be more attractive to women

Should men who want to be more attractive to women read Byron?

Does having a high-status car really make a man more attractive to women?