Sexy clothing (Kim Kardashian pictured) can make women appear more intelligent and more likely to be faithful.
Sexy clothing can make women appear more intelligent and more likely to be faithful, a study found. The research contrasts with previous studies that found 'sexualised' clothing has the opposite effects.
Rachael Worrell and Alfredo Gaitan of the University of Bedfordshire believe their study shows stereotypes about women may be changing.
They showed 64 undergraduates, average age 21, photographs of a fashion model in her 30s wearing a low-cut top, a jacket, and very short skirt, and also with the skirt longer and the top covering more flesh.
The students ranked her for intelligence, faithfulness, personality, morality, intention to have sex and perceived job status.
The researchers, whose findings were presented at the British Psychological Society's conference in Nottingham, said: 'Contrary to our predictions it was the sexualised clothing which resulted in higher intelligence and faithfulness ratings.'
The woman's clothing had no significant effect on how she was ranked for the other traits. Dr Gaitan said: 'Have attitudes changed so much that people are not making negative judgments based on a woman's dress?
'We think there are still negative attitudes out there, but perhaps people are seeing the sexy look more positively.'
In a separate study, researchers found people tend to rate attractive people as being more intelligent, and this can impact on how they judge their suitability for tasks, for example.
The research was led by Sean Talamas at the University of St Andrews. His team took photos of students and linked their images to their university scores.
He then created a series of 'standardised' faces to give the images a more neutral expression, without make-up or jewellery for example. A grade point average (GPA) was then calculated for each of these images.
Participants varied in their course of study and the number of modules completed based on their year. This included 63 in Sciences and 37 in Arts with 44 first and second year undergraduates, 39 third and fourth year undergraduates, and 17 in postgraduate courses.
Four separate groups of participants were recruited to obtain ratings of perceived attractiveness, intelligence, conscientiousness, and academic performance for these images. The researchers then compared these ratings to the GPAs.
They discovered that more attractive faces were more likely to be highly rated as intelligent, conscientious, and with high academic achievement.
However, there was no actual relationship between attractiveness and 'real-world academic achievement'.
Source: Dailymail UK