Men more attracted to women in red

BEFORE READING

1. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:

1.	suggests	a.	rating
2	conducted	b.	impact
3.	score	c.	give
4.	provide	d.	thinking
5.	data	e.	particular
6.	fascinating	f.	argues
7.	awareness	g.	opportunity
8.	effects	h.	statistics
9.	certain	i.	carried out
10.	chance	j.	interesting

A new study suggests that men are more physically attracted to a woman if she wears red clothes. The report from New York’s University of Rochester conducted different experiments to find out the effects of colour on human relationships. Researchers asked more than 100 men to give a score to photographs of women. The men had to rate the women according to how pretty they were, how much the men would like to kiss them, their intelligence and how kind they looked. They also had to provide details of what kind of date they would like to take the women on. The results showed that that the women in the pictures who wore red scored higher and were more likely to be taken on an expensive date. The data showed the colour red made no impact on the scores for intelligence and kindness.



The research was carried out by psychology professor Andrew Elliot and his team. He said: “It's fascinating to find that something as [ever-present] as color can be having an effect on our behavior without our awareness.” This is one of the first scientific studies to look at the effects of colour on human behaviour. For most of us, however, it will come as no surprise that red is the colour of love and passion. Look no further than red roses on Valentine’s Day and the popularity of deep red lipsticks. Elliot says men may be genetically programmed to be attracted to females wearing red. He said certain apes also display such behaviour. Women in the study did not rate the pictured females as prettier, neither did they have the chance to rate men wearing different colours.

COMPREHENSION 

1. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):

a.	Men prefer women who wear red clothes.	T / F
b.	Part of a study was for men to kiss an intelligent woman in a red dress.	T / F
c.	A study said men might spend more on a date if the woman wore red.	T / F
d.	Men said that women who wore yellow were kind.	T / F
e.	The researcher said we are very aware of how colour affects us.	T / F
f.	Few people would be surprised that red is the colour of passion.	T / F
g.	Male apes prefer female apes who wear red.	T / F
h.	Women were more attracted to men who wear different colours.	T / F