French, US and Dutch researchers believe that memories of glamorous film stars drinking alcohol leads us to associate drinking with attractiveness.
The research asked nineteen men and women drinking in a French bar to rate their own attractiveness and blow into a breathalyser and found the more they had drunk, the more attractive they thought they were, the Daily Mail reported.
A second experiment revealed that the mere thought of alcohol is enough to boost someone's opinion of themselves. Here, 86 young men were told they were taking part in a taste test for a new minty lemon drink.
Some were given an alcoholic version, others the same drink minus the booze. In each case, some were told the drink was alcoholic, others were told it was alcohol-free.
After a short break to allow the alcohol to take its effect, they recorded an advertisement for the fictional drink.
They then watched the tape back and rated their appeal. Those who thought they were drunk rated themselves more highly than the others, regardless of whether they'd had any alcohol or not.
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"Almost everyone thinks they are more attractive after they think they have consumed alcohol. However, ratings from independent judges showed that this boost in self-evaluation was unrelated to actual performance," University of Grenoble researcher Laurent Begue was quoted by the paper as saying.
The study was published in the Journal of Individual Differences.