Study Suggests Flowers Might Boost Men’s Chances to Attract Women

We all know that flowers bring joy to women. But there is something for men there too. Giving flowers to a woman is a win-win situation for both woman receiving the flowers, and man giving them. How so?

According to the study done by Nicolas Guéguen at the University of Southern Brittany, mere presence of flowers can influence women’s perceptions of a male’s attractiveness and give men better chances. Three experiments were conducted.

In the first experiment, randomly assigned female participants were offered to watch a video of a man discussing food. One group of participants sat in a room decorated with three vases of flowers (roses, marigolds and daisies); another – in a room decorated with empty vases. After watching the video, female participants in the room with flowers rated the man as more attractive and were more willing to date him.

The second experiment involved 100 female college students and an attractive male. Each female participants was led to the room where the man was sitting. The participants did not know that the man was part of the experiment and thought that he was also a participant. Each participant then went to one of those rooms with flowers and with no flowers to watch the same video about food. After watching the video, the woman was led to the room with the man where they were told to discuss the video. The researcher then entered the room and asked them to wait for a few more minutes while he was getting the forms for them to fill out. While he was away, the man followed his script engaging the young woman in a small talk, complimenting her and asking for her phone number. Around 80% of women who had watched the video in a room with flowers agreed to give out their phone number, whereas only 50% of women who sat in a room without flowers gave out their number.

The third experiment was conducted in the shopping mall where an attractive man asked 600 young women for they phone numbers. Three locations in the mall were chosen for this experiment: in front of a flower store, a cake store, or a women’s shoe store. Although the majority of young women did not agree to give him their phone number, he succeeded 24 percent of the time when asking in front of the flowers shop, compared to a 15.5 percent success rate near the cake store and an 11.5 percent success rate near the shoe store. Nicolas Guéguen concluded that the presence of flowers might influence the female’s perception of male’s attractiveness whether in a lab or a shopping mall. He explained it with two reasons:

• Women associate flowers with romance.
• Flowers put people in a good mood and that in turn makes them more generous in their perception of others.

Here is a tip for men: remember to bring flowers to a date. It might boost your chance.