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Women have known this since the beginning of time. Now psychologists at

McMaster University in Canada have figured it out, too. A beautiful woman can make a guy stupid.

According to New

Scientist, pretty women scramble men\'s ability to assess the future. Scientifically, it\'s known as

\"discounting the future.\" Seen frequently in animals, it means preferring an immediate, lesser reward to a

greater reward in the future.

Here\'s an example: If someone offered to give you $10,000 now or the same amount

five years from now, you would choose to take the money today because there is no value in waiting. But if someone

were to offer you $10,000 today or $50,000 in five years, you would probably opt to wait for the higher amount. This

is called \"rational discounting.\" If you were to take the $10,000 today, it\'s called \"irrational

discounting.\"

The study: McMaster University researchers Margo Wilson and Martin Daly wanted to find out if

sexual mood influenced discounting behavior. They showed 209 male and female students pictures of attractive and

not-so-attractive people of the opposite sex. Each was then offered a chance to win a prize. They could accept a

check for between $15 and $35 tomorrow or one for $50 to $75 at some point in the future.

The results for the

men: After a man viewed pictures of women who were of average attractiveness, they made a rational decision about

the prize money and accepted the larger amount to be received in the future. But when they had just seen pictures of

beautiful women, they discounted the future value of the reward in an irrational way and opted instead for the

immediate and smaller cash outlay. In other words, after seeing a very attractive woman, the men were more likely to

make dumb choices.

The results for the women: Viewing the photographs of men--whether they were sexy hunks or

just run-of-the-mill guys--had no effect on women\'s ability to make rational decisions.

Why the difference?

Wilson and Daly don\'t know, but they suspect that viewing pictures of pretty women is mildly arousing for men. If

that\'s the case, it would activate neural mechanisms associated with cues of sexual opportunity. Tommaso Pizzari,

an evolutionary biologist at Leeds University, offered another possible explanation to New Scientist: \"If

there\'s the prospect of getting a very attractive partner it may pay a man to take more risks than if an average

partner was available.\"