News

Wearing Red Ups a Woman's Chances of Meeting Mr. Right Online

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Mar 22, 2013 06:27 PM EDT

Not getting enough attention on dating websites? Try uploading a picture of yourself wearing red clothes.

Researchers found that women who wear red in their online dating profiles got more messages and date invites that those wearing any other color, a new book "Drunk Tank Pink (and Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel and Behave)" reveals.

Author NYU marketing professor Adam Alter reviewed several recent studies revealing subtle details that affect how people think, feel and behave.

For example, Alter found that the color red generate more positive responses in almost every scenario.

One of the studies from the University of Rochester, New York found that men are more likely to find a woman more attractive, ask her out on a date and spend more money on her us she is wearing red.

In another study conducted by researchers at the University of Southern Brittany in France found that profiles with pictures of women with digitally altered red tops generated 21 percent of total messages compared with 14 percent to 16 percent of messages when the same women were wearing black, white, blue, yellow or green digitally altered tops.

"The message here couldn't be simpler," Alter writes. "If you're trying to attract a member of the opposite sex, red dresses and red shirts give you an ever-so-slight romantic advantage."

He explains that the color red has long been linked to sex, love and lust, from hearts on a Valentine's card to the illumination in a red-light-district.  He explains that society has simply been "conditioned" to associate the color red with passion. 

However, he noted that biology also plays a big role in our natural attraction to the color red.

"Animals, from humans to baboons to finches, flush red when they're sexually receptive," he writes on Slate.com. "A woman's skin tends to redden as she approaches ovulation, and then lightens during the infertile midpoint of her menstrual cycle."

© 2023 Counsel & Heal All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics