Journal of Student Research 2019

Journal of Student Research 170 control group for comparison, given the lack of control for the presence of pleasant or unpleasant stimuli in their surroundings. Additionally, of those who participated in the baseline study, there were several participants who opted to not include demographic information (32.75%), making it difficult to know how comparable the two groups were demographically. Additionally, the measures all relied on self-report data, and thus, could have been affected by social desirability or false responses. That being said, the participants were instructed that their results would be kept confidential and were alone (for the experimental conditions) when completing the measure, in an attempt to decrease the effect of social desirability. Understanding the relationship between flavor and attractiveness perceptions could lead to future studies investigating its application to dating practices and other situations in which attractiveness plays a role. As evidenced by past research, one’s flavor experience can impact one’s interest in beginning a romantic relationship with a hypothetical person, with those experiencing a sweet flavor being more interested (Ren, et al., 2015), providing support for flavor experiences being socially consequential, and leaving the door open for future investigation of flavor’s impact on perception of attraction to and romantic interest in real potential partners. Ren and colleagues (2015) also found that while flavor influenced evaluations of a hypothetical relationships, it did not impact evaluations of real relationships. Therefore, future studies may want to examine how unpleasant flavors influence attractiveness ratings of faces that are already known, relative to ratings of new faces. Until future research is conducted, it is recommended that one should choose carefully when suggesting a restaurant for a potential date, just in case.

Why Do You Taste So Ugly: Examination of Flavor on Perceived Attractiveness References

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