Want Help? Wear High Heels. Want More Help? Wear Higher Heels

Can the style of shoes worn by women influence the behavior of men? The French think so. Science Daily reports on research conducted at the Université de Bretagne-Sud, where study author Nicolas Guéguen set up experiments in which he watched what happened when a woman in flat shoes asked people to complete a survey, and whether or not they complied more readily when she was wearing high heels. He also tested whether or not people’s spontaneous urge to help changed when the same woman — again wearing shoes with different heel sizes — dropped a glove. The answers are unsurprising. Guéguen found that men’s helpfulness increased along with the height of the heels a woman was wearing. Also unsurprising, heel height had no influence on other women’s willingness to help. “Women’s shoe heel size exerts a powerful effect on men’s behavior,” summarizes Guéguen, who, Science Daily reports, believes that more research must be done to examine whether this effect depends on a woman’s shoe heel size and on any change of gait due to wearing high heels. Over to you.