The beauty of Helen of Troy sent the ancient Greeks to war and now Canadian psychologists have proven it: men become irrational in the presence of female beauty.

Danny Penman writes in New Scientist that animal trainers know that if you want to train your dog, you need to give him an immediate reward. Only humans can postpone rewards until the future?but it looks like, when it comes to women, human males aren’t as practical as we thought they were.

Cash in hand is worth more to most people than having even more of it in the future. If this wasn’t the case, more of us would have savings accounts.

Margo Wilson and Martin Daly wanted to find out how this type of behavior works with regard to sex. While over 200 students were shown photos of good looking members of the opposite sex, they were offered a reward: they could get between $15 and $35 the next day or wait an unknown period of time for a larger reward of $50 to $75.

Since students are chronically short of cash, you might expect them to all to take the smaller amount of money right away. But something strange occurred: when male students were show photos of women who were of only average attractiveness, they made the more rational decision to put off receiving their reward so they would get a larger one in the future. But when they were shown pictures of really beautiful women, they all chose to get the smaller amount of money right away.

Women acted differently?they made equally rational decisions no matter which photos they were shown.

Art credit: http://www.freeimages.co.uk

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