Belladonna:The Eyes Have it

Over 500 years ago, women in Italy used extract from the Belladonna plant to dilate their pupils because they believed it would increase their attractiveness. The word Belladonna literally means “beautiful lady.” They thought that bigger pupils would make their eyes seem more “dreamy” and entice men into falling in love with them. While you can not force or artificially manufacture attraction between two people, modern studies have confirmed that their line of thinking may have been correct.

In the 1960’s and 70’s, Hess et al studied the effect of pupil size on feelings of attraction. In one experiment, they took two pictures of the same woman, presented it to male subjects and asked them to describe the female in the picture. The researchers had artistically altered the photographs, manipulating the size of the woman’s pupils to be either slightly larger or smaller than they were in their natural state. Hess noted that “none of the men reported noticing the difference in pupil size” between any of the pictures but the subtle change seemed to subconsciously influence the level of attraction they felt for the woman. When the woman had large pupils, she was said to be “soft,” “more feminine” and “pretty,” while when the very same woman had small pupils, the men described her as “cold,” “hard” and “selfish.” This frequently referenced experiment and phenomenon has been re-tested using a variety of different methods over the years and has yielded the same results; men finding women with bigger pupils to be more romantically appealing.

So why does this preference for women with large pupils exist? It may be a reproductive strategy for men to ensure their success in the biological quest of passing on their genes. By this I mean that in a recent study it has been demonstrated that women’s pupils dilate the widest while looking at a prospective partner or loved one during times of ovulation. And since we know that men find women with large pupils alluring, it seems to be the perfect formula and timing to promote successful reproduction and perpetuation of the species.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/learning-the-look-of-love-in-your-eyes-the-light-the-heat/