Closing Time Effect

The closing time effect is the social psychology phenomenon in which patrons at bars and similar social venues judge potential partners as increasingly physically attractive as a venue's closing time approaches, even though nothing about those other patrons has actually changed. The idea traces to a 1975 country song by Mickey Gilley built around the same folk observation, which prompted social psychologists to test whether the effect was real; James W. Pennebaker and colleagues ran the first rigorous test in 1979, surveying 103 patrons across three college-area bars at 9:00 pm, 10:30 pm and midnight and finding that attractiveness ratings of the opposite sex did rise as closing time neared. Two competing explanations have been offered for why: a reactance account, in which the shrinking opportunity to leave with someone makes potential partners seem more appealing, and a dissonance account, in which a person nearing a decision to leave alone reassesses others more favorably to ease the discomfort of that prospect.