Abstract 
 
 Research has found that the appearance of women’s apparel helps increase their attractiveness as rated by men and that men care more about physical features in potential opposite-sex mates. However, the effect of sartorial appearance has received little interest from scientists. In a series of studies, the length of women’s shoe heels was examined. A woman confederate wearing black shoes with 0, 5, or 9 cm heels asked men for help in various circumstances. In Study 1, she asked men to respond to a short survey on gender equality. In Study 2, the confederate asked men and women to participate in a survey on local food habit consumption. In Study 3, men and women in the street were observed while walking in back of the female confederate who dropped a glove apparently unaware of her loss. It was found that men’s helping behavior increased as soon as heel length increased. However, heel length had no effect on women’s helping behavior. It was also found that men spontaneously approached women more quickly when they wore high-heeled shoes (Study 4). Change in gait, foot-size judgment, and misattribution of sexiness and sexual intent were used as possible explanations. 

 New research suggests wearing heels forces women to walk in a way that exaggerates their femininity. 
 
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 Fashions in dress come and go, but a peculiar one has stayed in style for many generations, and shows no sign of fading away. It’s the high-heeled shoe, which first became a fashion statement in 16th-century France, and has been a part of the modern woman’s wardrobe since the mid-19th century. 
 
 Ask a woman why she endures the awkwardness and discomfort, and she’ll probably respond, “They make me look, and feel, more attractive.” Newly published research suggests this perception is accurate, but perhaps not for the reason you’d expect. 
 
 It’s not the artificially increased height that turns heads. Rather, it’s how such footwear changes the mechanics of a woman’s gait. 
 
 “High heels may exaggerate the sex-specific aspects of the female walk,” a University of Portsmouth research team led by psychologist Paul Morris reports in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. While noting that preference in footwear is based in part on culture norms, they argue the enduring popularity of high-heeled shoes suggest their fundamental appeal stems from a deeper impulse. 
 
 To test whether walking in high heels increases one’s femininity and attractiveness, Morris and his colleagues conducted two experiments using a point-light display. Participants (15 men and 15 women) viewed dotted outlines of 12 women as they walked for a total of four minutes apiece—two minutes in high-heeled shoes, and two minutes wearing flats. 
 
 They were then asked to rate how attractive they found the figures. 
 
 “For all walkers, the attractiveness score was higher in the heels condition than in the flat condition,” the researchers report. Both males and females judged the women wearing high heels to be more attractive than those who wore flat shoes. 
 
 In the second experiment, 120 participants (82 women and 38 men) watched the same dotted-outline footage and were asked to judge whether each of the models was male or female. (As noted earlier, all were, in fact, women.) While wearing flats, 28 percent of the women were incorrectly classified as men; among wearing heels, that number went down to 17 percent. 
 
 Why? The researchers report that, while wearing high-heeled shoes, the women “walked in a fashion more characteristic of female gait.” Specifically, “walkers in high heels took smaller, more frequent steps,” and this reduction in the length of their stride was accompanied by “increased rotation and tilt of the hips.” 
 
 In other words, they argue, high heels exaggerate the differences in the ways men and women walk, making the wearer appear more feminine. This stimulates “sexual arousal in males,” as well as increased attentiveness on the part of women who are scoping out potential competitors for male attention. 
 
 This can happen on either a conscious or an unconscious level, but this evidence suggests the dynamic is real, and transcends fashion fads. 
 
 Morris and his colleagues conclude that a woman walking in high heels is a “supernormal stimulus”—that is, an enhanced version of a stimulus found in nature. Previous research has suggested junk food can be seen the same way, in that it stimulates our natural craving for sugar, salt and fats by offering them in exaggerated concentrations. 
 
 So to sum up: High heels have a lot in common with Ho Hos. We may view them with ambivalence or concern, but in spite of ourselves, we feel the primal pull they exert. And we’re not likely to break our addiction any time soon. 

 TIME Health For more, visit TIME Health 
 
 Cue a collective sigh from women everywhere: a new study in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior proves that men really do find women in high heels significantly sexier. 
 
 Study author Nicholas Gueguen in the department of social behavior at the University of Bretagne conducted three experiments using French women identically dressed in black suits with straight skirts and white shirts. Most were also all brunettes: because previous studies showed that men were more likely to approach blonde women over brunettes and ask them out on dates. The only differences between the women were their shoes. 
 
 In the series of experiments, Gueguen dangled the women as science bait in front of unsuspecting men. 
 
 First, the women—wearing either black flats with no heel, black shoes with a 2 inch heel or black pumps with a 3.5 inch heel—approached several people and asked them for assistance. The woman switched shoes after soliciting every 10 people. 
 
 MORE: ‘Stiletto Whisperer’ Teaches Women To Walk In High Heels 
 
 When a 19-year-old woman approached men between ages 25 and 50, asking for their help with a survey on gender equality, she garnered the most responses when she wore the highest heels—83% of the men she approached agreed to spend three to four minutes answering her questions, compared to nearly half as many, 47%, when she wore flat shoes. Not terribly surprising. 
 
 But would women react the same way to fellow sisters in high heels? To find out, four women asked both men and women to participate in a food survey about what they ate. Again, men were more likely to respond when the women wore higher heels—82% agreed to do the survey when the women wore 3.5 inch heels, compared to 42% who did when they wore flats. But ladies didn’t fall for it. Only about 33% of women on average said yes to the survey request, regardless of the heel height. 
 
 Why were men more receptive to the women in high heels? To test the obvious attraction hypothesis, Gueguen told the women to find “marks” and walk ahead of them, then drop a glove. A whopping 93% of men chased after the women when they wore high heels to return the glove, compared to 62% of those who did when she wore flat shoes. And while women were also more likely to track down the high-heeled women than those wearing flats, the rates were much lower—52% for the heel wearers and 43% for the flats wearers. 
 
 MORE: Skinny Jeans and High Heels: What Health Dangers Lurk in Your Closet? 
 
 For the grand finale, researchers wanted to see if high heels could actually make men more likely to pursue the wearers as mates. They strategically placed women wearing different heel heights in three bars, seating them at tables near the bar where their shoes were visible to those standing at the counter and perusing the field. On average, it took men only 7.49 minutes to approach women wearing the high heels. For those wearing flat shoes, it took nearly twice as long—13.54 minutes. 
 
 All of this confirms that men tend to use physical attributes as a way to gauge women’s attractiveness and to find potential mates. It’s not exactly a revelation; Gueguen found in a previous study that female hitchhikers with bigger breasts get picked up more often by male drivers. But now, science gives some credibility to the seemingly illogical (and unhealthy) choice to endure pinched toes and vertiginous heights. “As a man I can see that I prefer to see my wife when she wears high heels and many men in France have the same evaluation,” Gueguen writes in an email response. 
 
 MORE: Can High Heels Trigger Migraines? 
 
 What exactly is so sexy about high heels? Gueguen blames (or credits) the media for its strong imagery association between stilettos and sexiness. And yes, higher heels can change the way a woman walks, making her hips sway a bit more as she negotiates walking at a more precarious height, but in the study, even women who were seated and wearing heels were approached by more men. And Gueguen’s follow-up studies, in which he showed men photos of women wearing heels or flats, confirmed that there was more to the attraction than a woman’s gait. “The results showed that high heels were associated with greater sexiness, overall physical attractiveness, breast attractiveness, beauty, attractiveness to other men, and willingness for a date,” he writes. Now, whether you want to be approached or left blissfully alone, there’s a shoe height for that.
– From the researcher who showed female hitchhikers with big breasts got picked up more by men than their flatter-chested counterparts comes another revealing study: one that appears to confirm that guys think high heels are sexier than flats. In a report published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the University of Bretagne's Nicolas Gueguen carried out a set of experiments by putting brown-haired French women—Time mentions that past studies have shown blondes are approached more than brunettes—in a series of scenarios, wearing three different types of shoes: black flats, black shoes with a 2-inch heel, or black pumps with a 3.5-inch heel. In the first experiment, as broken down by Time, a woman wearing the highest heel was able to get 83% of men ages 25 to 50 to help her with a gender equality survey; only 47% of the guys helped her when she wore flats. To test how both men and women responded, four testers in the second experiment asked subjects to help them with a food survey; 82% of men helped the high-heelers, 42% the flats-wearers, while only 33% of women subjects helped out, no matter what the heel height. To test attractiveness levels, the testers then walked in front of "marks" and dropped gloves—93% of men retrieved the glove for high-heel wearers, 62% for those in flats. And testers sitting at a bar? It only took men about 7.49 minutes to approach those in high heels, while those in flats had to wait nearly 14 minutes. Gueguen attributes the sexiness of high heels to media imagery, among other reasons, as well as how it changes a woman's gait. "High heels may exaggerate the sex-specific aspects of the female walk," a researcher said last year in the Pacific Standard. (Some women have surgery so their high heels fit better.)