According to a study from the University of Minnesota, men become less frugal and more impulsive when they perceive a scarcity of females.

“What we see in other animals is that when females are scarce, males become more competitive. They compete more for access to mates,” says Vladas Griskevicius, Ph.D., an assistant professor of marketing at the University and lead author of the study.  “What you find across cultures is that men often do it through money, through status and through products.”

When researchers led male participants to believe that women were scarce, the savings rates for men decreased by 42 percent. Men were also willing to borrow 84 percent more money each month.  In another study, male participants were presented with rolls of photos showing a greater number of men than women.  The men were then asked to choose between receiving some money tomorrow, or a larger amount in a month.  With women scarce in the photos, men were much more likely to take an immediate $20 rather than wait for $30 in a month.

Researchers said such behavior occurs subconsciously — that participants were unaware of the male to female ratio having any effect on their behavior.

Researchers then flipped roles in the study to see how the financial choices of women were influenced.  Although women don’t spend more when there are more men in the population, their expectations of courting behavior change.  For example, the study showed that they expected men to spend more on dinner dates, Valentine’s gifts, and engagement rings.

When comparing their hypothesis with a review of real world data, researches looked at 120 U.S. cities and discovered that in communities with an abundance of single men, men showed greater ownership of credit cards and had higher debt levels.

So what does single look like in 2011?  Pretty darn good if some of our favorite celebrities are any indication.

Sandra Bullock, 47

Our girl crush for Sandra Bullock has always been huge.  How can you not a love a woman who is funny, wears her heart on her sleeve and bounced back from a very public divorce into the role of devoted, single mom.  Her career’s pretty fantastic too.  We’re looking forward to seeing her in director Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Charlize Theron, 36

In a December appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Theron gave a thumbs up to her newly single status when she said, “I haven’t been single since [I was] like 19.”  She followed up with, “It’s actually a nice experience for me because I haven’t experienced it… I’m really enjoying it.”

Tracee Ellis Ross, 39

In an interview with the Vibe Vixen, Ross weighed in on all the discussion about black women being doomed to be single.  She said, “All I would say is there’s no method to this madness of life. No one has all the answers; no one is you. I don’t have all of the answers, but listen to yourself. Know yourself. Discover what works for you. You never know when things happen and how they happen, but an openness and willingness to be curious about your life and what it is that you really want and what package it’s going to come in is the journey.”

Katie Couric, 54

Couric has made some big changes this year, leaving her high-profile gig as anchor woman at CBS and according to December reports, ending her five-year relationship with younger man Brooks Perlin.  It’s always inspiring to watch a woman with so much at stake, bravely do what she needs to do and shake up what isn’t working.

What about you, what do you plan to shake up for 2012?

Wish you were sitting next to the hot guy a couple of rows ahead of you on your flight from NYC to Paris? If you fly KLM, you can.

According to TechCrunch, next year, the Dutch airline plans to offer passengers the chance to pick their seatmate based on Facebook or Linkedin profiles with a new program called “meet & seat”. Passengers will be able to opt-in to have their social media profile available for other travelers to see before they make their seat choice.

Whether or not both parties will have final picture approval is unclear. The airline will not comment since the program is still in development.

Earlier this year Malaysia Airlines launched a similar program that allows passengers to book a flight and check-in on the airline’s Facebook page. Startup Planely, wants to create a “social flying revolution” by connecting you with other Planely fliers.

What do you think?