
You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think - footpath
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=you-are-less-beautiful-than-you-think
======
Xcelerate
I don't think this study supports the article's headline. That headline, more
explicitly stated is: "[Society rates you as] less beautiful than you [do]".
Why? Someone's physical beauty is a property that depends on what everyone
thinks. You could say "beauty to a certain group" or "beauty to yourself", but
to just use the term "beauty" by itself implies "beauty as society sees it".

But in the study, there is no rating by others, simply by yourself. So if you
really wanted to make a statement about people actually being more or less
beautiful than they themselves think they are, you would need a way for
someone to assess themselves as if they were a stranger. I know a few times
when I looked at a mirror and didn't immediately process that it was a mirror,
I saw myself "objectively". I wonder if there's some way you could incorporate
that phenomenon into a study. I would also suggest amnesia patients who have
forgotten what they look like but 1) I don't know if that happens 2) people
with amnesia can still remember things in a certain way (like how to play the
piano), so I don't know if that would affect their own rating as well.

People studies are hard because there are just so many factors that affect the
results, and it's not always intuitive what affects what. Really, most of
these studies only directly support exactly what they tested, in this case:
people choose the most attractive version of themselves when presented with
different variations.

~~~
Fishkins
I disagree. Sure, "beauty" isn't a very robustly-defined term, but the
headline is reasonable. The most important point is that people's views of
themselves are objectively wrong, because the identify modified images of
themselves. Conversely, people can reliably pick the correct image of others.
Finally, this depictions differ in that the self-image has characteristics
society deems attractive, for our purposes, "beauty". I don't think beauty is
quite the best term, but I wouldn't call it wrong.

Also, I think your proposed study would undermine the whole point of this
study, since someone who didn't realize they were looking at themselves
wouldn't have the cognitive impetus to distort reality.

edit: I just realized I may have been missing part of your argument. Would you
be more satisfied if the title were "You are less beautiful than you _say_ you
are"? This study itself doesn't offer any real evidence that people actually
believe they look like the picture they say they look like. However, the other
cognitive studies linked in this article, including some other similar studies
I've read about, make me think it's extremely likely.

~~~
mortehu
> Conversely, people can reliably pick the correct image of others.

I wonder if this changes if the photos they see of others are mirrored?

~~~
mortehu
I skimmed the original paper today, and they did indeed perform a follow-up
experiment where participants were asked to identify themselves based on
mirror images. That follow-up experiment yielded similar results. No follow-up
experiment was conducted for identifying mirror images of others, but it seems
such an experiment would have been redundant.

------
staunch
My immediate reaction was that the problem with the commercial was the
_artist's_ bias.

He knew what the commercial was supposed to be. He knew whether he was drawing
from a self-description or a description by a third-party.

So, naturally, he drew more attractive pictures when a third-party was
describing the person.

~~~
nostrademons
There's also a _social_ bias in the commercial. People are socialized not to
say negative things about other people, particularly not other people's looks,
and particularly not women's looks. The artist was drawing off a verbal
description; if people consciously filter out their negative thoughts before
expressing them ("If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, don't
say anything at all"), then that verbal description will be biased.

The subject herself, however, is probably socialized not to brag, and so her
verbal description filters out the most positive aspects.

On a side note, I'm curious what the results would be if you took someone on
the autism spectrum and had them describe a woman they just met. Many such
people have no such tact filters; would you get a more accurate drawing from
them?

~~~
zachlatta
My girlfriend was telling me about Vietnamese culture the other day (her
family is Vietnamese). She put particular emphasis on the the vastly different
social norms between Vietnam and the Western world. From what she told me,
woman are much more forthcoming about their true opinions of another woman's
looks in Vietnam and the Eastern world.

Similar to how getting a description from someone on the autism spectrum would
product vastly different results, I'm curious as to how the results of the
experience would differ in different countries and different parts of the
world.

~~~
nostrademons
Interesting...I have a Vietnamese friend that's always complaining about how
her mother and her fiancee's mother are always talking about how she's not
pretty enough or not pretty enough for her fiancee. Explains a lot.

------
namenotrequired
> Most people believe that they are above average, a statistical impossibility

It's perfectly possible for the majority to be above the mean. If most people
believed to be above the median, that would be a statistical impossibility.

I think there is another reason for people to believe their results in some
areas are better than those of others: because of their own world view. A
teacher who focusses on controlling the classroom may see many colleagues be
worse at that and decide they're not as good a teacher as him; his colleague
who prefers to leave the studying behaviour of his students may think his
controlling colleague is not as good a teacher as him because he doesn't leave
students enough freedom. Whether this applies to beauty I don't know - I'd
expect it to apply only to aspects that they chose to modify (i.e. someone
with dyed hair will probably have dyed their hair in a colour they believe to
be more attractive and then believe they're more attractive).

~~~
redwood
Your stats are true when outliers massively move a mean.. but that wouldn't be
the case in a distribution like this one... I don't think. I mean it's more
appropriate to imagine a normal distribution here with the mean equal to the
median because the measurement is totally subjective anyway.

~~~
gizmo686
Theres a huge difference between something being statistically impossible, and
something being statisticly impossible, assuming it is a normal distribution.

~~~
bthomas
Might just be tired but I don't get this...care to explain?

~~~
gizmo686
In a normal distribution, the mean and median are the same value, so only 50%
of the data points can be above average. Without this assumption, you are not
guaranteed to have only 50% of your data points above average.

For example, what percent of the population do you think has an above average
number of legs?

~~~
colomon
Last line is the Best Example Ever of median and mean not agreeing. Did you
come up with it yourself?

------
famousactress
So generally, people think they're more valuable than society would settle on?
As a new father, I'd say that sounds like the best fucking news I've heard in
quite a while.

Further, I think you should optimize for this. This kind of even-arrogance
about your potential and innate worth is awesome. I've spent the last decade
sort of cultivating it in myself. I definitely think I'm more attractive than
I imagine someone who sees my photo would say I am, on average. It's
intentional, and frankly hard-won.

The trick, I think is to balance an unreasonable confidence about your
attributes/abilities, with a bloodless humility about your accomplishments.

~~~
vlasev
As I said in another comment, I believe we are generally very poor at telling
how we rate on any given scale, unless we have something very tangible - an
objective score (like in a game), lots of outside confirmation, etc. Most of
us think we are better drivers than we are. When you do not have as much
outside feedback, it's easier to talk yourself into believing anything.

One of the best applications of this is to be more positive and happier.

------
JackFr
There are a host of potential problems with the experiment design as descried
in the article, though since the original research is behind a paywall, I
imagine I will remain ignorant of the excruciating experimental design
details. The author of the SciAm article throws around such nonsense as
"computer retouched" to make more attractive, as if the entire result did not
depend on exactly how that was undertaken.

It's doubtful that the results could be replicated and almost certain that
they never will.

This "science" is such bullshit and an utter waste of time and money. It does
not broaden the scope of human knowledge, because 1) its probably not true,
and 2) even if it is, it is only demonstrably true within a tiny context. We
were far better off when psychologists did not conduct experiments, and just
considered their experience and thought deeply. Covering a turd in a thin
veneer of p-values and R-squareds does not make it science.

------
lkrubner
Photographs are not objective. I have certainly had the experience of
photographing my beautiful girlfriend and having the images come out ugly. A
million small things can ruin the image: a shadow, harsh lighting,
reflections, background, etc.

I have, many times, taken some photos of good looking friends of mine and had
the results come out badly. Often I will take such images into Photoshop and
fix the images. The images, after I have adjusted them in Photoshop, are
closer to objective reality, that is, closer to what I see when I look at the
people in question.

Photographs do not record the sum total of objective reality. They catch a
moment that is embedded in a million small circumstances.

When we say someone is pretty we often mean they look pretty at their best
moments. We don't mean they look pretty at 8 AM after a night of hard partying
and when they are badly hung over. Even pretty people have ugly moments, but
if that is all you photograph, are you being objective?

As to images, often the "truth" only comes out after extensive editing of the
image in Photoshop. Therefore, I find the methodology used in this study to be
highly questionable.

~~~
coob
You would be surprised at the difference focal length can make -
[http://stepheneastwood.com/tutorials/lensdistortion/strippag...](http://stepheneastwood.com/tutorials/lensdistortion/strippage.htm)

------
clarkm
If you haven't seen the Dove commercial, you should watch it while reading
this article from The Last Psychiatrist:

<http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/05/dove.html>

~~~
shantanubala
Although the article is interesting, I think one of the comments is much more
"to the point":

 _What gets me about this ad is that no one understands why the women
basically described themselves as trolls and the women they were talking to as
goddesses. They're being filmed. They know it, and they know it's being put up
somewhere. They don't want to be seen as having an over-inflated ego - they
know exactly how it's going to look to the watcher if they describe themselves
as more beautiful than they are. They have to have had an idea of what the guy
is doing, which means they're going to know there's going to be a sketch
hanging next to their real face. Wouldn't you want to look nicer than the
sketch?

As for the women they're describing. When a stranger asks you what you think
of their hair, have you ever said, "I hate it"? Again, they know that someone
is sketching. They describe the other woman in the prettiest terms they can.

This isn't a deep look into their feelings about their actual looks, it's an
exercise in self-marketing and politesse._

<http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/05/dove.html#c031270>

~~~
saalweachter
It was also a _commercial_. Commercials also magic soap bubbles and talking
birds.

Even assuming they did the commercial straight up with "real people", and the
sketch artist wasn't in on it, there could have been a huge file-drawer effect
of the 200 people/takes where the pictures came out the other way or just the
same or just too bland to work in a commercial.

~~~
brazzy
> there could have been a huge file-drawer effect

The technical term is "reporting bias".

------
D9u
I've always had a poor self image, so according to the article I must be
_really_ ugly.

~~~
Jun8
Ditto. When I was watching _The Matrix_ and everybody's "residual self image"
in the Matrix was super cool, I thought: "If I entered the Matrix I would
probably be in jeans and an ugly t-shirt"

------
impendia
And, yet, it is overwhelmingly to your advantage to believe that you are
attractive. Confidence counts for more than actual physical beauty.

This study provides an interesting example of a situation where it is in your
rational interest to hold irrational beliefs.

~~~
alashley
Well said. When people think poorly of themselves, they tend to sulk and
wonder why others perceive them in a certain (likely unattractive) way.

------
nopinsight
With what populations have the studies been conducted?

First, if all the participants have been American, this is likely not
applicable across the earth. I have lived in both Asia and the US, I'd say
that on average Americans express significantly more self-confidence than
those in Asia (whose customs tend to value humility and self-deprecation. And
they tend to do so, at least to other people.).

Second, if the populations have mostly been students at universities like
Chicago and Virginia. They are far from average people. Youths could be more
optimistic. Those in good universities might have been exposed to the good
sides of things much more than most people. Their academic success could stem
from their optimistic outlook and vice versa. And so on...

Psychology needs to diversify from studying Americans, esp. students in good
American colleges.

------
codex
This effect also holds for one's own estimates that one's startup will not
fail.

~~~
maxmcd
Although I imagine that if founders were told to describe each other's
business plans the results would be far less flattering.

------
peterarmstrong
Could this effect possibly be partially affected/explained by the fact that
most people primarily see themselves in mirrors, rather than directly or in
photos? I assume I'm less accurate in my understanding of what I look like
than what other people look like for that reason, regardless of vanity...

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nsxwolf
That's great. I'm even uglier than I already thought. I need to go wash this
down with a big sloppy glass of warm Soylent.

------
cupcake-unicorn
The "parody" version of the Dove video.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWkZiZaQsA>

Nowhere in this video is gender mentioned, or psychological conditions like
body dysmorphic disorder, or even just plain old depression. One way to
diagnose depression is that fallacy they mentioned where everyone thinks
they're better than average, well, it doesn't work on depressed patients,
they're the opposite.

This article is ridiculously oversimplified and really offers very little
insight into the subject. It's a very nuanced topic.

------
nthitz
With Google Plus' new photo enhancement features I fear people will become a
bit further disconnected from reality. Neat tech for sure though

~~~
minikomi
At least until Google Glass catches up

------
BIair
I think there's a gender bias missing here. I've known many beautiful women
who only see their flaws. They really don't know how beautiful they are. In
fact they see themselves as average or below.

While I've known many average men who thought they were God's gift to women.
Perhaps the confidence factor cited in another comment. Since most readers
here are men, I suspect the sampling is biased.

------
skizm
This isn't helping people who don't think highly of themselves to start with.

------
redwood
The study could easily be showing simply that people are inclined to suspend
disbelief when it benefits them in the scenario of choosing the picture that
they want to be most like them... this isn't the same as saying that someone's
self-image is somehow that idealized photo they're willing to suspend
disbelief for.

------
msglenn
People often look worse in photos than they do in real life simply because
they don't know the tricks for adjusting their face and bodies to achieve the
best effect. This photographer positions people in unnatural ways to ensure
his subjects look their best:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qe3oJnFtA_k)

Contrast this with how we see ourselves: In 3D and from a variety of angles.
Indeed, when we look at ourselves in a mirror, we often position ourselves in
ways that make us look our best. Who here hasn't done a 30 second mirror
check/pep talk to remind ourselves how great we are? Ever strike a totally
unnatural pose?

I think the subjects of these tests are looking at the images and picking the
image that best fits the version of what they see in the mirror, hence the
bias.

------
mikekij
If I'm uglier than I already think I am, I'm in trouble.

------
thelogos
This has been repeated ad nauseam and to me it seems like this is another one
of psychology's attempt at masquerading as science.

The way someone view themselves is subject to many variables that goes beyond
these generalization.

If you've ever experienced any psychoactive drugs that induce euphoria and
confidence such as cocaine and amphetamine, you will see yourself as a lot
more attractive and smarter than you actually are. Now, ask that same person
to rate themselves when they're going through withdrawal. You can bet that
their self-perception won't be the same.

You might say that we're discussing this in the context of a normal person
without any external influence. But that's the catch. There's no such thing as
a normal person and we're always under the influence.

Get someone to rate their attractiveness when they're hungry, when they're
full, when they're heartbroken, when they're in love, when they're socially
anxious and depressed, when they're confident and outgoing. Even the best of
us have many bad days.

There are structures in our brain that filters out what's deemed as
"irrelevant information" and it's extremely difficult to view yourself
objectively. Think of it as a kind of information tolerance, similar to drug
tolerance.

If we can adapt to the putrid stench of hydrogen sulfide, you can bet we'll
adapt to seeing our own flaw. Likewise, given enough time, most people will
come to adapt to the various tragedies and good-fortune that befall upon them.
The brain is remarkable at adapting.

How do you think someone who is lean and fit would react if they woke up
extremely obese the next day? They would be a lot less complacent than a
regular obese person because that person has had a lot time to adapt to their
change of appearance.

What makes matter even more complicated is peer comments. Not to be crass, but
have you ever came across a not-so-attractive girl on facebook getting tons of
compliments from other women?

Those white lies are extremely insidious and I've always struggle with the
fact that I can't judge myself objectively. This also goes the other way.
There are some extremely beautiful people whose self-perception have been
ruined by bullying and insults.

Think about the time when you first start wearing contacts or glasses, it
takes a few days to get use to your own appearance.

Now take an extreme example with people undergoing plastic surgery. Even when
the change is positive, some people are traumatize psychologically afterward
because they're unable to reconcile with new face, but your brain seems to
adapt regardless of whether or not the change is positive or negative. So this
may lead to an issue of ambiguity, where you can't even tell if the change is
positive or negative. A stranger will have a much easier time though, if only
we can get them to stop sugar-coating.

Long ago when I told a girl that I thought she was beautiful. She truly
couldn't believe me because from her POV, it's hard for some people to see
themselves as beautiful when they've been looking at the same face for
decades.

Some beautiful people also can't take compliments seriously from those they've
considered are not beautiful, because they erroneously believe that because
this person's standard is lower, that somehow their sense of aesthetic is not
up to par.

One thing is for sure, it's not a good idea to take your mother's compliment
seriously. Most mothers think that their son is handsome.

On the other hand, if your drunk buddies are reluctantly lamenting over the
fact that they couldn't be born with your face, otherwise they would be so
much more successful with women, then maybe you really are a handsome bastard.

~~~
markild
Very well put.

I actually find your points much more interesting that the ones made in the
article. To me, it's not really interesting _that_ we have a biased view of
our selves, no matter what direction, but _why_.

------
Mz
When I was young, a lot of other people thought I was "beautiful." It had a
lot of downside to it. My looks have mellowed with age and I generally have
fewer problems and I am generally happier. I really cannot parse out how much
of that positive change (edit: I mean being more comfortable with how I look
and how people react to me) is due to mellower looks and how much due to
behavioral or other changes. And I still get weird feedback, like people
guessing I am a lot younger than I really am.

I have never figured out how to get some kind of objective measure of just how
"attractive" I am. Unfortunately, this article isn't adding anything useful to
my keen interest in understanding such things.

------
sp332
This all might be explained by one factor: the amount of detail in the image.
Well, that and the fact that most people seem to think that smooth featureless
faces are more attractive. If you're familiar with your own face over time,
you'll tend to overlook details since they change. If you meet someone just
once, you might remember more specific features.

Also, something odd between these two studies: in one, people think they are
more attractive than other people do, and in the other it's the opposite. This
could be explained by people glossing over details when they describe a new
face to someone else, while their own brain still has an image of the details
that they would recognize later.

~~~
zevyoura
The Dove commercial is hardly a 'study,' I'm quite sure they determined the
outcome before filming.

------
davidroberts
I'm definitely not as beautiful as I think. In my mind, I'm still a dashing
handsome 25-year old. But the stupid mirror keeps insisting that I'm in my
fifties with the wrinkles and sags to prove it.

------
Jun8
"It would be a big relief if we all suddenly realized, like Christian
Andersen’s ugly duckling, that we are in fact beautiful."

This is a tongue in cheek comment in the article but it's all to common to
read comments that "each one of us is special", etc. This, of course, cannot
be; however, it is a common fallacy
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#The_Lake_Wobegon_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#The_Lake_Wobegon_effect))

------
ChristianMarks
What's next, that your breath is worse than you think it is?

------
Ecio78
Slightly related (to the fact that the idea we have of ourself is different by
how others see us) I suggest you to read the italian classic "Uno, nessuno e
centomila" (One, No one and One Hundred Thousand) by Luigi Pirandello:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One,_No_one_and_One_Hundred_Tho...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One,_No_one_and_One_Hundred_Thousand)

------
jamesaguilar
This is confusing to me, because most of the people I talk to who share their
feelings about their looks seem to find themselves less attractive than my
estimate. Maybe I'm just systematically overestimating people and they are in
turn STILL overestimating themselves, but one has to wonder if this study is
really finding what it thinks it's finding.

~~~
jessedhillon
People may be showing humility. Also, when you talk to them, you may be
measuring something other than their mental self- representation -- maybe they
are expressing where they think they are relative to society, whereas the
experiment is measuring the delta between self-image and reality.

tl;dr -- You can think yourself ugly, yet still not as ugly as you actually
are!

------
gadders
Reminds me of a quote I heard recently about Gene Simmons on a radio show (via
Jim Wendler).

The radio host was a woman that hated him, hated his attitude towards women
and himself. She said to Gene, "I bet you are the kind of guy that walks into
a room and thinks every woman wants him."

Gene responded, "Well, if I didn’t think that, no one would."

So yeah, I try and think it :-)

------
GigabyteCoin
>The same morphing procedure was applied to a picture of a stranger, whom the
study participant met three weeks earlier during an unrelated study.
Participants tended to select the unmodified picture of the stranger.

This is the dumbest reasoning I can fathom if they wanted to prove that others
think we are less attractive. All it proved is that other people have a good
memory of what we look like.

They should have done this the opposite way. (Show the stranger an ugly-
morphed version of the person's face and the regular version, if they chose
the uglier version it would prove they remembered them as being uglier than
they saw them originally.)

All they proved in that study is that the majority of humans have a good
memory and that we _WANT_ to look more attractive than we actually are. We
don't think it, not most of us anyways, but we sure want to look better. When
you show us a good picture and bad picture of ourselves and ask us to choose,
we're going to pick the good looking one without a doubt.

"Oh yea, the one with the buckteeth and zits over there is me!"

------
pmichaud
This seems like an interesting example of the fundamental attribution error. I
guess one could phrase it: I see others as they are and myself as I hope to
be.

------
holograham
perhaps this is an evolutionary advantage for humans to perceive themselves as
good at things they do even if they are average or worse. It provides
motivation, confidence, and enhances risk appetite. All necessarily attributes
for a long term adaptive species.

------
meangeme
This is such an oversimplification of self-enhancement and a great example of
confirmation bias.

------
espinchi
My first reaction to the article title: "Yes, probably, but I prefer it stays
this way"

------
septerr
Damn.

------
jsftw
tell me about it

~~~
breakupapp
found the video! <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk>

~~~
jsftw
I don't care really. Good vid though.

------
madaxe
This is cultural. Americans and many westerners have a very high opinion of
themselves, in terms of looks, intellect, etc. This doesn't hold true for
everyone, however.

I view myself as a malformed hideous idiot with a vicious temper. Much better
to keep expectations low.

