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Scary thoughts
When we look at ourselves in the mirror, in any given session we tend to anchor on the time slice image that makes us look our best. That, we decide, is the "real" us.
Photographs, however, are a random sample of the various arrangements of light, angle, and facial expression that we can be found in. The median photograph of you is probably the best approximation of your physical attractiveness. But that wars with your self image, which is anchored on other, better combinations.
You're also biased by the fact that no one ever tells you you're ugly. It's not merely that people inflate what they tell you (they almost certainly do); it's also that people who think you're ugly tend to drop out of the sample. They may not cultivate an acquaintance with you, and those that do will probably not spontaneously let you know that they find you kind of repulsive.
You're stuck in a web of congitive biases and a positive feedback loop. It's a wonder anyone does get married.
Here is the link. This next part made me feel much, much better, though I can't quite agree:
...the best gauge of how attractive you are; how attractive are the hottest people who want to go out with you? They're probably only slightly more attractive than you are.
The final deflation then comes:
If you're married, of course, this is not useful.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 28, 2007 at 07:26 PM in Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
how attractive are the hottest people who want to go out with you?
Doesn't necessarily work for men over the age of 25 or so: sexist as it may sound, financial and emotional factors weigh heavy in women's evaluations of men.
people who think you're ugly tend to drop out of the sample.
That's just plain silly. *Anyone* past 20 or so -- anyone worth knowing -- will base friendship on factors more important than appearance. I have friends who are beautiful and friends who aren't. My friends have ugly friends: me, for one. I know you didn't mean to post such a shallow-seeming set of comments, but really... there's a lot missing from the above.
Posted by: Eduardo S at Aug 28, 2007 7:42:57 PM
"Doesn't necessarily work for men over the age of 25 or so: sexist as it may sound, financial and emotional factors weigh heavy in women's evaluations of men."
Heck, that can come into play even earlier than the age of 25. Just watch an episode of Parental Control on MTV.
And the best measure would probably to look at your median picture. Having just done so, I wonder if I need to invest in papers bags. The average person willing to date you is actually rather hard to judge: you can't simply ask people every single on the street whether or not they would like to go out with you.
Posted by: Robert Olson at Aug 28, 2007 7:58:23 PM
I don't know if this is true. It sounds tempting, but the reality is that we don't look at people at a single moment in time, and evolutionarily we're not evolved to look at still pictures. Perhaps how you look in video would be a more accurate proxy for how other people perceive you?
I also have a feeling that I find my friends more attractive than people I don't like, and I think this is not because they are objectively more attractive (whatever that means) but because of some complicated psychological process I don't understand by which people I like actually become more attractive. It would be quite difficult to test this hypothesis, though.
Posted by: Isabel at Aug 28, 2007 8:13:39 PM
I thought we all look bad/weird in photos because we're used to seeing our mirror reflection and so everything looks backwards to us in photos?
Posted by: Jacqueline at Aug 28, 2007 8:25:41 PM
One very interesting fact, which is closely related to what Tyler cites, is that when we look in the morror we quickly adjust our face to look more (objectively) attractive. That is, not only do we fixate on the moment when we look the best, but by real-time feedback we actually make ourselves more attractive while looking in the mirror.
By the way, posting a picture on hotornot.com is a quick reality check as to how hot you are vs. how hot you think you are.
Posted by: Paul N at Aug 28, 2007 8:54:03 PM
It's interesting that you posted this right after the facebook post. I'm more familiar with Myspace, but it's similar, and just yesterday I was thinking about how social networking sites have turned people into their own personal publicists, posting the most flattering photos they can find of themselves and then waiting for their friends to comment on how awesome they look. I think I have a generational response to the flagrant narcissism of it.
I agree with those who noted that you can hardly apply the "how hot are the people attracted to you?" gauge equally to both men and women. It's not just anecdotal -- I've read (in respectable magazines) of studies demonstrating that a prospective partner's appearance is way more important to men than to women.
Posted by: lara at Aug 28, 2007 9:11:59 PM
I think there is market waiting in evaluating how attractive you are, just as there is a market for appraising the value of your home.
Hot or Not is not a reliable website - the scores are inflated overall and there is too much of a tendency to judge females on how much skin they are showing in the photograph. Also, as this post indicates, people selectively submit photographs.
I think I would actually pay money to get an objective, detailed, quantitative evaluation of my attractiveness.
It would be completely useless to me (and maybe even harmful), but I'm curious like that. I'd wager that many others are too and that there could be real money in this.
Posted by: Jason Malloy at Aug 28, 2007 9:54:35 PM
The problem with the statements Tyler quotes:
Are they less true of you after you've read them?
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Aug 28, 2007 10:49:28 PM
You're also biased by the fact that no one ever tells you you're ugly.
Well, that piddle. Especially for younger people, who haven't found something else to base self-worth on, or those who are sensitive to remarks about appearance and thus get teased or brutalized using this topic.
Posted by: agm at Aug 28, 2007 11:22:13 PM
There is no way that photographs are a random sample!
First of all, most photographs (perhaps excluding surveillance) are not candidly taken, and therefore exhibit a facial posing bias.
Second of all, most photographs are taken in social settings which take up a minority of our time.
Posted by: bob at Aug 28, 2007 11:37:05 PM
No, most amateur photographs look worse than the person (victim) actually looks. The typical person doesn't have glowing red eyes, doesn't have a bright light shining them square in their face, doesn't go around with their face frozen in a hideous rictus, etc.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 28, 2007 11:50:04 PM
No, most amateur photographs look worse than the person (victim) actually looks. The typical person doesn't have glowing red eyes, doesn't have a bright light shining them square in their face, doesn't go around with their face frozen in a hideous rictus, etc.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 28, 2007 11:50:32 PM
>You're stuck in a web of cognitive biases and a positive feedback loop.
>Go North
>I see no North here
I gave up on this sort of game a long time ago.
Posted by: triticale at Aug 29, 2007 12:02:38 AM
I would say that one could simply judge by what kind of women (or men as the case may be) tend to give them attention. However, most people are very poor judges on who is actually just being polite, and who is really throwing a smile their way.
My own experience: I was a late bloomer and became popular in high school seemingly overnight. Sounds nice, except I was still a big nerd beneath the new found looks, so it was still a rocky road socially.
And someone else already eluded to it, but we are not typically seen by others in that median picture either. Many, many are the women that were mildly attractive at best when we first met them, but became "sexy" over time (and vice versa). Some of that is psychological of course, but not all of it.
Back to the anecdotal, I have looks and charisma, but no charm. I've seen guys with mediocre looks, no real charisma, but they would have this kind of charm that just melted girls. They were often stupid too, but I don't know if I would go so far as to make a connection. Perhaps their simple mindedness came across as a good natured aloofness.
However it was, it always perplexed me during my single days. Point being that the psychological factor is much larger than many would probably care to even know.
Posted by: Ray G at Aug 29, 2007 12:48:17 AM
Every portrait photographer is an author of fiction.
Posted by: at Aug 29, 2007 1:57:07 AM
I have a mother who is brutally honest with me - she tells me straight when I look disproportionate (kindest word I think!). Physically attractive people know how to highlight their natural assets and conceal their flaws - it's not rocket science.
I think it makes sense to measure oneself against one's best possible self and not worry about relative hotness to preserve sanity and bolster self-confidence. The other thing is expectations -if we're evaluating someone as a model or a partner then yes hotness matters otherwise it's just gravy :-)
Oh and I thought this might be useful to the charm-challenged (like me) - it's Casanova's - tell a beautiful woman she's smart and please for the love of god tell a smart woman she's pretty instead of constantly marvelling at her intelligence.
Posted by: Prithvi at Aug 29, 2007 5:48:40 AM
"Back to the anecdotal, I have looks and charisma, but no charm. I've seen guys with mediocre looks, no real charisma, but they would have this kind of charm that just melted girls. They were often stupid too, but I don't know if I would go so far as to make a connection. Perhaps their simple mindedness came across as a good natured aloofness.
However it was, it always perplexed me during my single days."
I noticed that girls generally don't like assholes, maybe that helps your perplexion. Guys of course, don't care (if the girl is hot enough).
Posted by: JSK at Aug 29, 2007 6:09:24 AM
there is too much of a tendency to judge females on how much skin they are showing in the photograph
Speaking from Mars, I would say that in this case, correlation is causation.
I've never been to hotornot, but I'd be curious about whether heights are posted as well... am I wrong, female readers, in assuming that the same picture would be received differently if the subject were thought to be 5'6" versus 6'1"?
Posted by: Rich at Aug 29, 2007 10:33:02 AM
...the best gauge of how attractive you are; how attractive are the hottest people who want to go out with you? They're probably only slightly more attractive than you are.
I can't agree at all. It presupposes that the attractiveness space is one dimensional and that everyone has roughly the same preference ranking. Which is quite *obviously* ludicrous.
I suppose the "probably" means that some non-ludicrous model could lead to this statement. But I think the variation in preferences is large enough that for most people there probably exists at least one person who would be attracted to them, that would score much higher in some attempt at a universal hotness poll.
If I value some rare trait much more highly than most people, then I may be attracted to people who have that trait all out of proportion to their average attractiveness. I think there are enough such possible traits and people who value them, that the calculation of average attractiveness becomes very fuzzy and makes back inferences like the one stated much too weak to be useful.
Posted by: Michael Sullivan at Aug 29, 2007 1:11:37 PM
...the best gauge of how attractive you are; how attractive are the hottest people who want to go out with you? They're probably only slightly more attractive than you are.
Oh, yeah? Two words: Dennis Kucinich.
Posted by: M.D. Fatwa at Aug 30, 2007 1:54:07 AM
People, people, just post a random sample of photos on HotOrNot.com and have done with it. People who don't know you will assign a rating to your visage based sheerly on their opinion of your looks (no psychological factors, no points for charm or a "great personality"). Take an average of those photo ratings and you've got a pretty good idea how you are viewed by others.
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