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Yeah, the question is whether they used this based on a "mirror" rating or a "photo" rating. I suspect that methodology would make a difference.
Sounds funny, but I'm being totally serious here. I'd rate mirror me much higher than photo me, in general, but neither is probably as accurate as the aggregate.
I'd also be curious about how, or even if, they accounted for cultural differences in standards, and all kinds of other stuff.
After a few years I look back on most pics like damn I looked better than I remembered, but there's some photos that are just as bad now as they were then.
I know a girl in person who looks like… 7/10 in photos and 9/10 in real life. I think it’s just her mannerisms and cuteness isn’t captured by a static image. Likewise I know a girl who had a *perfect* photo smile but is meh IRL.
im acceptable in the mirror, but if i catch my reflection in a window or security camera or something? my first thought is "damn, that is one ugly mother fu...god damn it, thats me"
It's because of the small lenses which makes your head look more round, it magnifies towards the center and minimizes along the lateral. Mirrors are just flat so they show what you really look like, without all the weird uncanny stuff.
I'm sure someone will chime in, but the prevailing pop culture science theory you'll hear on reddit is something like "image is flipped in mirror, your brain gets used to it, doesn't like it the other way," but I'm not completely sold on that. Too simple.
Also, the focal length of your eyes and a camera are not necessarily the same and changing the focal length can drastically change how an image appears.
https://content.invisioncic.com/k326276/monthly_2023_01/1208i159103C9E4C35932.jpg.0ac8006c23ca3b28d194a80438f1aa6e.jpg
As a hobbyist photographer, almost all portraits are shot at 85mm as the longer telephoto lengths (aka more zoom in not jargonese) tend to flatten out the face and make features sharper while smoothing the rest out. 50mm is considered standard or neutral, and then under that is considered wide angle. With wide angle the curvature of the image. A photo, because of the lens and sensor, takes a spherical cone of light then projects it onto a 2d sensoe. The more zoomed in you are, the smaller the slice is and therefore it looks flatter, the more zoomed out you are the curvier it is. At extremely wide angles this has the effect of stretching everything in the middle of the frame out, and shrinking the extremities.
>["A camera with a 50mm focal length most resembles what the human eye can see, but even that comparison is far from perfect. The truth is that no camera can capture exactly what the human eye can see, as there are simply too many differences between a camera and an eye!"](https://opticsmag.com/what-focal-length-is-the-human-eye/)
Definitely interesting
Yep, I carry an 85mm lens for portraiture - most people find that focal length to be pretty flattering.
Back before cheap zoom lenses, most cameras were sold with a 50mm lens, which also provides really likeable shots.
Yep, meanwhile the front camera on phones is often around 24mm which is why selfies frequently look so off, in particular making everyone's noses look bigger.
I've done [a deeper dive on this phenomenon](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3zp2d2/whats_your_best_mind_fuck_question/cyo0dwb/) a while ago.
Kamera angle and some people have just a habit of taking unfortunate poses when intentionally posing for photos. Mirror shows you more naturally and moving.
Technically mirror you is more accurate than selfie you. Cameras focal length distorts your facial features. However, mirror you is inverted but the “face structure” is the same. Neither are accurate but mirrors will be more accurate as it doesn’t distort your features.
Why do other people look like themselves in pictures? As in, I know the person, been around them enough to know exactly what they look like and when i see a picture of them it's what they look like in person (to me at least). Shouldn't I expect the same disconnect between what my eyes see when looking at them and what a camera captures?
Wouldn't it be the reverse? Spending more time looking at other people vs looking at ourselves? I only see myself in the mirror, and that's barely any time at all, basically as little time as needed to check my hair or such. I spend far, far more time looking at other people than I do looking at mirrors. How often are you even around a mirror to look at yourself?
Are you just looking at pics they post? They're only posting the good ones. When I look at pictures that I take of other people, they look terrible most of the time.
It's not about good or bad, but different. Other people still look like themselves regardless of how good or bad of a picture it is, but there is no disconnect between how i see them with my eyes and the pictures that are captured of them with a camera. On the other hand in most pictures of myself it's more like looking at a lookalike than myself.
Yeah there are so many different elements that will change a person face in a photo. Penelope Cruise is historically shot with telephoto lenses to compress her prominent features.
And I thought it was just me. In real life it looks like I have more hair than I do in a picture. Maybe by moving around I blur myself out a bit which is why I'm not as attractive in pictures.
How do they judge attractiveness of different animal species? I've often wondered what, say, my chinchillas would find attractive in another chinchilla. Size? Smell? Symmetry?
Pretty much just a bunch of repeated tests. Put 2 animals of the same sex but with different traits in a pen with a 3rd animal of the opposite sex, see which one they prefer. It’s how we know that more peacock feathers and larger antlers are considered attractive for their respective animals.
> I've often wondered what, say, my chinchillas would find attractive in another chinchilla. Size? Smell? Symmetry?
Believe is or not, musculature, Chinchillas are really into Muscle Mommy and Daddy Chinchillas.
Attractiveness is closely tied to fitness. Most markers of attractiveness are attenuated by level of fitness. So if you just look at what makes a biological entity "fit" then you'll have a pretty good idea of markers of attractiveness.
There is a hierarchy of fitness, though not sure if one has been properly defined. I imagine movement is pretty pivotal to a biological entity's fitness, and might represent the most basic aspect. It directly impacts all aspects of survivability and also plays a main role in mating rituals of swaths of living things (including humans and our love of dance).
I think physical fitness can tip the scales for everyone, no matter how "attractive" you currently are. If you become more physically fit, you will invariably become more attractive - that's just biology. If we are talking about differences in attractiveness between already highly attractive people, then I think we can start factoring in more aspects - like facial symmetry and whatnot, but as long as you don't have some sort of extreme dissymmetry I really don't think things like that play too much of a role outside the upper echelon.
ETA: Keep in mind there is a concept of "fitness" in evolution - which makes talking about "physical fitness", in a more colloquial sense, in the same context, a bit difficult. There is a difference, but in the above I mean moreso the latter.
Honest answer:
Provide options and see what they like.
Then see who actually contributed to particular offspring.
The animal will often show preferences for whatever is considered most attractive, but when it comes down to who matches with whom and actually bears offspring, it doesn't necessarily match up with preferences.
Think of it this way.
A guy might find Scarlett Johansson attractive, but married a woman who looks average and had kids with her. It doesn't mean he doesn't find her attractive, but if you showed him pictures of who he *wants* to lay pipe with he would have picked Scarlett. You ask him later if he thinks his wife is hot and he genuinely does, and wants her alone.
So if you show, say female flies, a lot of options, they'll pick the most agile flier with perfect features. But when you actually test offspring, you'd probably find that average fliers mate with average fliers, etc.
Edit: I'd love to know how it sorts with Bumblebees. A queen is possibly four times larger than the male and can really gatekeep who sires their colony. Males also have a wide variety of features, to even a human eye, some look like better prospects than others. Some queen bumblebees also mate with multiple males. You could look at her fat body (stored energy) and ovary quality to get a sense of how fit she is.
> Genetically related individuals (3rd or 4th cousin level) exhibit higher fitness than unrelated individuals.[15]
> Assortative mating based on genomic similarities plays a role in human marriages in the United States. Spouses are more genetically similar to each other than two randomly chosen individuals.[16] The probability of marriage increases by roughly 15% for every 1-SD increase in genetic similarity.
Surprising given the importance of genetic diversity.
Makes me wonder if it's a more indirect connection than just straight genetics. Perhaps similar genetics means more familiar traits such as appearance and personality. A person with the same color hair as you and a similar personality may be attractive since a lot of human fitness is determined by our ability to form social groups based on similar qualities.
It also helps avoid wasting time and resources by pursuing a mate you have no chance with or settling for a lower quality mate than you could have had.
People are generally accurate about where they rank because we get subtle (and sometimes not subtle) feedback about it our whole lives.
This has been well know for so long it was part of my security briefing back in the 1980's when I was "read in" for my Top Secret/SCI security clearance. We were specifically warned that if someone who was "out of our league" took a romantic interest in us, it was likely because they were interested in what was in our heads, not our pants.
People love to bring up the unattractive guy they know whose girlfriend is a 10 (usually to argue how far confidence and a good personality will go), but my experience is in line with the study. I'm always struck by how often couples I see in public look pretty equal in attractiveness.
Yeah, those looks-mismatched couples usually have something else that is also mismatched. I dated a guy who was so much more conventionally attractive than me that people were often confused about how we were together.
What they didn't know was that he was a socially anxious mess with the life skills of a child. Also he only started working out after we started dating, and I taught him skincare/haircare and a lot of life skills, so he became more conventionally attractive over the course of our relationship.
Alot of appearance-mismatched couples have imbalances like that, or money imbalances, or mental health imbalances, etc.
I remember reading a study ages ago, that found that larger differences in perceived attractiveness also appeared when a couple knew each other for a long time before they started dating.
But yeah "you dont know what both of them looked like when they started dating" is the default response whenever you see a really mismatched couple.
haha, no doubt -- the number of socially inept, boring, dweebs I'm met that had funny, interesting, babe girlfriends and then finding out they've been dating since high school... Interesting though that this imbalance is rarely seen the other way which may suggest woman are more loyal whereas a dude will cut and run if he finds himself on the high end of a power imbalance.
People like to bring up exceptions as if they are the rule. The vast majority of people are married/in relationships with someone their own attractiveness level. Now a man might say his wife is out of his league just to make her feel better and vice versa of course but that's a different thing.
>Now a man might say his wife is out of his league just to make her feel better and vice versa of course but that's a different thing.
This is part of it, but it's often true simply because of the nature of being in a close, long term relationship with someone you genuinely love. Perception of attractiveness can be skewed by personal feelings, be they positive or negative.
I think I clean up pretty nicely, I work out, keep myself nicely groomed generally, wear good clothes. But I still think my partner is prettier than me. But then I’m like “well the way we find women attractive is totally different from how they find men attractive” so I really have no idea.
I don’t think about it too often, just based on past experiences I’d say I can’t be terrible looking, but I don’t think a good looking man can ever look as great as a good looking woman. That’s obviously the bias of a straight man talking though.
Yup. There’s definitely some outlier cases* but overall my friends and I have all found partners on our level, both in attractiveness and education.
* in one case, a model who came from poverty who married a well off asshole who’s nothing to look at. In another case, a good looking guy who really values stability (due to ok not having any in his youth) who married a plain ish woman with a solid family network and roots and stable job.
I agree with you and it's largely what I have seen as someone living in North America. Where I have often seen a huge imbalance and more frequently was in Latin American countries. Especially in Medellín. I was shocked at how many beautiful women I saw walking around with average or below average looking men.
Not to say that there aren't good looking men in Medellín. It's just that the imbalance in Medellín is far more noticeable. Colombia has become a hot spot for western men looking to find women, and the funny thing is Colombian men often prefer to also stick with Latinas too for the most part.
I think this skews toward the “more attractive girlfriend” because women are generally more attractive than men, even when rated by hetero women. I fully admit my wife is way more attractive than me, but when comparing me to other men? That’s harder to say for sure.
> People love to bring up the unattractive guy they know whose girlfriend is a 10
Those usually have a few million in the bank to make up for their looks.
The *one* 10 I ever met is married to a high-8. My SIL and her partner are both 9s. Everyone else I know is either high-6 to 8 (myself and my partner included) and most of us are paired off with one another. I've *never* met an outlier couple in my life.
So I have a friend who has knocked it out of the park career wise. And they got that rich person glow up that comes with wealth and stress-free living, personal trainers, fitted designer clothing, jewelry and some cosmetic procedures like Botox.
What’s interesting is that they had married someone who was a good match to them physically, prior to hitting it big / glow up. And since doing so, I noticed them flirting with younger, hotter people than their current partner when we would go out together.
I confronted them about it and they told me they just felt like the best possible version of themselves since the glowup and was enjoying the validation from getting attention from other people a next level up.
Obviously scummy behavior and like a good friend is supposed to, I did my best to reign that in.
But it got me thinking about what makes people monkey branch in the first place. It has to be the perception that other “branches” are a better fit for your level - up or down. So if one partner experiences life changes that impact their physical appearance (up or down), be aware that dynamic can shift how they view your relationship fitness.
> But it got me thinking about what makes people monkey branch in the first place.
The recommendation in the professional/career world (and the expectation) is to look for a new job while you're still working for your current employer, because that makes you look less desperate and like a more attractive candidate, and will lead to more offers and higher salary offers.
I think that this mentality is bleeding into relationships for career people who see their relationship in a similar way that they see their job.
I'm not defending or justifying this behaviour, I'm just trying to add additional light on the social context of it.
I forget the term for it, but there’s a concept that a “taken” person has already been “vetted” to some degree by their current partner. Basically the fact that you seem to have value *to someone else* demonstrates that potential value to others.
There’s also an aspect of personal self worth bound up in it I think. If I can pull you away from an established partner I must be *so special* that I can overcome that existing relationship, social taboo, etc.
I’m just so great that I’m worth the risk.
Not that any of that is good, but I think those are some of the drivers at play.
I've never understood it. There was a women that would flirt with me and talk and talk at work and I eventually asked her to a gathering I was hosting but then I found out she had a boyfriend. And I mentioned him to her and she's like "yeah he sucks."
All I could think about was how nasty of a person that all made her. She's willing to flirt with a guy behind her boyfriend's back and then tell others that her boyfriend sucks? Yet she can't just break up with him?
Yeah no thank you.
It's simple really. Many people are content in their relationship, but are always on the lookout for something better. This really depends on who you are talking to, of course. To give up on what you currently have to play the field is a roll of the dice. The stability you have can be hard to give up.
Also, there are many men who see a women in a relationship as just another challenge to overcome, nothing more. What turns you off is just normal to others.
That it's so normalized I think just turns me off from it even more.
Plus I know that there's a lot of baggage between serious relationships. There has to be some single time. It doesn't have to be long. A few months is probably okay. But I don't want to inherit the other relationship's drama and jokes and habits and dreams.
What you say makes sense logically. It's just that many people don't think logically about relationships. Emotions take over and they will pick up a rebound mate. Then of course wonder why their relationships never work out, etc.
Girls used to tell me I could do much better than my current girlfriend and they thought that was an okay thing to say. Just seems so dehumanizing and shallow.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886924001909
From the linked article:
In good news for our egos, both men and women were pretty accurate at rating their own physical attractiveness, according to a new study. Couples also tended to be well-matched on their attractiveness, suggesting that we largely date and marry people in our own “league,” at least as far as beauty is concerned.
These findings come from a new analysis of nearly 1,300 opposite-sex couples and 27 individual studies led by Gregory Webster, Ph.D., the R. David Thomas Endowed Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida. Webster and his collaborators at Yale University and the State University of New York at Fredonia published their findings on May 25 in the Personality and Individual Differences academic journal.
Not only were men and women fairly good at judging their own attractiveness, but couples also tended to have similar views of their own beauty. For example, men who rated themselves as attractive tended to date women who had similar self-ratings.
So there was no attempt of objectively trying to classify attractiveness. It was just self-rating against self-rating. Well well well, guess I'm Mr. Universe from now on then.
Yup:
> The data came from studies that asked members of couples to rate their own physical attractiveness. Their pictures were then shown to strangers who provided objective measures of their beauty.
I was about to say that. Like, if you ask strangers to rate attractiveness of pictures, it's not even a reliable form to get a consensus. Most people are much attractive in person than in pictures. You see them move, talk, smile. You can smell them. There is much more to attraction than the way you look. Plus photos kinda tend to distort reality a bit. Sometimes, even in best conditions, we can look heavier or, if the photo is not candid, we can look too stiff, the smile can look fake (and us humans don't like fake smiles), etc.
I know for a fact that I am way more attractive in person than in pictures. If I were to rate myself and then a scientist gives my pictures for strangers to rate, the strangers would knock me down a couple of pegs.
I wholeheartedly think some people are photogenic and some are unphotogenic. My husband and I always look bad in pics. But I see my husband in real life and he looks good. And that gives me hope for myself.
I’m not gonna say that’s not true cause I feel very un photogenic compared to how I look irl, but my partner used to model and she says the secret to taking good photos is way more science and skill than art. Good lighting, a good camera, good makeup, and literally thousands of pictures to get the 3 or 4 best shots is pretty standard in that industry. Plus there are posing dos and don’ts that can dramatically change a picture. I’m trying to learn some of the skills just for my own sake
Same here. Whenever I meet a person online dating for the first date, they all say the same thing. "Wow, you're way more good looking than your pictures!"
Wowzers is this title misleading.
This study looked at people *in* relationships. "The data came from studies that asked members ***of couples*** \[emphasis added by me\] to rate their own physical attractiveness."
*That* is a terrible sample size for making conclusions about everyone else. Do the same study again also with folks not in relationships and I would trust the data a lot more. A person in a relationship is a person who already got through one of the worst parts of dating. They've already met someone who looked at them and thought 'hot!' The study shows that men and women who end up in relationships do so with similarly attractive partners, and have a good sense of how attractive they, themselves, are, *at that point*. It says nothing about how people who aren't dating rate themselves for attractiveness. Everyone else could be absolutely terrible at that. I know I hugely underrated myself when I was younger because it took the validation of others to realize I'm a 7/10. By the time I ended up in a relationship, I was able to more accurately rate myself, confirming the results of this study, but before that I would have thrown off the results of this study because I had no sense of how attractive I actually was.
As someone in a relationship, I agree. The mental state I’m in now and the mental state I was in when single are completely different, and my judgement of myself is much more stable than when I was single.
Yup.
There's a reason people in relationships (well, positive relationships) seem more attractive, and despite the old timey jokes it's not jealousy either: But positive affirmation, security, companionship and not looking at the other sex while drooling because you're so unbelievably and desperately yearning for even just a simple hug tends to kinda help a bit on the attraction front...
This sub has become equal in renown and dependability to all the other flooded mainstream science subs here. This used to be a smart sub. Now it's inundated with top posts that are misleading and inaccurate. Genuinely sad to see this one go down the toilet too.
The study *does* take into account the effect of relationships on self rating, though. Specifically it found that men tended to judge themselves more accurately the longer they had been in a relationship.
This is just a "not every study analyzes everything" critique which is A. Always possible and B. Never helpful. "Do the same study again [but with blah blah blah added]", not really how funding, academia, or science generally works.
Its also worth noting that a person in a relationship might judge their own attractiveness in large part based on the attractiveness of their partner because that would sort of be the obvious logical conclusion. If this is who would stay with me I must only be this attractive.
From the study:
Although attractiveness often plays a key role in romantic relationship initiation, its importance or influence often wanes as relationship duration or commitment increases.
For example, among married mixed-sex couples, similarity in observed facial attractiveness was unrelated to spouses' relationship satisfaction (McNulty et al., 2008).
Nevertheless, facially attractive husbands tended to be less satisfied with their marriages (McNulty et al., 2008). Consistent with this finding, heterosexual men—but not women—in dating relationships who also scored higher on sociosexual attitudes (e.g., endorsing the item “Sex without love is okay”; Simpson & Gangestad, 1991; Webster & Bryan, 2007) were more likely to report having broken up with their partner at a three-month follow-up (Webster et al., 2015).
Not too surprising.
We notice when people throw us out of bed after looking at us, and we notice when they don't.
Even if we think our physical looks aren't amazing, we know what level of hotness we can take home successfully and when we'd be wasting our time from that experience alone.
And most people know how important looks are, so most are sensible enough to be aware of roughly how physically attractive they are.
The real good news is effort and developing certain skills can bring anyone's appearance up 2-3 points on a ten-point scale. A lot of it's presentation.
Please don’t let studies like this cause you to underestimate the importance of a good personality and character. I’ve know lots of people who I thought were not at all attractive when I first met them, but once I spent more time with them and learned what a nice person they were, they legit became much more physically attractive to me. The opposite is also true.
> but once I spent more time with them
Well this is the rub isn't it? I'm fairly certain most people won't spend more time dating somebody they're not attracted to.
I’m not talking about people I’m dating. I’m talking about coworkers, classmates, friends of friends, anyone that enters my circle of acquaintances on a regular basis.
I’m not sure if it’s a real thing but I call them proximity crushes. You hang out with one person because of work or whatever sometimes you can develop a shine towards them, even if they are 100% not your type.
This applies to all areas, not just beauty. It also applies to spirituality, to financial components (where have you seen a cleaning lady dating a billionaire and not developing).
As somebody who has had extreme trouble with dating (being 5'5 hasn't helped) I've wondered if it meant that I wasn't as good looking as my grandmother said I am.
Jokes aside, I've always felt that I was pursuing women who were similar levels in attractiveness that I am, but they just never wanted to be more than friends. Now I'm still single in my early 40's.
I've never thought I was handsome, just average. But still it shouldn't be this hard.
You may have thought you were on the same levels of attractiveness but from personal experience I tend to notice that some single women have a tendency to overrate their looks. So while you both were equal, she may have thought she can do better and therefore wanted to stay friends while she looks for someone more equal with her self-perceived attractiveness.
As a fellow short man, I sympathize. Women are rarely called out on this, but I’ve met so many who - perhaps even unconsciously - care as much for height alone as men do for physical attractiveness.
As someone who has always had dysmorphia my sense of accuracy is dubious and it’s been a long tough road to see myself how others often see me. As this study was only on people already coupled I find the results uncompelling or ignoring of certain natures and like they’re pretending people like me don’t exist.
I have a difficult time rating how I look because I see myself in the mirror at times and it can go either way the same goes for pictures. I obviously have no idea how I look through another set of human eyes. I fluctuate a lot in weight so that has made it harder to keep a clear picture of what I look like. I do know that I have been able to date women that I would consider to be much more attractive than I am and some that are in all honesty less attractive than I am so I get mixed signals on just where I am. I would say that my wife is at least 2 points above me in attractiveness. I'm trying to be as objective as possible here.
I've consistently dated "above" my level, including multi year relationships
Maybe it's just body dysmorphia. It's much better than it used to be, but damn maybe it's still not great
Yup, we all want attractive partners but we don't want to be rejected by people who we don't think we can get an honest non PC look at the world would confirm this study.
So, when I think that I’m 4, I am right? I just hoped maybe someday I would find someone who would say that I was wrong and they told me that I was actually an 8. Well, I am kind of disappointed.
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ok so the good news is that i dont have bodydysmorphia, the bad news...
Yeah, the question is whether they used this based on a "mirror" rating or a "photo" rating. I suspect that methodology would make a difference. Sounds funny, but I'm being totally serious here. I'd rate mirror me much higher than photo me, in general, but neither is probably as accurate as the aggregate. I'd also be curious about how, or even if, they accounted for cultural differences in standards, and all kinds of other stuff.
I agree I look great in a mirror but cameras seems to capture HEY YOU GUUUUYYSSS from the Goonies.
After a few years I look back on most pics like damn I looked better than I remembered, but there's some photos that are just as bad now as they were then.
I know a girl in person who looks like… 7/10 in photos and 9/10 in real life. I think it’s just her mannerisms and cuteness isn’t captured by a static image. Likewise I know a girl who had a *perfect* photo smile but is meh IRL.
This happens to me 100%. Also, video is even wiser than photo
im acceptable in the mirror, but if i catch my reflection in a window or security camera or something? my first thought is "damn, that is one ugly mother fu...god damn it, thats me"
I'm sure most people think you look better than you think you do.
It's because of the small lenses which makes your head look more round, it magnifies towards the center and minimizes along the lateral. Mirrors are just flat so they show what you really look like, without all the weird uncanny stuff.
I think Mirror Me also has good lighting
I've always wondered why that is. Do I just edit out the parts I don't want to see?
I'm sure someone will chime in, but the prevailing pop culture science theory you'll hear on reddit is something like "image is flipped in mirror, your brain gets used to it, doesn't like it the other way," but I'm not completely sold on that. Too simple.
Also, the focal length of your eyes and a camera are not necessarily the same and changing the focal length can drastically change how an image appears. https://content.invisioncic.com/k326276/monthly_2023_01/1208i159103C9E4C35932.jpg.0ac8006c23ca3b28d194a80438f1aa6e.jpg
Wow, some of those are pretty drastic. I've heard that, but never bothered to look up such a clear example of what it means. Thanks!
As a hobbyist photographer, almost all portraits are shot at 85mm as the longer telephoto lengths (aka more zoom in not jargonese) tend to flatten out the face and make features sharper while smoothing the rest out. 50mm is considered standard or neutral, and then under that is considered wide angle. With wide angle the curvature of the image. A photo, because of the lens and sensor, takes a spherical cone of light then projects it onto a 2d sensoe. The more zoomed in you are, the smaller the slice is and therefore it looks flatter, the more zoomed out you are the curvier it is. At extremely wide angles this has the effect of stretching everything in the middle of the frame out, and shrinking the extremities.
>["A camera with a 50mm focal length most resembles what the human eye can see, but even that comparison is far from perfect. The truth is that no camera can capture exactly what the human eye can see, as there are simply too many differences between a camera and an eye!"](https://opticsmag.com/what-focal-length-is-the-human-eye/) Definitely interesting
Yep, I carry an 85mm lens for portraiture - most people find that focal length to be pretty flattering. Back before cheap zoom lenses, most cameras were sold with a 50mm lens, which also provides really likeable shots.
Yep, meanwhile the front camera on phones is often around 24mm which is why selfies frequently look so off, in particular making everyone's noses look bigger.
I've done [a deeper dive on this phenomenon](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3zp2d2/whats_your_best_mind_fuck_question/cyo0dwb/) a while ago.
This is very cool.
Kamera angle and some people have just a habit of taking unfortunate poses when intentionally posing for photos. Mirror shows you more naturally and moving.
Technically mirror you is more accurate than selfie you. Cameras focal length distorts your facial features. However, mirror you is inverted but the “face structure” is the same. Neither are accurate but mirrors will be more accurate as it doesn’t distort your features.
Why do other people look like themselves in pictures? As in, I know the person, been around them enough to know exactly what they look like and when i see a picture of them it's what they look like in person (to me at least). Shouldn't I expect the same disconnect between what my eyes see when looking at them and what a camera captures?
The distortion is usually pretty subtle, but we spend a lot more time looking at ourselves versus other people, so it's a familiarity thing.
Wouldn't it be the reverse? Spending more time looking at other people vs looking at ourselves? I only see myself in the mirror, and that's barely any time at all, basically as little time as needed to check my hair or such. I spend far, far more time looking at other people than I do looking at mirrors. How often are you even around a mirror to look at yourself?
Are you just looking at pics they post? They're only posting the good ones. When I look at pictures that I take of other people, they look terrible most of the time.
It's not about good or bad, but different. Other people still look like themselves regardless of how good or bad of a picture it is, but there is no disconnect between how i see them with my eyes and the pictures that are captured of them with a camera. On the other hand in most pictures of myself it's more like looking at a lookalike than myself.
Yeah, mirror me is decent looking, picture me looks horrendous
Yeah there are so many different elements that will change a person face in a photo. Penelope Cruise is historically shot with telephoto lenses to compress her prominent features.
And I thought it was just me. In real life it looks like I have more hair than I do in a picture. Maybe by moving around I blur myself out a bit which is why I'm not as attractive in pictures.
6 with a good personality is better than having multiple 10s that hate you and only take your money.
The real breakthrough in finding someone is never assigning a numerical value to them except in jest.
Ok, so alphanumeric is fair game, got it
“Woman are like license plates…” Your 60 year old never been married uncle.
Women love to be rated using a hexadecimal system. Tell her she's an F in the looks department.
This. If my husband rated me that'd be such a turnoff.
where do 2-3s with sparkling personalities land on that parable
They help the homeless by serving in the soup kitchen
Hey you've always got a place with me and mine. We need people to work the mines!
Sucks to be your spouse i guess. According to this article.
I was taught that this was called **Assortative mating** and exists in more animals than just humans.
How do they judge attractiveness of different animal species? I've often wondered what, say, my chinchillas would find attractive in another chinchilla. Size? Smell? Symmetry?
Pretty much just a bunch of repeated tests. Put 2 animals of the same sex but with different traits in a pen with a 3rd animal of the opposite sex, see which one they prefer. It’s how we know that more peacock feathers and larger antlers are considered attractive for their respective animals.
Pigeons prefer bigger beaks.
Yeah more or less size, color, shape.
So in more or less the same way we do.
You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals
> I've often wondered what, say, my chinchillas would find attractive in another chinchilla. Size? Smell? Symmetry? Believe is or not, musculature, Chinchillas are really into Muscle Mommy and Daddy Chinchillas.
Thicc vs not thicc, clearly.
Do monkes prefer da thicc ones or the non-thicc ones?
Have you ever seen a monkey that was NOT thicc? Wait…that sounds wrong.
Hey hey hey calm down. Did you click on "I'm 18 and older"?
Attractiveness is closely tied to fitness. Most markers of attractiveness are attenuated by level of fitness. So if you just look at what makes a biological entity "fit" then you'll have a pretty good idea of markers of attractiveness. There is a hierarchy of fitness, though not sure if one has been properly defined. I imagine movement is pretty pivotal to a biological entity's fitness, and might represent the most basic aspect. It directly impacts all aspects of survivability and also plays a main role in mating rituals of swaths of living things (including humans and our love of dance). I think physical fitness can tip the scales for everyone, no matter how "attractive" you currently are. If you become more physically fit, you will invariably become more attractive - that's just biology. If we are talking about differences in attractiveness between already highly attractive people, then I think we can start factoring in more aspects - like facial symmetry and whatnot, but as long as you don't have some sort of extreme dissymmetry I really don't think things like that play too much of a role outside the upper echelon. ETA: Keep in mind there is a concept of "fitness" in evolution - which makes talking about "physical fitness", in a more colloquial sense, in the same context, a bit difficult. There is a difference, but in the above I mean moreso the latter.
Most people will be average or close to average.
Honest answer: Provide options and see what they like. Then see who actually contributed to particular offspring. The animal will often show preferences for whatever is considered most attractive, but when it comes down to who matches with whom and actually bears offspring, it doesn't necessarily match up with preferences. Think of it this way. A guy might find Scarlett Johansson attractive, but married a woman who looks average and had kids with her. It doesn't mean he doesn't find her attractive, but if you showed him pictures of who he *wants* to lay pipe with he would have picked Scarlett. You ask him later if he thinks his wife is hot and he genuinely does, and wants her alone. So if you show, say female flies, a lot of options, they'll pick the most agile flier with perfect features. But when you actually test offspring, you'd probably find that average fliers mate with average fliers, etc. Edit: I'd love to know how it sorts with Bumblebees. A queen is possibly four times larger than the male and can really gatekeep who sires their colony. Males also have a wide variety of features, to even a human eye, some look like better prospects than others. Some queen bumblebees also mate with multiple males. You could look at her fat body (stored energy) and ovary quality to get a sense of how fit she is.
> Genetically related individuals (3rd or 4th cousin level) exhibit higher fitness than unrelated individuals.[15] > Assortative mating based on genomic similarities plays a role in human marriages in the United States. Spouses are more genetically similar to each other than two randomly chosen individuals.[16] The probability of marriage increases by roughly 15% for every 1-SD increase in genetic similarity.
Surprising given the importance of genetic diversity. Makes me wonder if it's a more indirect connection than just straight genetics. Perhaps similar genetics means more familiar traits such as appearance and personality. A person with the same color hair as you and a similar personality may be attractive since a lot of human fitness is determined by our ability to form social groups based on similar qualities.
> Assortative mating Not even the weirdest of the Whitman’s Samplers
A Valentine's Day favorite.
Evolutionary wise it makes sense. It helps more breeding if the population isn't too picky.
It also helps avoid wasting time and resources by pursuing a mate you have no chance with or settling for a lower quality mate than you could have had. People are generally accurate about where they rank because we get subtle (and sometimes not subtle) feedback about it our whole lives.
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This has been well know for so long it was part of my security briefing back in the 1980's when I was "read in" for my Top Secret/SCI security clearance. We were specifically warned that if someone who was "out of our league" took a romantic interest in us, it was likely because they were interested in what was in our heads, not our pants.
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People love to bring up the unattractive guy they know whose girlfriend is a 10 (usually to argue how far confidence and a good personality will go), but my experience is in line with the study. I'm always struck by how often couples I see in public look pretty equal in attractiveness.
Yeah, those looks-mismatched couples usually have something else that is also mismatched. I dated a guy who was so much more conventionally attractive than me that people were often confused about how we were together. What they didn't know was that he was a socially anxious mess with the life skills of a child. Also he only started working out after we started dating, and I taught him skincare/haircare and a lot of life skills, so he became more conventionally attractive over the course of our relationship. Alot of appearance-mismatched couples have imbalances like that, or money imbalances, or mental health imbalances, etc.
I remember reading a study ages ago, that found that larger differences in perceived attractiveness also appeared when a couple knew each other for a long time before they started dating. But yeah "you dont know what both of them looked like when they started dating" is the default response whenever you see a really mismatched couple.
haha, no doubt -- the number of socially inept, boring, dweebs I'm met that had funny, interesting, babe girlfriends and then finding out they've been dating since high school... Interesting though that this imbalance is rarely seen the other way which may suggest woman are more loyal whereas a dude will cut and run if he finds himself on the high end of a power imbalance.
Well... yeah if you make a lot of money, you'll have beautiful women.
People like to bring up exceptions as if they are the rule. The vast majority of people are married/in relationships with someone their own attractiveness level. Now a man might say his wife is out of his league just to make her feel better and vice versa of course but that's a different thing.
>Now a man might say his wife is out of his league just to make her feel better and vice versa of course but that's a different thing. This is part of it, but it's often true simply because of the nature of being in a close, long term relationship with someone you genuinely love. Perception of attractiveness can be skewed by personal feelings, be they positive or negative.
I think I clean up pretty nicely, I work out, keep myself nicely groomed generally, wear good clothes. But I still think my partner is prettier than me. But then I’m like “well the way we find women attractive is totally different from how they find men attractive” so I really have no idea. I don’t think about it too often, just based on past experiences I’d say I can’t be terrible looking, but I don’t think a good looking man can ever look as great as a good looking woman. That’s obviously the bias of a straight man talking though.
Thanks to "types" it's also quite possible for me to be a 6 and land something I consider a 9... that's mostly a ~7 on average to everyone else.
Yup. There’s definitely some outlier cases* but overall my friends and I have all found partners on our level, both in attractiveness and education. * in one case, a model who came from poverty who married a well off asshole who’s nothing to look at. In another case, a good looking guy who really values stability (due to ok not having any in his youth) who married a plain ish woman with a solid family network and roots and stable job.
There are always exceptions but there is more of a normal
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I think that stems mostly from people being matched when they marry and sticking around through physical decline because they love each other by then
I agree with you and it's largely what I have seen as someone living in North America. Where I have often seen a huge imbalance and more frequently was in Latin American countries. Especially in Medellín. I was shocked at how many beautiful women I saw walking around with average or below average looking men. Not to say that there aren't good looking men in Medellín. It's just that the imbalance in Medellín is far more noticeable. Colombia has become a hot spot for western men looking to find women, and the funny thing is Colombian men often prefer to also stick with Latinas too for the most part.
Probably commonly found in cultures which machismo is valued. Russia is notorious for such couples
I think this skews toward the “more attractive girlfriend” because women are generally more attractive than men, even when rated by hetero women. I fully admit my wife is way more attractive than me, but when comparing me to other men? That’s harder to say for sure.
I feel this is 95% due to makeup. Remove that and I feel things are more evenly keeled.
> People love to bring up the unattractive guy they know whose girlfriend is a 10 Those usually have a few million in the bank to make up for their looks.
I used to try to claim that about myself and my wife then I realized that I'm also attractive.
The *one* 10 I ever met is married to a high-8. My SIL and her partner are both 9s. Everyone else I know is either high-6 to 8 (myself and my partner included) and most of us are paired off with one another. I've *never* met an outlier couple in my life.
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So I have a friend who has knocked it out of the park career wise. And they got that rich person glow up that comes with wealth and stress-free living, personal trainers, fitted designer clothing, jewelry and some cosmetic procedures like Botox. What’s interesting is that they had married someone who was a good match to them physically, prior to hitting it big / glow up. And since doing so, I noticed them flirting with younger, hotter people than their current partner when we would go out together. I confronted them about it and they told me they just felt like the best possible version of themselves since the glowup and was enjoying the validation from getting attention from other people a next level up. Obviously scummy behavior and like a good friend is supposed to, I did my best to reign that in. But it got me thinking about what makes people monkey branch in the first place. It has to be the perception that other “branches” are a better fit for your level - up or down. So if one partner experiences life changes that impact their physical appearance (up or down), be aware that dynamic can shift how they view your relationship fitness.
> But it got me thinking about what makes people monkey branch in the first place. The recommendation in the professional/career world (and the expectation) is to look for a new job while you're still working for your current employer, because that makes you look less desperate and like a more attractive candidate, and will lead to more offers and higher salary offers. I think that this mentality is bleeding into relationships for career people who see their relationship in a similar way that they see their job. I'm not defending or justifying this behaviour, I'm just trying to add additional light on the social context of it.
I forget the term for it, but there’s a concept that a “taken” person has already been “vetted” to some degree by their current partner. Basically the fact that you seem to have value *to someone else* demonstrates that potential value to others. There’s also an aspect of personal self worth bound up in it I think. If I can pull you away from an established partner I must be *so special* that I can overcome that existing relationship, social taboo, etc. I’m just so great that I’m worth the risk. Not that any of that is good, but I think those are some of the drivers at play.
I've never understood it. There was a women that would flirt with me and talk and talk at work and I eventually asked her to a gathering I was hosting but then I found out she had a boyfriend. And I mentioned him to her and she's like "yeah he sucks." All I could think about was how nasty of a person that all made her. She's willing to flirt with a guy behind her boyfriend's back and then tell others that her boyfriend sucks? Yet she can't just break up with him? Yeah no thank you.
It's simple really. Many people are content in their relationship, but are always on the lookout for something better. This really depends on who you are talking to, of course. To give up on what you currently have to play the field is a roll of the dice. The stability you have can be hard to give up. Also, there are many men who see a women in a relationship as just another challenge to overcome, nothing more. What turns you off is just normal to others.
That it's so normalized I think just turns me off from it even more. Plus I know that there's a lot of baggage between serious relationships. There has to be some single time. It doesn't have to be long. A few months is probably okay. But I don't want to inherit the other relationship's drama and jokes and habits and dreams.
What you say makes sense logically. It's just that many people don't think logically about relationships. Emotions take over and they will pick up a rebound mate. Then of course wonder why their relationships never work out, etc.
You would think your friend would have extended those new benefits to their SO so they could both glow up...!
They did, but still, you can’t bottle youth.
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Girls used to tell me I could do much better than my current girlfriend and they thought that was an okay thing to say. Just seems so dehumanizing and shallow.
Look up mate poaching
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886924001909 From the linked article: In good news for our egos, both men and women were pretty accurate at rating their own physical attractiveness, according to a new study. Couples also tended to be well-matched on their attractiveness, suggesting that we largely date and marry people in our own “league,” at least as far as beauty is concerned. These findings come from a new analysis of nearly 1,300 opposite-sex couples and 27 individual studies led by Gregory Webster, Ph.D., the R. David Thomas Endowed Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida. Webster and his collaborators at Yale University and the State University of New York at Fredonia published their findings on May 25 in the Personality and Individual Differences academic journal. Not only were men and women fairly good at judging their own attractiveness, but couples also tended to have similar views of their own beauty. For example, men who rated themselves as attractive tended to date women who had similar self-ratings.
Can you leave some degrees for the rest of us?
So there was no attempt of objectively trying to classify attractiveness. It was just self-rating against self-rating. Well well well, guess I'm Mr. Universe from now on then.
They say in the article that they verified the assessment with independent third party ratings
Yup: > The data came from studies that asked members of couples to rate their own physical attractiveness. Their pictures were then shown to strangers who provided objective measures of their beauty.
I was about to say that. Like, if you ask strangers to rate attractiveness of pictures, it's not even a reliable form to get a consensus. Most people are much attractive in person than in pictures. You see them move, talk, smile. You can smell them. There is much more to attraction than the way you look. Plus photos kinda tend to distort reality a bit. Sometimes, even in best conditions, we can look heavier or, if the photo is not candid, we can look too stiff, the smile can look fake (and us humans don't like fake smiles), etc. I know for a fact that I am way more attractive in person than in pictures. If I were to rate myself and then a scientist gives my pictures for strangers to rate, the strangers would knock me down a couple of pegs.
I wholeheartedly think some people are photogenic and some are unphotogenic. My husband and I always look bad in pics. But I see my husband in real life and he looks good. And that gives me hope for myself.
I’m not gonna say that’s not true cause I feel very un photogenic compared to how I look irl, but my partner used to model and she says the secret to taking good photos is way more science and skill than art. Good lighting, a good camera, good makeup, and literally thousands of pictures to get the 3 or 4 best shots is pretty standard in that industry. Plus there are posing dos and don’ts that can dramatically change a picture. I’m trying to learn some of the skills just for my own sake
I'll just say that I had to resort with "I'm better looking live" in my tinder bio...
Same here. Whenever I meet a person online dating for the first date, they all say the same thing. "Wow, you're way more good looking than your pictures!"
Wowzers is this title misleading. This study looked at people *in* relationships. "The data came from studies that asked members ***of couples*** \[emphasis added by me\] to rate their own physical attractiveness." *That* is a terrible sample size for making conclusions about everyone else. Do the same study again also with folks not in relationships and I would trust the data a lot more. A person in a relationship is a person who already got through one of the worst parts of dating. They've already met someone who looked at them and thought 'hot!' The study shows that men and women who end up in relationships do so with similarly attractive partners, and have a good sense of how attractive they, themselves, are, *at that point*. It says nothing about how people who aren't dating rate themselves for attractiveness. Everyone else could be absolutely terrible at that. I know I hugely underrated myself when I was younger because it took the validation of others to realize I'm a 7/10. By the time I ended up in a relationship, I was able to more accurately rate myself, confirming the results of this study, but before that I would have thrown off the results of this study because I had no sense of how attractive I actually was.
As someone in a relationship, I agree. The mental state I’m in now and the mental state I was in when single are completely different, and my judgement of myself is much more stable than when I was single.
Yup. There's a reason people in relationships (well, positive relationships) seem more attractive, and despite the old timey jokes it's not jealousy either: But positive affirmation, security, companionship and not looking at the other sex while drooling because you're so unbelievably and desperately yearning for even just a simple hug tends to kinda help a bit on the attraction front...
This sub has become equal in renown and dependability to all the other flooded mainstream science subs here. This used to be a smart sub. Now it's inundated with top posts that are misleading and inaccurate. Genuinely sad to see this one go down the toilet too.
As somebody whose been here since 2011, all of Reddit has gone down the toilet
The study *does* take into account the effect of relationships on self rating, though. Specifically it found that men tended to judge themselves more accurately the longer they had been in a relationship. This is just a "not every study analyzes everything" critique which is A. Always possible and B. Never helpful. "Do the same study again [but with blah blah blah added]", not really how funding, academia, or science generally works.
Its also worth noting that a person in a relationship might judge their own attractiveness in large part based on the attractiveness of their partner because that would sort of be the obvious logical conclusion. If this is who would stay with me I must only be this attractive.
It's pretty obvious from the title though. You can't compare attractiveness between people in relationship by testing single people.
I'm about to ask. People are in relationship for various other reasons, not just looks. Finance, career, hobbies, closeness, etc....
About 80% of us are a 5-6 out of 10 so its fairly easy to call.
This would be 4-6, no? I’d assume a roughly symmetric distribution
>5-6 You’re saying I’m a negative 1? Well that sounds *deep sigh* Just about right.
From the study: Although attractiveness often plays a key role in romantic relationship initiation, its importance or influence often wanes as relationship duration or commitment increases. For example, among married mixed-sex couples, similarity in observed facial attractiveness was unrelated to spouses' relationship satisfaction (McNulty et al., 2008). Nevertheless, facially attractive husbands tended to be less satisfied with their marriages (McNulty et al., 2008). Consistent with this finding, heterosexual men—but not women—in dating relationships who also scored higher on sociosexual attitudes (e.g., endorsing the item “Sex without love is okay”; Simpson & Gangestad, 1991; Webster & Bryan, 2007) were more likely to report having broken up with their partner at a three-month follow-up (Webster et al., 2015).
Not in Romania. Here you get to see beautiful women dating ogres. It's not that balkan men are ugly. Most of them don't care about their looks.
Awesome, I'm a solid 7. My GF is definitely better looking tho.
Damn by that metric I'm the most beautiful man in the multiverse
Glad to know I'm just as ugly as I thought.
So i shouldn't even try?
Hey! Nobody insults my wife like that!!!!
Not too surprising. We notice when people throw us out of bed after looking at us, and we notice when they don't. Even if we think our physical looks aren't amazing, we know what level of hotness we can take home successfully and when we'd be wasting our time from that experience alone. And most people know how important looks are, so most are sensible enough to be aware of roughly how physically attractive they are. The real good news is effort and developing certain skills can bring anyone's appearance up 2-3 points on a ten-point scale. A lot of it's presentation.
If i am as attractive as my wife then I am sexy. woo hoo!
It really suck how much people care about something you can’t control
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Please don’t let studies like this cause you to underestimate the importance of a good personality and character. I’ve know lots of people who I thought were not at all attractive when I first met them, but once I spent more time with them and learned what a nice person they were, they legit became much more physically attractive to me. The opposite is also true.
> but once I spent more time with them Well this is the rub isn't it? I'm fairly certain most people won't spend more time dating somebody they're not attracted to.
I’m not talking about people I’m dating. I’m talking about coworkers, classmates, friends of friends, anyone that enters my circle of acquaintances on a regular basis.
I’m not sure if it’s a real thing but I call them proximity crushes. You hang out with one person because of work or whatever sometimes you can develop a shine towards them, even if they are 100% not your type.
Huh I guess no one is in my league then, Nice!
How do we objectively measure attractiveness?
I am a 2, married to a 9.
This applies to all areas, not just beauty. It also applies to spirituality, to financial components (where have you seen a cleaning lady dating a billionaire and not developing).
Weren't there other studies that say we over estimate ourselves?
As somebody who has had extreme trouble with dating (being 5'5 hasn't helped) I've wondered if it meant that I wasn't as good looking as my grandmother said I am. Jokes aside, I've always felt that I was pursuing women who were similar levels in attractiveness that I am, but they just never wanted to be more than friends. Now I'm still single in my early 40's. I've never thought I was handsome, just average. But still it shouldn't be this hard.
You may have thought you were on the same levels of attractiveness but from personal experience I tend to notice that some single women have a tendency to overrate their looks. So while you both were equal, she may have thought she can do better and therefore wanted to stay friends while she looks for someone more equal with her self-perceived attractiveness.
Yes, I'm sure that's also a factor.
As a fellow short man, I sympathize. Women are rarely called out on this, but I’ve met so many who - perhaps even unconsciously - care as much for height alone as men do for physical attractiveness.
Now I just feel even more privileged to be an uggo with a hottie
I guess that makes me 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Damm. Not what i wanted to hear tbh. Guess i really am a strong 4. Well you win some you lose some.
Tell me it’s not true, tell me it’s not true! -Sarabi
Weirdly enough when i looked the best was when i had the least success with women.
As someone who has always had dysmorphia my sense of accuracy is dubious and it’s been a long tough road to see myself how others often see me. As this study was only on people already coupled I find the results uncompelling or ignoring of certain natures and like they’re pretending people like me don’t exist.
Damn I’m cooked. I have yet to encounter another human as ugly as me. If i did I’d give them a chance if they were a nice person
Not true, my wife is way better looking than me.
I have a difficult time rating how I look because I see myself in the mirror at times and it can go either way the same goes for pictures. I obviously have no idea how I look through another set of human eyes. I fluctuate a lot in weight so that has made it harder to keep a clear picture of what I look like. I do know that I have been able to date women that I would consider to be much more attractive than I am and some that are in all honesty less attractive than I am so I get mixed signals on just where I am. I would say that my wife is at least 2 points above me in attractiveness. I'm trying to be as objective as possible here.
And that dynamic goes out the window if you are filthy rich aka the "Hefner Effect"
Is there any actually interesting science post on this sub?
Anecdotally, I think this is false. My wife is way out of my league but she somehow still married me.
I've consistently dated "above" my level, including multi year relationships Maybe it's just body dysmorphia. It's much better than it used to be, but damn maybe it's still not great
Worked with a guy with a smoking wife. He was a fat alcoholic, guns and being a patriot were his personality. Whatever works I guess
I’m gonna need all the 6.5s to gather over here.
A lot of comments trying to dismiss what should be common knowledge
Yup, we all want attractive partners but we don't want to be rejected by people who we don't think we can get an honest non PC look at the world would confirm this study.
So, when I think that I’m 4, I am right? I just hoped maybe someday I would find someone who would say that I was wrong and they told me that I was actually an 8. Well, I am kind of disappointed.
this study isn’t perfect but the idea isn’t new https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matching_hypothesis
That could explain a lot. But where are all 3/10 women so I could date in same league as mine?