My first thought on reading this was that given that people tend to be overconfident in just about every other area of their lives, I would find it exceedingly surprising if it were in fact the case that people's estimates of their own attractiveness was systematically lower than the estimates of others. I notice that there isn't actually a citation for this claim anywhere in the article.
Indeed, having looked for some evidence, this was the first study I could find that attempted to investigate the claim directly: Mirror, mirror on the wall…: self-perception of facial beauty versus judgement by others.. To quote the abstract:
Our results show proof for a strikingly simple observation: that individuals perceive their own beauty to be greater than that expressed in the opinions of others (p < 0.001).
In other words, the phenomenon that you "explain" in this article is literally the opposite of the truth, at least for the people in that study.
Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. Yes, surely some people under-estimate their own attractiveness, but if the explanation for this is cognitive biases which are present in everyone, how do we explain the people in this study who make exactly the opposite error? If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge, etc, etc.
Additionally, it was suggested during editing (though I did leave it out) that I talk about the mere-exposure effect, where people like what's familiar.
A full understanding of all the factors going into self-perception would include things which contribute to AND detract from a positive self-perception, with mere-exposure and other effects biasing the answer up, and excessive attention to flaws and probably other phenomena biasing the answer down.
I might imagine we end up with a "net" self-perception, an amalgamation of all the effects. For some people, that net perception might be biased up. Indeed, while I'm very hesitant to draw too many conclusions from the study you provide from the 1800's, it is POSSIBLE that the majority of people have a net self-perception biased up.
Still leaving millions of people, several of whom I know, who could benefit from the ideas in this article, I think.
And if I had to guess, in 1878, people, on average, were probably more satisfied with their appearance than we are now.
OK, first a disclaimer.
My model of this is based only on the several people which I'm close enough to to get accurate reports about their private thoughts.
I have high confidence in their reports being as true to the internal experiences as they managed to communicate, but the sample is small and might not reflect the "average".
Based on this, I make the following bold claim (with moderate confidence):
The bias in question works by a sort of a doublethink: the subjects do in fact also have a roughly accurate estimate of their beauty somewhere in their heads, and when asked publicly, they will not report their inner experience of doubt.
If you ask a bunch of people who have issues with self-perception of beauty to fill a survey about it, they will tend to answer the questions by taking the "outsider view" (at least, unless the questions in the survey are very cleverly phrased).
My experience might add a little support to that.
I know someone who self-perceives below how others perceive them, but who, when pressed, accurately predicts that they will be found attractive by most people.
Unfortunately, this doesn't keep the negative self-perception (whatever level they believe it on) from making them feel bad
The writing is really nice! I especially like the "what would we see if it was only distorted standards of beauty" bit, although it does seem plausible that the media interacts with our judgments to some extent. The structure of the middle is a little murky to me - if I was rewriting it, I'd condense both "reasons you mostly pay attention to your flaws" into one section and tie loss aversion into an overarching negativity bias more explicitly, then spend a little more time on attentional bias / availability bias.
I really like the message that we commonly misjudge ourselves, and need to try to learn to see ourselves as others see us.
Hmm...maybe.
As I understand it, loss aversion is just a specific kind of negativity bias. Is that right, do you think?
Yes, it's a thing.
And I think the bias occurs when interacting with videos/photos/mirror reflections/etc. of yourself, not just the "first person" view.
My theory is that we have a evolutionary anti-bias that only works with the "fist person" view, that prevents us from disparaging our own looks in that case.
~~~~
Your proposed fix seems... not enough. Let's think more about how to solve this.
(E.g. I know about some good effects from a "desanitizing" approach in similar areas, like judging your own voice recordings, maybe it could also be applied here.)
The solution described is designed only to counter the attentional bias caused by loss aversion.
If there are other causes contributing to a similar effect, I wouldn't expect the included solution to address them also just by luck.
Is there any research on the "first person" view that you mention? As I'm no scientist, I've only dealt with the already firmly established findings like loss aversion.
Is there any research on the "first person" view that you mention? As I'm no scientist, I've only dealt with the already firmly established findings like loss aversion.
I do not know of any research on this directly. However, there is strong support for people's reported opinions being influenced by sitting in front of a mirror. So I just do educated guesses from the tangentially related research.
I've only dealt with the already firmly established findings like loss aversion.
Yup - you are playing it safe. However, this does not satisfy my curiosity.
You quote negativity/loss aversion bias as an explanation, but do you think it is the most accurate explanation?
Hmm...I would be open to an alternative.
But what I've got in mind is: if someone were suddenly to acquire an extra 100 flaws, this would indeed be a loss; they would feel worse walking down the street as people glance at them, they would lose social status, people would judge them as less honest, kind, intelligent, etc.
So they are losing social status and they're losing other people thinking well of their appearance, and like any other loss will tend to fear it more than they would value gains of equal size.
And that's what people DO experience, in a less dramatic way. You could say, perhaps, that it's because we have the ability to alter our appearance that the problem exists, because sometimes we look better than at other times, and we'll tend to focus on the flaws that make the difference.
It seems like the proposed fix would resolve at least part of the issues. What parts do you think it will not resolve, so we can work on those?
OK, here's one example of something that is not covered: someone can feel that by focusing on their flaws, they get the benefit of putting more effort into presenting their best side, and improving their look. So they wouldn't want to stop concentrating on the flaws.
I mean, there's a lot of psychology/social pressures/doublethink/self-image/etc. issues around this. I anticipate that simply telling people"from now on, concentrate more on your positive sides!" does not solve the problem in most cases, and can even sound condescending (as if they didn't already know that!).
Mmm, good point!
Now, I might imagine, in that scenario, that they still self-perceive as less beautiful because of all the attention they're giving their flaws.
But a side effect of no longer doing so and no longer self-perceiving negatively might be a decrease in their effectiveness in countering those flaws...
as if they didn't already know that!
My prior is that most people in the situation described in the post wouldn't have thought of this method as a way of resolving the tension they experience. What do you think?
My prior is that most people in the situation described in the post wouldn't have thought of this method as a way of resolving the tension they experience.
OK, so I have different background assumptions: to me it looks like the simplest way to complete the pattern ("how improve my self-esteem?" -> "think about your strong points") conveniently established by countless self-help slogans etc.
My view is that people don't think of having low self-esteem as a problem when judging their aesthetic appearance as inadequate.
And I think the bias occurs when interacting with videos/photos/mirror reflections/etc. of yourself, not just the "first person" view.
I wonder how people would react to the photos/videos of themselves if they wouldn't know it's themselves.
I admit such experiment could be difficult to arrange. But not impossible. Imagine filming people through hidden camera somewhere. Then... several weeks later... invite them to experiment where they will be shown videos of random people, and they have to quickly judge how attractive they are (e.g. by pressing a button). Show them a series of videos, including a short video of themselves.
The hypothesis in this article suggests that people would judge themselves as attractive if they wouldn't know it's themselves. (Also, this technique could be useful therapeutically.)
Another experiment: arrange for a group of people to live in an environment with no mirrors or other ways to see themselves, for a long time. Compare with people exposed to mirrors. Ask detailed questions about estimates of attractiveness, weak points, feelings of dissatisfaction, self-doubt, inferiority etc.
But this is also hard to arrange.
Amy says “I don’t think I’m very beautiful.”
“Of course you’re beautiful!” they reassure her.
Never happened to me. I guess I realize what that means, and now I'm gonna cry myself to sleep.
(Just kidding.)
[Why You Don't Think You're Beautiful](http://skepticexaminer.com/2016/05/dont-think-youre-beautiful/)
[Why You Don't Think You're Beautiful](http://intentionalinsights.org/why-you-dont-think-youre-beautiful)
This works only in comments.
In articles, there is an "Insert/edit link" button in the toolbar. Click the button, paste the link into the "Link URL" field (and leave the remaining fields unmodified).
Yes, LW uses two completely different systems for editing articles and editing comments.
I call this "fishing for compliments".
Don't forget selection bias. Even if purely objective and accurate measurements are possible, almost everyone thinks they're less beautiful than everyone else.
Amy's self-image is likely formed by seeing herself in a mirror before and during grooming, where she sees her friends and others mostly already made-up. Selection bias (the true average non-representative observations) leads her to believe that she's on average less well groomed than anyone else.
Similarly in other's reactions. Rejections and bad experiences tend to be private, where successful interactions are more often shared and reviewed with others. A straight average of all your experiences compared with those experiences that people have shared with you will make those others seem better off.
And, of course "beautiful" is a fairly poorly-defined word. It's not a very good target for debiasing, as it's very hard to measure an improvement in estimation. How does your post change if Amy is, in fact, less generally attractive than her friends?
Actually, what's the goal here? This isn't a topic where accurately assessing oneself is usually recommended, but rather to worry less and believe yourself beautiful. Are you trying to increase readers' self-confidence, or to help them rationally decide whether to put more effort into their appearance, or something else?
Yes, you make a very good point.
I'm very careful about what exactly I'm recommending.
The gist is that we should all know how beautiful we are.
Which some people interpret as meaning we should all think we're beautiful.
But I think it probably better if we all know exactly how beautiful we are.
Naturally, "beautiful" is not really the point, per se. The idea is, whatever aesthetic you're judging, if you want to embody it (or if other people want you to embody it), then deviations from it will be considered negatively, and loss aversion will focus your attention on those deviations. It applies to whatever you might be judging about yourself.
I wrote an article for mass consumption on the biases which are at play in a hot-button social issue, namely, how people feel about their beauty.
skepticexaminer.com/2016/05/dont-think-youre-beautiful/
and
intentionalinsights.org/why-you-dont-think-youre-beautiful
It's supposed to be interesting to people who wouldn't normally care a whit for correcting their biases for the sake of epistemology.
EDIT: Text included below
Long-time friends Amy, Bailey, and Casey are having their weekly lunch together when Amy says “I don’t think I’m very beautiful.”
Have you ever seen something like this? Regardless, before moving on, try to guess what will happen next. What kind of future would you predict?
I’ve often seen such a scene. My experience would lead me to predict...
“Of course you’re beautiful!” they reassure her. Granted, people sometimes say that just to be nice, but I’ll be talking about those times when they are sincere.
How can Bailey and Casey see Amy as beautiful when Amy doesn’t? Some great insight into beauty, perhaps?
Not at all! Consider what typically happens next.
“I only wish I was as beautiful as you, Amy,” Bailey reassures her.
The usual continuation of the scene reveals that Bailey is just as self-conscious as Amy is, and Casey’s probably the same. All people have this natural tendency, to judge their own appearance more harshly than they do others’.
So what’s going on?
If you were present, I’d ask you to guess what causes us to judge ourselves this way. Indeed, I have so asked from time to time, and found most people blame the same thing.
Think about it; what does everybody blame when people are self-conscious about their beauty?
We blame…
The media! The blasted media and the narrow standard of beauty it imposes.
There are two effects; the media is responsible for only one, and not the one we’re talking about.
Research suggests that the media negatively affects how we judge both ourselves and others. We tend to focus on how it affects our perception of ourselves, but the media affects how we judge others, too. More to the point, that’s not the effect we were talking about!
We were talking about a separate effect, where people tend to judge themselves one way and everyone else another. Is it proper to blame the media for this also?
Picture what would happen if the media were to blame.
First, everyone assimilates the media’s standard of beauty. They judge beauty by that standard. That’s the theory. So far so good.
What does this cause? They look themselves over in the mirror. They see that they don’t fit the standard. Eventually they sigh, and give up. “I’m not beautiful,” they think.
Check. The theory fits.
But what happens when they look at other people?
Bailey looks at Amy. Amy doesn’t (as hardly anybody does) fit the standard of beauty. So…Bailey concludes that Amy isn’t beautiful?
That’s not what happens! Amy looks fine to Bailey, and vice versa! The media effect doesn’t look like this one. We might get our standard of beauty from the media, but the question remains, why do we hold ourselves to it morethan we do everyone else?
We need something that more fully explains why Amy judges herself one way and everyone else another, something mapping the territory of reality.
The Explanation
A combination of two things.
1. Amy’s beauty is very important to her.
2. She knows her looks better than others do.
Amy’s beauty affects her own life. Other people’s beauty doesn’t affect her life nearly as much.
Consider how Amy looks at other people. She sees their features and figure, whatever good and bad parts stand out, a balanced assessment of their beauty. She has no special reason to pay extra attention to their good or bad parts, no special reason to judge them any particular way at all. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t much matter to her how other people look.
Contrast that to how much her appearance matters to her. How we look affects how people perceive us, how we perceive ourselves, how we feel walking down the street. Indeed, researchers have found that the more beautifulwe are, the more we get paid, and the more we are perceived as honest and intelligent.
Like for most people, Amy’s beauty is a big deal to her. So which does she pay attention to, the potential gains of highlighting her good points, or the potential losses of highlighting her bad points? Research suggests that she will focus on losses. It’s called loss aversion.
Reason 1: Loss Aversion
We hate losing even more than we love winning. Loss aversion is when we value the same thing more or less based on if you’re going to gain it or if you risk losing it.
Say someone gives you $1000. They say you can either lose $400 of it now, or try to hold on to it all, 50-50 odds to keep it all or lose it all. What would you do?
Well, studies show about 61% of people in this situation choose to gamble on keeping everything over a sure loss.
Then suppose you get a second deal. You can either keep $600 of your $1000 now, or you can risk losing it all, 50-50 odds again. What would you do?
People tend to like keeping the $600 more in this deal, only 43% tend to gamble.
Do you see the trick?
Losing $400 out of $1000 is the same thing as keeping $600 out of $1000! So why do people like the “keeping” option over the “losing” option? We just tend to focus on avoiding losses, even if it doesn’t make sense.
Result for Amy? Given the choice to pay attention to what could make her look good, or to what could make her look bad…
Amy carefully checks on all her flaws each time she looks in the mirror. The balanced beauty assessment that Amy graciously grants others is lost when she views herself. She sees herself as less beautiful than everyone else sees her.
Plus, whatever has your attention seems more important than what you’re not paying attention to. It’s calledattentional bias. It’s a natural fact that if you spend most of the time carefully examining your flaws, and only very little time appreciating your good points, the flaws will tend to weigh heaviest in your mind.
Now, the second reason Amy judges her own beauty under a harsher gaze.
Reason 2: Familiarity
Amy doesn’t just have more cause to look at her flaws, she has more ability to do so.
Who knows you like you? If you paid someone to examine flaw after flaw in you, they wouldn’t know where to look! They’d find one, and then hunt for the next one while all the beautiful parts of you kept getting in the way. There’s that balanced assessment we have when we judge each others beauty; there’s a limit to how judgmental we can be even if we’re trying!
Indeed, it takes years, a lifetime, even, to build up the blind spots to beauty, and the checklist of flaws Amy knows by heart. She can jump from one flaw to the next and to the next with an impressive speed and efficiency that would be fantastic if it wasn’t all aimed at tearing down the beauty before her.
Your intimate knowledge of your beauty could just as easily let you appreciate your subtle beauties as your subtle flaws, but thanks to loss aversion, your attention is dialed up to to ten and stuck on ruthless judgment.
Review
And so it is. Amy’s loss aversion focuses her attention on flaws. This attentional bias makes her misjudge her beauty for the worse, the handiwork of her emotional self. Then her unique intimacy with her appearance lets her unforgiving judgments strike more overwhelmingly and more piercingly than could her worst enemy. Indeed, in this, she is her own worst enemy.
Since others don’t have the ability to criticize us like we can, and they don’t have any reason to pay special attention to our faults, their attention towards us is more balanced. They see the clearest good and bad things.
The Fix
How can Amy achieve a more natural, balanced view of her beauty? It’s a question which has troubled me at times, as even the most beautiful people I know are so often so down about their looks. How can it be? I’ve often been in that scene offering my assurances, and know well the feeling when my assurances are rejected, and my view of another’s beauty is knocked away and replaced with a gloomier picture. A sense of listless hopelessness advances as I search for a way to show them what I see. How can I say it any better than I already have? How can I make them see...?
If we can avoid the attentional bias on flaws, then we can make up for our loss aversion. We’ll always see ourselves more deeply than most, but we can focus on the good and bad. For every subtle flaw we endure a subtle loveliness we can turn to.
Next time examining her form and features in the mirror, Amy intentionally switches her attention to the appreciation of what she likes about herself. She spends as much time on her good points as her bad. She is beginning to see herself with the balance others naturally see her with.
All people can do the same. A balanced attention will counter our natural loss aversion, and let us see ourselves as others already do.
As you practice seeing with new eyes, let the perspective of others remind you what you’re looking for. Allow yourself to accept their perspective of you as valid, and probably more balanced than your own. Your goal to have a balanced perspective may take time, but take comfort in each of the little improvements along the way.
Questions to consider
• What would happen if only the effects of the media were in play without the effects of loss aversion? Or vice versa?
• How can you remember to balance your attention when you look in the mirror?
• What other mistakes might our loss aversion lead us to?
• How else might you achieve a more balanced perspective of yourself?
• Whom do you know that might benefit from understanding these ideas?