You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think • Hacker News Board

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#41

Post by gizmo686 » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:38 AM UTC

bthomas wrote: post #27

gizmo686 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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

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

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#42

Post by D9u » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:38 AM UTC

HeliasVlastimir wrote: post #39

D9u wrote: post #18

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

You're on Hacker News. It's safe to assume that you ARE really ugly.

So I guess I must be morbidly obese as well, since I'm American, and nearly 50 years old?

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#43

Post by BIair » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:44 AM UTC

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

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

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#44

Post by nsxwolf » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:45 AM UTC

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

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#45

Post by peterarmstrong » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:46 AM UTC

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

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#46

Post by alashley » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:50 AM UTC

impendia wrote: post #35

And, yet, it is overwhelmingly to your advantage to believe that you are attractive. Confidence counts for more than actual physical beauty. This study provides an interesting example of a situation where it is in your rational interest to hold irrational beliefs.

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

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#47

Post by famousactress » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:53 AM UTC

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

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

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

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#48

Post by mortehu » Wed, May 22, 2013, 3:54 AM UTC

Fishkins wrote: post #28

Xcelerate wrote: post #15

I don't think this study supports the article's headline. That headline, more explicitly stated is: "[Society rates you as] less beautiful than you [do]". Why? Someone's physical beauty is a property that depends on what everyone thinks. You could say "beauty to a certain group" or "beauty to yourself", but to just use the term "beauty" by itself implies "beauty as society sees it". But in the study, there is no rati…

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

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

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

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#49

Post by tachyonbeam » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:00 AM UTC

Xcelerate wrote: post #15

I don't think this study supports the article's headline. That headline, more explicitly stated is: "[Society rates you as] less beautiful than you [do]". Why? Someone's physical beauty is a property that depends on what everyone thinks. You could say "beauty to a certain group" or "beauty to yourself", but to just use the term "beauty" by itself implies "beauty as society sees it". But in the study, there is no rati…

>> I know a few times when I looked at a mirror and didn't immediately process that it was a mirror, I saw myself "objectively". I wonder if there's some way you could incorporate that phenomenon into a study.

Yes, there are ways to induce this, but I'm not entirely sure of the legality of recreating that phenomenon artificially.

Re: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

#50

Post by msglenn » Wed, May 22, 2013, 4:01 AM UTC

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q...

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

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