Guys without girls
In 2007, researchers at Aberdeen University’s Face Research Laboratory showed that women found the face of a man more attractive when the face of a woman was smiling at it. (NewScientist) Biologists have a term, “mate choice copying”, for similar behavior in birds.
I was looking at some photos of couples on FaceStat and wanted to run a quick and dirty version of this experiment, and including the other FaceStat variables. I photoshopped out the girl from guy/girl photos and reuploaded. The results followed the same trend as the Aberdeen study (although the Turkers are mixed gender). The strongest, most consistent difference for the photoshopped photo was in relationship status (more single, obviously) and in attractiveness (25% of people found them less attractive). Some examples:
Some details and other results:
The guy’s face was clearly identified in the couple photo. I know this because 100% of Turkers classified the person in the couple photo as male.
The single guys were also consistently identified as more conservative and heavier.
-Mike
April 19th, 2008 at 2:01 am
There is a German saying: Frauen schmücken sich mit Schmuck, Männer schmücken sich mit Frauen
April 24th, 2008 at 1:41 am
heh that is very cool. good photoshopping also.
my question is how can us ladies get our attractiveness rating up? facestat is a harsh judger on that score from my personal experience,
May 6th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
What if some of the difference has to do with the photoshopping itself? if the alterations change attributes about the individual that are related to attractiveness (e.g. degree of symmetry) then that might be corrupting the experiment somewhat.
June 8th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Maybe it was the context??? The original photos look like a sweet couple having fun. Aren’t they cute?
Alone, the men just look disheveled (crooked tie and awkward stance) and tad creepy.