Bias toward the beautiful
One thing I have wondered about: why do people want to give people the benefit of the doubt in terms of looks if they get a “Myspace angle” photo or only hear someone’s voice? I have talked to many friends who are really biased in the direction of giving people the benefit of the doubt about the reality that there is a strong incentive to select the flattering picture (in large part because of retarded individuals such as my friends). So the individual is going to be less attractive than their photo on average even if it isn’t a totally blurry or tiny image. Additionally, in terms of pure perception I notice that when you see a very small thumbnail size photo there’s a tendency to perceive the person as more attractive than they are when you click the image and see them at a higher resolution. Finally, many people easily create a fantasy image of someone based on their voice.
So what’s up with this? Why aren’t we preprogrammed to be choosier and more jaded about these things? False negatives are less harmful than false positives? Why are guys still surprised when they meet their Myspace date who never posted a fully body shot and notice that the height to width ratio isn’t what they’d prefer? Is it the whole polygyny thing? Are women any different?
Perhaps how much benefit of the doubt is a function on the cost of giving it? It might be easy to see a picture and send a message to someone potentially cute, but I imagine the scrutiny would increase as costs such as transportation, long distance phone fees, or paying for dinner go up.
I’m really interested on how women see that differently. Also, I wonder how much benefit of the doubt is given to profile information as opposed to the picture – is he really making 100k+?
i should have made this more explicit in the post, but there are two levels of cognition here:
1) reflective. seeing a myspace photo and being too retarded to not overcome the urge to give the benefit of the doubt
2) reflexive. the gestalt perception of a tiny photo as of a better looking person. like when your mind fills in the gaps it automatically creates a more idealized face
I thought the post was going to be about something like this.
Motivation? It seems like it generalizes to lots of cases — someone says they’ve set you up with their friend for a date, and you imagine they’re at least pretty. It’s the same optimistic and idealistic bias that gets you out of bed in the morning, or into the bar / club for the night. How would you be motivated to do what needs to get done otherwise?
I think agnostic is on the right track above.
Remember that in our history as a species, we did not develop with the ability to see others before meeting them in person; this is a new phenomenon. So there would be little direct pressure either for or against being over-optimistic about potential mates you haven’t yet met. But indirectly, more optimism would give more incentive to make the effort to get out and meet more potential mates.
And this might be stronger in men, who even if they met someone and didn’t want a long term relationship, might get to mate anyway (even — perhaps especially — if she didn’t turn out to be terribly attractive).
It would be interesting if this over-optimism was also true of women, and if so, what the reasons for that might be.
PhilB
When I was doing a little bit of internet dating, I found that a lot of girls on those sites often choose photos that do not do them justice. So, if they looked even remotely attractive, I went out with them. I got quite a few pleasant surprises, though there were some shall we say less than pleasant shockers too.
“because of retarded individuals such as my friends”
“being too retarded to not overcome the urge to give the benefit of the doubt “
So, what way do you mean the term “retarded”? As in the diagnostic term or as something else which puts down a whole class of already discriminated and oppressed individuals? Seriously.
No one oppresses retards. They oppress themselves.
The benefit of the doubt of which you speak might be the result of an inarticulate and unthought awareness that there aren’t enough supermodels and movie stars to go around. Few of us are 10s, and we’d be idiots to demand 10s for ourselves.
Though many of us are, indeed, idiots.
If you see someone in real life and don’t see a flaw, they’re highly likely to be good looking. There’s no way in real life to hide weight with carefully chosen angles or bad skin with contrast tricks, etc. Our attractiveness detectors aren’t built for photos.
As far as why people don’t learn from their mistakes; I think it’s hard to look at a picture and think “well, she’s probably 80% as good looking as she appears”. We don’t even know how to picture someone who is 80% as good looking as someone else (at least, I don’t).
Then there’s the distortion of looking at a woman before you’ve slept with her. Women always look better before that.