According to a new study, who you hang out with makes a difference on how attractive are perceived by others.
According to popular opinion, someone is either attractive or not, but the study says that is not all true. A person would score higher on the scale of attractiveness when they are hanging out with less attractive ones than they would alone, say researchers.
The research was carried out in University of Royal Holloway London and the findings do suggest that context is key to assessing attractiveness. The study presented photos of different faces to the participants and asked them to be rate their appearance and later asked them to rate the pictures of same faces placed alongside lesser attractive ones.
According to findings, the participants ranked average looking faces higher on the scale of attractiveness, when they were alongside other undesirable faces.
“Rightly or wrongly, the way people look has a profound impact on the way others perceive them,” said Dr Nicholas Furl, from Royal Holloway’s Department of Psychology. “We live in a society obsessed with beauty and attractiveness, but how we measure and understand these concepts is still a grey area,” said Furl.
“Until now, it has been understood that a person’s level of attractiveness is generally steady. If you saw a picture of George Clooney today, you would rate him as good-looking as you would tomorrow. However, this work demonstrates that the company we keep has an effect on how attractive we appear to others,” he said.
“We found that the presence of a ‘distractor’ face makes differences between attractive people more obvious and that observers start to pull apart these differences, making them even more particular in their judgement,” Furl said.
“It’s perhaps not too surprising that we are judged in relation to those around us. This is a trope often seen in teen movies and romantic comedies, where a character associates themselves with a less attractive friend to elevate their own dating stakes,” Furl said.
