It’s weird to think that we are only familiar with the way we look based off what we see when we look in the mirror or at pictures. Due to these vague resources we have it is possible to think that maybe we only see ourselves the way we want to. The features we believe we have as well as certain characteristics may not be as attractive as we would hope. In other words, maybe we aren’t as beautiful as we think we are. Maybe the refection we see of ourself is merely an image that we alter in ways which we feel physically benefit us. Maybe there are other factors throughout our lives which influence the way we see ourselves in the mirror. As women do we perceive the way we look accurately or is our overall opinion of ourselves bias?
According to an article posted by Discovery News, “our sense of self-image develops through a complicated interplay between cultural ideals, life experiences and accumulated comments by others. The result is, inevitably, a distortion of reality.” Through this article author Emily Sohn emphasizes that, contrary to popular belief, women do not look differently in the mirror simply because they want to. Events and instances which occur throughout our lives directly result in the way we interpret our self image.
A second article was posted on Scientific American which discusses the same topic and focuses on the work of Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago and Erin Whitchurch of the University of Virginia. They performed an experiment in which “the researchers took pictures of study participants [the majority being women] and, using a computerized procedure, produced more attractive and less attractive versions of those pictures. Participants were told that they would be presented with a series of images including their original picture and images modified from that picture.” They were then asked to choose the picture which was not modified. It is important to note that the experiment only included a small number of participants: 24. This experiment resulted in the participants picking the picture of themselves that was enhanced using the computer procedure. Through analyzing this correlation the outcome directly aids in proving the original hypothesis.: women are prone to seeing themselves more attractively than they actually are.
Interestingly enough, both of these articles were based off of the same video published in April of 2013 called “Dove Real Beauty Sketches” that found women were overly harsh. This video was created by Dove in hopes of motivating women to see themselves in a positive and more beautiful light than they think they originally thought. Women were brought into a room and placed behind a curtain. There was an individual located on the other side of the curtain asking them to describe their own facial features. The women were unaware that this person was a sketch artist who was drawing a portrait based off of the description they gave. The women were then introduced to complete strangers who were instructed to get to know the women very well. After this the strangers were then placed behind the curtain and asked to describe the facial features of the stranger which they could recall. The same artist was again located on the other side of the curtain drawing a second portrait. Business Insider states that this video became the “most viral video ad of all time” which in itself proves how many people are very curious as to the results of this experiment. The conclusion of the experiment resulted in women describing themselves as being uglier than they actually were. But, as stated, specific scientists refute this argument due to their scientific experiments.
Although this short 3 minute video was extremely rhetorically effective, both Discovery News and Scientific American found the video experiment’s findings were inaccurate due to the specific scientific evidence they stated. The video attempts to prove that women are more beautiful than we think we are when in actuality we are not. Through the research performed it is proven that a women’s view of themselves is heightened compared to reality. Ozgun Atasoy states that “the evidence from psychological research suggests instead that we tend to think of our appearance in ways that are more flattering than are warranted”. This statement supports the Discovery News article as well as the research performed by Epley and Whitchurch. Additional evidence which disproves the Dove video would be the fact that this experiment was performed on a very small group of women who were all the same race. In other words, the experiment was not properly randomized. A third confounding variable could also play a significant factor in this experiment and was not closely analyzed. Could the subjects have a psychological reason as to why they feel they are not as beautiful as others see them? Were the descriptions the strangers gave referring to the individual they met influenced in any way due to the experiment that they were participating in? Were they aware that someone would be drawing what they were describing? The artist could have also been aware that the experiment was trying to prove that women didn’t see themselves as beautiful as they actually were. Could the artist have unintentionally drawn a more “attractive” picture the second time? Many critics believe that for these reasons an accurate conclusion cannot be drawn.
In conclusion there is not enough evidence to support the claim that women perceive their physical appearance worse than reality or the one that they perceive it better then reality. The articles found which attempt to prove that women are not as beautiful as they seem focus on the same experiment performed by Dove. They have no additional proof from other experiments stating why women are not as attractive as they think. On the other hand many flaws can be found within Dove’s video and more research needs to be done prove that women are more beautiful than they think. For example, different artists should be used in order to eliminate the possibility of bias. Another experiment should also be performed which includes women from different races and ethnicities. An additional aspect that could be taken into consideration within a future experiment would be the topic of eating disorders. The way a woman views herself can be drastically influenced by her mental health and whether she has a positive or negative body image. Once close analysis is made involving all of these criteria the clear answer can be given as to whether or not us women are as beautiful as we would like to believe…
This is a really interesting outlook on my blog. A woman’s own perception of herself played a key role in the Dove experiment, as you stated, and adding in the factor of modesty is definitely something that could be looked at. A correlation could definitely be present between how a women wants other people to see her and how she actually sees herself. Which would result in the way she described herself to the sketch artist. It would definitely be beneficial to perform additional research on this topic in relation to how beautiful women think they are. It would be interesting to see how exactly one’s modesty could be measured and how it relates back to the personal outlook of their physical appearance.
I do believe it can be assumed that women are harder on themselves than men. Additionally, I do not believe the assumption can be made that all women pay more attention to detail than men. For this reason more research should be conducted as what is the cause of the way we see ourselves. As you stated, there could be a third variable in play here and maybe it is that women are too hard on themselves. It would be interesting to take this concept into consideration during future research.
I really like this article. In Psychology we learned about something similar on the way we perceive ourselves. I find it interesting that when people had to chose which picture out of the ones that were enhanced and the one that made to look worse , they chose the enhanced one and when they had to describe themselves to an artist the picture turned out less attractive then their actual appearance.
I really enjoyed reading this article, and as a guy, I hope my perspective on this issue will be unique and helpful. The reason why I agree with the scientists dismissing the scientific experiment with the sketch artists and the strangers describing female faces is that the women are describing their own faces to other people. They may describe their faces as less prettier than they actually are, but what if they are just being modest? What if they don’t want to oversell themselves and make it look like they are not as pretty as they seem. But what could be the reality is that women have their own perception of their looks that no one knows they have other than themselves. What if those women really thought they were beautiful, but the undermined their beauty when describing their faces because that is what society usually does, be modest. So maybe people do see themselves as beautiful as they actually are, and no one knows it.
My perception of this topic is that women are hard on themselves when it comes to their physical appearance. In an article on LifeScript, http://www.lifescript.com/well-being/articles/f/female_perception_vs_male_perception.aspx, women pay more attention to detail than men. Due to this women see more of their own flaws while men just see women as a whole not focusing on one particular “flaw”. I do believe the study you researched had a third variable effecting but at the same time believe that women are their own biggest critiques of themselves.