Is the “Cheerleader Effect” Real?

The Cheerleader Effect is that seeing faces in a group makes them all seem and look more attractive. Does that really make sense? Just because there are a bunch of girls together, or a pack of guys, does that really just automatically make them go from 7s-9s? 6s-10s?? How many people does this even require to happen? All these questions leave me very skeptical that it really is a thing. When I look at a group of guys, I can pick out the ones that aren’t as attractive (that sounds mean but I’m trying to make a point) and that leads me to believe this isn’t really a thing. Maybe everyone in the group is already really attractive and that proves nothing.

In a study done in the Netherlands, people were asked to first rate a group of females, then rate them individually and this was done with five different groups. There were two controls, one of which where the group saw just the individual and had to rate them, and in the other the people saw the group as a whole and has to rate the individuals from that. They did this because there can be visual differences and opinions when people are only seeing the face versus seeing the face and whole or part of the body. Seeing the body can change things. They thought that possibly rating the people as a group changed the outcome due to comparing the faces because they all are right next to each other. The third condition was rating the group as a whole. The scale went from 1 through 7, 1 being not attractive at all and 7 being very attractive. Everyone was randomly assigned to the three groups, each group with 53 or 52 members. To come to a conclusion, they had to do a few calculations. For the conditions rating just the individuals, “we averaged the individual attractiveness ratings to obtain the groups’ mean attractiveness rating” and then they compared that to the third condition where people rated the group as a whole. Results were consistent with the Cheerleader Effect since the ratings of a group as a whole versus just the individual averages were a lot higher.

This is something the online dating world thinks about when selecting a profile picture. Is the selfie good enough alone or do I need a little encouragement from my friends in a group shot from the other night? Drew Walker and Edward Vul, from the University of California, suggest that this effect comes from three factors. The first is “the visual system automatically computes ensemble representations of faces presented in a group”. Second factor is, “individual members of the group are biased toward this ensemble average” and the third, “average faces are attractive”. Basically saying that a bunch of average looking people will end up looking attractive together due to the way our visual system works and groups faces. If the group members have a positive expression, they tend to seem more attractive together because when we look at groups, we look at them as a whole, and not focus much on the individual subjects. So going with that thought, a group of average looking people will tend to seem more attractive because we are not looking directly at the individual and their features. Walker and Vul also did a study very similar to the one done in the Netherlands and they also concluded that the average attractiveness of a group versus individuals was higher.

I can conclude that I was wrong, and apparently this is a real thing, which I think after reading the studies and experiments, does make sense. Something to take away form this is if you aren’t feeling good about your appearance, go out with a group, you’ll look better. If you’re trying to find “the one” on match.com, go with a group shot because you’ll probably look better than if you choose the selfie. Who knew cheerleaders had so much to teach us?

 

6 thoughts on “Is the “Cheerleader Effect” Real?

  1. Katherine Alexandra Bartkowski Post author

    Claire – That’s something really interesting to think about, the candy part. I totally agree though, like you see a bunch of things in a category that you know you enjoy, but up close you don’t like THOSE things in that specific category. That is what the cheerleader effect is, but i wonder if it something different when it comes to object and not people. Maybe it’s all the same things causing the effect with the people. That’s something I might look more into.

  2. Claire E Going

    Hi Katherine,

    I believe that the cheerleader effect does play a role in all of our lives, and I notice it often in my own life, too. But the cheerleader effect doesn’t only involve people. It can work for inanimate objects, too! Have you ever walked into a candy story that was floor to ceiling covered in different types of mouth watering candy and the only thing you could think was, “how can I choose? I want it all!” But then you go to choose your one individual candy, and you realize you don’t actually like any of the candy on display because it’s all licorice, bottlecaps, and those wax bottles with juice inside. This is also an event that is classified under the “cheerleader effect,” and there are many more examples like it! You walk into a movie theater. So many options to choose from! But once you look at each individual movies and read the ratings, you don’t have an interest in any single one of them. Interesting post, interesting topic!
    -Claire

  3. Katherine Alexandra Bartkowski Post author

    Eric – The study is random by the way they randomly allocate where each person is going to go. By randomizing the people, that gets rid of the confounding factor of people having different criteria of what attractive is. The girls wouldn’t all have to look the same, that’s the point of the experiment, to look at a bunch if different girls together and then individually to see where they appear most attractive.

  4. Eric Anthony Campbell

    While some of your findings are backed by the study I am skeptical because everyone has different tastes in people. How can a study by completely random, if everyone had a different criteria for attractiveness, or if the criteria even slightly varied. All the girls would have to look the same, which would basically nullify the findings since if they all looked the same then how could we actually tell if the effect was working. While I am skeptical, I do respect the findings I saw by your blog and also that I read on this Website here . So in short, I am not convinced and I would like to see more evidence and more studies done on this subject.

  5. Anastasia Skold

    I heard of this a couple years ago on the show How I Met Your Mother. The cheerleader effect can also happen on men, not just women. That is why men bring wingmen to bars.Drew Walker and Edward Vul also did a study on the cheerleader effect and they concluded that bringing more wingmen make you seem more attractive, agreeing with your blog post.

  6. Emanuel Gabriel Mitchell

    This is an excellent post. I first noticed this to be true at a party a few years ago. A group of girls came inside the house and I thought one of them in particular was extremely pretty, but once I began to talk to her without the group of girls with her, I noticed she was just average (kind of cute). I think another reason for the “cheerleader effect” is that one person may look better than their friend thus making the more attractive (since their friends are not as pretty). Also to add to your article,attractiveness ratings did not differ in groups of 4,9,or 16 therefore one may only need a few other people with them, so they can seem more alluring.

Comments are closed.