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Yup; this is a "great" idea that falls apart when you think about it a bit. The artist knows perfectly well what the intention is, and which group is which. A
by jtheory 14y ago
Yup; this is a "great" idea that falls apart when you think about it a bit.
The artist knows perfectly well what the intention is, and which group is which.
ALSO, the results are going to be skewed by standard rules of politeness -- even given a person with a perfectly balanced view of themselves, the way they describe themselves to a stranger surely should avoid being too praising (or they'd seem narcissistic), whereas someone else's description of them would be skewed to the positive side, also out of politeness -- who knows if the person being drawn is going to hear this description later, or is a friend of the artist, etc.?
It would be easy to do this better.
Imagine if this were (seemingly) a study about the value and accuracy of police sketches. Use multiple sketch artists, and let them know their sketches are going to be tested by IDing from a large lineup.
Some sources will be self-describing (i.e., someone very familiar with the face) and others will be someone with only a short encounter with the subject.
This is a plausible (fake) study, and the remaining problems (with the real intent) are much, much fewer.
- xwowsersx 14y agoI agree that this "study" is completely unscientific. But I think it definitely opens up a direction for further inquiry. A counter to your point about politeness skewing the results is that the women who were shown the sketches of themselves afterwards clearly seemed to react in such a way that indicated that they realized they were too harsh on themselves, that they had negative views of their appearance which was unjustified, and that they were relieved/flattered to see how strangers saw them. So, it's not a proof of anything, but I'm just pointing out that womens' description of themselves seemed to be pretty reflective of how they genuinely viewed themselves.
- jtheory 14y agoQuite right -- I think there is something actually interesting here. That's why I was so frustrated that they just went with the publicity stunt when this could have been real. it would have been a bit harder to spin into a slick documentary, but it would have been much more valuable.
- xwowsersx 14y agoRight. But at the end of the day, this was a marketing short...they gotta pay the bills. Dove isn't in the business of doing research :)