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I disagree. Sure, "beauty" isn't a very robustly-defined term, but the headline is reasonable. The most important point is that people's views of themselves are

I disagree. Sure, "beauty" isn't a very robustly-defined term, but the headline is reasonable. The most important point is that people's views of themselves are objectively wrong, because the identify modified images of themselves. Conversely, people can reliably pick the correct image of others. Finally, this depictions differ in that the self-image has characteristics society deems attractive, for our purposes, "beauty". I don't think beauty is quite the best term, but I wouldn't call it wrong. Also, I think your proposed study would undermine the whole point of this study, since someone who didn't realize they were looking at themselves wouldn't have the cognitive impetus to distort reality. edit: I just realized I may have been missing part of your argument. Would you be more satisfied if the title were "You are less beautiful than you _say_ you are"? This study itself doesn't offer any real evidence that people actually believe they look like the picture they say they look like. However, the other cognitive studies linked in this article, including some other similar studies I've read about, make me think it's extremely likely.

mortehu 13y ago
> Conversely, people can reliably pick the correct image of others. I wonder if this changes if the photos they see of others are mirrored?
- mortehu 13y ago
  I skimmed the original paper today, and they did indeed perform a follow-up experiment where participants were asked to identify themselves based on mirror images. That follow-up experiment yielded similar results. No follow-up experiment was conducted for identifying mirror images of others, but it seems such an experiment would have been redundant.
vlasev 13y ago
I have a hypothesis. In general people have poor perception of their ability along any measure X. Sometimes they are better than they think but most of the time they are worse than they think. The former will happen more often if you have a tough teacher or a guide, while the latter will happen more often in tasks with less feedback other than your own thoughts (Most of us think we are better drivers than we actually are).

mortehu 13y ago

> Conversely, people can reliably pick the correct image of others. I wonder if this changes if the photos they see of others are mirrored?

mortehu 13y ago
I skimmed the original paper today, and they did indeed perform a follow-up experiment where participants were asked to identify themselves based on mirror images. That follow-up experiment yielded similar results. No follow-up experiment was conducted for identifying mirror images of others, but it seems such an experiment would have been redundant.

vlasev 13y ago

I have a hypothesis. In general people have poor perception of their ability along any measure X. Sometimes they are better than they think but most of the time they are worse than they think. The former will happen more often if you have a tough teacher or a guide, while the latter will happen more often in tasks with less feedback other than your own thoughts (Most of us think we are better drivers than we actually are).