Q: I’ve heard a myth that a group of women seems to be more attractive than the sum of individual members of the group. Is that true, and does it work for men, too?
A: Yep, it’s a real thing, and it works for men, too. Go out with a group of men with a few attractive individuals, and each individual will seem more attractive than they actually are.
BACKGROUND:
This is a “myth” that has been studied in sitcoms and bars for decades, but it actually reveals something more basic about human thinking.
When we perceive a large group of anything, are we mentally adding together the pieces of it, or do we perceive it as some kind of average whole?
If we’re perceiving a group average, do we pay more attention to the most desirable or attractive members of the group? And if so, can they pull the average up?
This matters in our case because it’s one way a guy can instantly improve his attractiveness – hang out with a group of other guys.
The results of this experiment were published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2015.
EXPERIMENTS:
The researchers in this study did a series of NINE studies to provide evidence for their point, so I won’t bore everyone with the details (just brief summaries of each experiment).
The nutshell version is that the researchers asked independent raters to look at photographs of groups of people as a whole, and raters to judge the individual members of that group (individually).
These researchers definitely minded their details, so they included all the hallmarks of a good scientific study:
They included a number of alternate procedures, such as asking people to rate a group photograph of people, rate individuals WITHIN the group photograph, and then cropping individuals out and asking raters to rate them individually.
The order in which pictures were shown to raters were randomized, just in case there was something about the order that biased them.
- Experiment 1 was done with photographs of females, and the raters were college students (men and women).
- In four out of five groups, the group as a whole was rated on average as more attractive than the sum of the individuals.
- Experiment 1b was the same as 1, only the raters were online survey participants instead of students.
- The group attractiveness effect was found in 2/5 of the groups.
- Experiment 2 repeated the study, only this time raters were asked on what type of attractiveness they judged the group of women.
“What do you mean what ‘type’ of attractiveness?” I might hear you ask. Well, think about the different ways a person can be attractive. There’s such a thing as social attractiveness – people who are popular and well-liked by others are considered more attractive, but not necessarily physically. So maybe people who are in a group seem more socially attractive because it means they’re popular.
In this study, the group was again rated as more attractive, but there was no effect when raters were asked what type of attractiveness they were judging on (those who said they were rating on physical attractiveness and those who said they were rating on social attractiveness both rated the group as more attractive, on average, than the individuals in the group).
To be sure they were getting a consistent effect, the researchers subsequently asked all participants to rate photographs on physical attractiveness for the rest of the studies.
- Experiment 3 did the same experiment as Experiment 1b, only this time with a group of men instead of women.
- The group attractiveness effect emerged again in the majority of ratings.
- Experiment 4 did the same experiment as Experiment 3, only this time with a mixed-gender group photograph.
- The group attractiveness effect emerged in 4/5 of the groups shown.
- Experiment 5 did the same experiment again, only the same raters were shown BOTH group pictures and individual pictures.
- Once again, the group attractiveness effect emerged. This shows that even if a person sees the group as a whole, when they go through the individual members, they rate them on average as less attractive than when they were in the group. It didn’t matter whether they saw the group first or the individuals first – in both cases the group was rated as more attractive.
- Experiment 6 did the same study only they didn’t find stock photos, they took their own photos of a women’s field hockey team and manipulated small aspects of the study (changing numbered photos to rectangles around faces, getting more professional-style portraits of individuals instead of just cropping them out of the group photo).
- Once again, the group attractiveness effect emerged even after fixing up the methodology.
- Experiment 7 was basically the same thing as before, only this time they asked raters to rate the photographs, then rate them AGAIN a second time more carefully. A timer was placed on the photos to force them to stare at the picture for 20 seconds.
- Even after forcing the raters to carefully consider their ratings over a more extended time, groups were STILL rated as more attractive.
- Experiment 8 got even more interesting. In this one, the researchers asked raters to rate a group photograph of people OR each individual in the group. Then, participants were shown a bunch of individual profile shots and were asked if they remember whether that person was in the group (some were, some weren’t).
- The researchers did this to see who stood out in people’s memories – the more attractive people or the less attractive people (based on ratings of individual attractiveness).
- They found that the raters who judged a group on physical attractiveness were less likely to pay attention to or remember the less attractive members of the group. Thus, it was the more attractive members who seemed to be influencing their memory and judgments.
- Finally, Experiment 9 used eye tracking devices to see where people’s eyes were going when they judged a group photograph. Were people looking at the more or less attractive members of the group?
- The results showed that people’s eyes were going more toward the attractive members of the group.
SUMMARY:
- What can we learn from this study?
- A group of people is judged as more attractive, on average, than the sum of each individual member.
- This effect occurs for groups of women, groups of men, and groups of men and women.
- The effect occurs when two groups of raters judge the photographs independently, AND when the same group judges both sets of photographs.
- The effect seems to be driven by the most attractive members of the group. People tend to fixate on the more attractive members of the group, and those members pull the average attractiveness of the whole group up.
- In summary, if you are wondering whether going out with a group is better than going out alone, this may help you make the decision!
- You will be judged as more attractive if you’re in a group (even if it’s a group of both men and women).
REFERENCE
Van Osch, Y., Blanken, I., Meijs, M. H. J., & van Wolferen, J. (2015). A group’s physical attractiveness is greater than the average attractiveness of its members: The Group Attractiveness Effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(4), 559-574. Link: https://psp.sagepub.com/content/41/4/559.abstract