Jones Alex L, Kramer Robin S S, Ward Robert
a School of Psychology , Bangor University , Bangor , UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2014 Oct;67(10):2060-8. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2014.908932. Epub 2014 Apr 22.
Women use cosmetics to enhance their attractiveness. How successful they are in doing so remains unknown--how do men and women respond to cosmetics use in terms of attractiveness? There are a variety of miscalibrations where attractiveness is concerned--often, what one sex thinks the opposite sex finds attractive is incorrect. Here, we investigated observer perceptions about attractiveness and cosmetics, as well as their understanding of what others would find attractive. We used computer graphic techniques to allow observers to vary the amount of cosmetics applied to a series of female faces. We asked observers to optimize attractiveness for themselves, for what they thought women in general would prefer, and what they thought men in general would prefer. We found that men and women agree on the amount of cosmetics they find attractive, but overestimate the preferences of women and, when considering the preferences of men, overestimate even more. We also find that models' self-applied cosmetics are far in excess of individual preferences. These findings suggest that attractiveness perceptions with cosmetics are a form of pluralistic ignorance, whereby women tailor their cosmetics use to an inaccurate perception of others' preferences. These findings also highlight further miscalibrations of attractiveness ideals.
女性使用化妆品来提升自身魅力。她们在这方面的成效如何尚不清楚——男性和女性如何看待使用化妆品后的吸引力呢？在吸引力方面存在各种认知偏差——通常，一方认为另一方觉得有吸引力的东西是不正确的。在此，我们研究了观察者对吸引力和化妆品的看法，以及他们对他人认为有吸引力的事物的理解。我们使用计算机图形技术，让观察者改变一系列女性面部所使用的化妆品量。我们要求观察者为自己、为他们认为一般女性会喜欢的样子，以及为他们认为一般男性会喜欢的样子优化吸引力。我们发现，男性和女性对于他们认为有吸引力的化妆品用量看法一致，但高估了女性的偏好，而在考虑男性的偏好时，高估得更多。我们还发现，模特自己使用的化妆品远远超过个人偏好。这些发现表明，对化妆品的吸引力认知是一种多元无知的形式，即女性根据对他人偏好的不准确认知来调整自己的化妆品使用。这些发现还凸显了吸引力理想的进一步认知偏差。
