so you probably realize that you look different in pictures than you do in the mirror and I'm sure a situation like this has probably happened to you before you're going out on a Saturday night and before leaving you look at yourself in the mirror and you find yourself looking very attractive a few hours later you're at the party and someone takes a picture of you they send you the picture the next day and you seemingly don't recognize yourself you find yourself unattractive and start to wonder if that's what you really look like in real life
so is the camera or the mirror more accurate which one should you trust more and which one accurately represents what you look like in real life to understand which one is more accurate we have to take a look at a few components and delve into the subject from a scientific perspective there are six main factors that impact what you look like in a picture compared to the mirror or in reality the first factor to take into account is the fact that you've seen your face in the mirror since your youngest years your brain is so
used to seeing the mirrored version of your face that seeing an unmirrored version of your face which is what you essentially see in a picture might look odd or uncomfortable to you one test you can do to see how this impacts your self-perception is to choose a picture of yourself that was taken by someone else in which you find yourself unattractive and then use an app to mirror that picture and see if it actually makes a difference you will now have a mirrored picture of your face which is what you're actually used to seeing and
when you look at yourself in the mirror you'll probably notice that this new version of the picture suddenly looks more attractive to you why well because this is what you're familiar with and this relates back to a concept called a mere exposure Theory this is what makes you realize that you are not unattractive in the picture but you're simply not used to seeing the unmirrored version of your face that might make you look distorted weird or asymmetrical so now you might ask yourself but does this mean that people see me like I see myself in
the mirror or do they see the version I can see in the unmirrored picture essentially do they see the attractive or the unattractive version of myself well the answer is that they obviously see your unmirrored version but because they are used to seeing this version of you they will not have that same feeling of asymmetry or Distortion that you have when you're looking at the opposite flipped version of yourself that you see in the camera and in fact you can even try this interesting exercise that comes from a 2016 research paper by orange and colleagues
go in front of a mirror with a friend of yours and look at their face in the mirror and you'll probably start to notice that your friend does look strangely asymmetrical or distorted and probably unattractive to you that's because you're used to seeing the normal version of them and seeing the mirrored version of their face look strange to you if I take this picture of Zena which we can all agree is a beautiful woman you can see that if we reverse the image the face does now look different but this is the exact same version
of the face with the same level of attractiveness but we're simply not used to seeing it from this angle the same faced by orangan colleagues compared selfie takers and non- selfie takers perception of selfies versus photographs taken by others although oranga shared that both groups reported equal levels of narcissism the selfie takers perceived themselves as more attractive and more likable in their own selfies than in other photographs non selft takers viewed both photographs similarly revealing notable biases in self-perception by taking their moral face on this further confirms the mere exposure hypothesis as individuals that take
a lot of selfies they care mirrored pictures of their face start to find those mirrored pictures more attractive as they become more familiar with them and this is why for example when you take a selfie on Instagram Instagram will give you the mirrored version of yourself and not the real version because they know that people might dislike the real mirrored version the second reason why people might look different in the mirror than in pictures is because people in general tend to perceive themselves as more attractive than what they actually are Nicholas Epley and colleagues found
in their study that this inclination to see your own face is more attractive is linked to how you subconsciously value yourself suggesting it's a reflexive and unconscious mental process rather than a deliberate one they conducted a very interesting experiment for their study where they took 27 participants 18 women and nine men and made them pose for a photograph at the end of an unrelated experiment participants had to remove their glasses and keep a neutral facial expression these pictures were then cropped and edited to make the face more or less attractive and the facial images were
morphed in 10% increments up to 50% to the more attractive side and to the more unattractive side of the spectrum participants returned 2 to 4 Weeks Later sat at a computer recalled their previous photograph and were in informed that modified versions of their pictures would be presented there were shown a lineup of 11 of their edited faces and asked to pick out their actual image and as you can see from the results many people thought that their real picture was the 10% more attractive one on average the picture that people thought was the real one
was substantially more attractive than the actual real picture other interesting Studies have also found that this bias also extends to people's close friends and families but does not extend to strangers which means that a person's close friends or family and even romantic partners are more likely to find them more attractive than what they actually are and that complete strangers seem to be the only unbiased Raiders of someone's attractiveness the third reason why you might see yourself differently in the mirror than you do in the picture is because you might actually be used to the edited
version of your face many research papers such as a 2021 study by Rebecca frog found that if you tend to use apps like face app face tune or even filters from Tik Tok or Instagram you might actually be perceiving the edited looking version of your face as what you look like in other words face filters in editing apps are actually altering how individuals see themselves and their perceived attractiveness so when a picture of you is taken you might have a certain expectation of what you're going to look like because that picture is a raw unedited
version of yourself and that might start to look unattractive Kim be Perry found that this effect is also more pronounced and seems to impact women more so than men ranala and colleagues found that builted images can take a toll on one's self-esteem making one feel inadequate for not looking a certain way in the real world and may even be the trigger leading to body dysmorphic disorder these filters and edits have become the norm now altering people's perceptions of beauty worldwide they also show that tools like Snapchat or face tune allow individuals to achieve the same
level of facial Perfection previously reserved for celebrities or particularly attractive examples and we also regularly hear from plastic surgeons mentioning that more and more patients are seeking cosmetic surgery to match the filtered versions of themselves they also found that people that are more active and post more on social media and especially those with a higher level of engagement on their posts may have a a higher level of body dissatisfaction especially if they're actively trying to present a specific image of themselves or are analyzing and commenting on others photos this can create a vicious Loop where
someone is used to their filtered image they might get an unedited picture of their face taken which will obviously look less attractive and stranger to them because they're used to the edited version but also considering the mirrored effects that we spoke about earlier then they're going to edit this new version as well reinforcing the altered self-perception of the face and essentially erasing what they really look like the fourth re why you might look different in pictures than in real life is because of the camera itself many technical factors can make you look more unattractive in
pictures than what you do look like in real life or in the mirror when you see a face in real life you see a 3D version of that person with an extremely high quality and precision you can see every detail of the face such as Skin quality thickness irregularities eye color shadows and many more important factors that do play a role in facial perception of attractiveness when you take a picture of a face you're seeing a 2d version of their face which is incomparable to what you saw in real life especially as depth is lost
in the 2D version when it comes to picking up details of the face unless you have an extremely high quality camera the mirror will be more accurate at seeing what you truly look like rather than the picture secondly a camera's focal length can drastically impact facial shape and perception and how attractive a face looks if you take a look at all of these images you can see that this is the same person on all of the pictures but the face can drastically change depending on the focal length generally a shorter focal length like that of
wide angled lenses found in many iPhones today do distort facial features making them appear larger or stretched especially when the subject is close to the camera think of selfies and this is something that mobile phones do correct in software because it's such a problem this Distortion makes the face appear wider or rounder and might make your nose appear way bigger than it actually is in real life for example the iPhone 15's focal length is 24 mm if you want to take a picture make sure that the phone is at least one arms length away from
your face to make sure that your features don't look distorted various other factors such as white balance can impact how your skin tone might look like accurate white balance ensures that skin tones look natural rather than too warm or too cool which do affect attractiveness ratings as research has shown the type of lighting condition significantly affects perceived attractiveness where harsh lighting coming from above the face will naturally make your features look more wrinkle like so if you do want to take a picture aim for having a source of lighting basic the face such as sunlight
or direct Light a fifth factor that can impact why you might perceive yourself differently in pictures than what you look like in real life is psychological State your self-perception change depending on your mood and confidence levels which do affect how attractive you find yourself if you look at a specific picture of yourself on a day when you're feeling insecure you might be overly self-critical and might see yourself as more unattractive than what you truly are and in fact if you talk to any photographer that works with models on a regular basis they will tell you
that many attractive models find themselves unattractive in pictures this is only a natural part of human self-perception Thornton and Moore 1993 documented that not only does this happen with female judgments but also male judgments of their their own attractiveness are lower after exposure to Attractive people you can do the test yourself if you go look at attractive celebrities on Instagram for example and then look at pictures of yourself you might notice how it impacts how attractive you see yourself and how you might be more inclined to pick out your features now the contrary though is
also true if you're exposed to unattractive or below average looking people then looking at pictures of yourself you will see yourself as more attractive as a confidence boost additionally your self-esteem and confidence will massively impact how you see yourself in pictures a 2023 study by Charles Hill and colleagues found that self-ratings of attractiveness are inflated by self-esteem and confidence in a self halo effect positive responses from others influence attractiveness enhancing Cycles while negative responses influence attractiveness deprecating Cycles with an overall impact on wellbeing which means that the more people you hear saying you're attractive or
people showing you that they find you attractive the more likely you are to see yourself as attractive which does seem quite straightforward but it's quite true now there are some situations where someone might still see themselves as unattractive despite many people telling them otherwise zubic and colleagues found in their study that humans have a need for self-evaluation that they satisfy by comparing themselves with people who share similar characteristics as themselves and that celebrities or media images form a part of the foundation for comparison and idealized self- benchmarking which means that if you're a blonde girl
with blue eyes you're most likely going to compare yourself to someone that looks like jezelle bunin and if you're an African-American male in your 20s with short hair you might compare yourself to somebody that looks look like Keith Powers lastly Jones a tell found that temporary mood changes itself doesn't explain changes in self- perceived attractiveness and show that deeper factors such as how someone perceives their self-worth self-esteem or even social cultural norms impact how attractive they do see themselves the sixth factor that might impact how you see yourself in pictures could be that you have
a certain facial expression that might make you look awkward when you take the picture when there is facial movement such as when a person is speaking it does create an appearance of greater or lesser facial symmetry which in turn affects how attractive your face looks in the picture however it seems that most of the changes in facial attractiveness in a picture versus in a video seem to be in one's own mind Gillian rhods and colleagues conducted a study exactly on this subject exploring the validity of attractiveness ratings made to static images compared to Dynamic video
clips of male faces the researchers conducted experiments using a sample of 60 male faces employing both static still images and 10-second video clips displaying multiple viewpoints expressions and movements they found that attractiveness ratings from static images and dynamic videos were similar despite the latter containing more information about facial appearance and expression lastly they found that attractive males as rated from both static images and videos were found to be more successful in obtaining sexual partners particularly short-term Partners in simpler terms the study suggests that using pictures to rate how attractive someone is is generally a good
method still even though pictures don't show every detail like videos do they do give us enough ecologically relevant information for judging one's attractiveness so in the end it begs the question which one is more accurate and represents what you look like in real life is it the mirror or is it the picture if we assume a neutral emotional state it seems that a very highquality picture with great lighting neutral facial expressions accurately represents what you look like in real life a highquality unmirrored picture of your face is how people see you in real life and
a highquality mirrored picture of your face is what you should look at if you want to see what you look like in real life and with that being said if you want to get your face analyzed by our team of doctors and dentists head over to the K's website for a facial aesthetic report and as always I'll catch you all in the next one
