We all want to be attractive and it's mostly a work in progress, but science has found a simple and quick way to suddenly boost your appearance!
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#1 The "ugly" truth.
Many of us spend a wealth of time buying high-end make-up, clothes, and shoes to appear more attractive to others. Witty one-liners, dating workshops, and hundreds of dollars later, we still haven't mastered the art of seduction. Brilliant minds ponder the same things and came up with a study to test out a commonly used tactic.
#2 D.U.F.F.
Some may be familiar with what the "designated ugly fat friend" tactic is. For those that are not, here's what Urban Dictionary defines a D.U.F.F as:
Ugly Friend Effect
The effect of a person appearing more attractive due to being surrounded by ugly friends
Demonstrated, but not referred to as such, in the film hall pass.
The effect can be reduced by removing the friends from your field of view i.e with your hands.
similar but subtly different is the 'Hugh Hefner effect' where surrounding yourself with more beautiful people of the opposite sex in turn increases your own attractiveness.
Nick: That girl is amazing
Jason: yeah but check her friends, it could be the ugly friend effect.
Nick: (subtly using hands) haha!
Both together: Teeth?!
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#3 Putting the hypothesis to the test.
A team of British researchers decided to scientifically test people's level of attractiveness by comparing different types of faces and submitting them to a judging panel. Nicholas Furl, along with his team of researchers, decided to prove if the "ugly friend effect" was real by testing 40 individuals on their perception of other's people attractiveness.
Participants in the study were asked to evaluate a series of people's photographs and rank them depending on their levels of attractiveness. Researchers analyzed the first batch of results depending on the individual's perceptions.
Researchers continued to investigate the participant's perception by putting the same photographs they had evaluated next to a "distractor face" that according to the British team, where photographs of less attractive people.
#4 The results are in.
Studies show that our judgments of people vary according to the company they keep, and if that company is less attractive, or dare we say it, ugly, the first person seems all the more appealing. Researchers discovered that volunteers would rank a person male or female as better looking when they were alongside less attractive people than they would be when judged alone.
Furl explains that before the investigation was held, researchers believed that a person's attractiveness had steady levels of the general public. "If you saw a picture of George Clooney today, you would rate him as good-looking as you would tomorrow," explained the lead author. However, this might depend on how good-looking is the person standing next to Clooney.
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#5 They also found out this.
"The presence of a less attractive face does not just increase the attractiveness of a single person, but in a crowd could actually make us even more choosey," explained Furl.
Researchers proceeded to push the participant's judgments by asking them to judge two attractive faces in contrast with a "distractor" face, finding that people tend to be more critical in judging good looking faces if a less-attractive one is present.
So what does this teach us about Furl? He's probably the D.U.F.F.
