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The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face

Can the effects of social comparison extend beyond explicit evaluation to visual self-representation—a perceptual stimulus that is objectively verifiable, unambiguous, and frequently updated? We morphed images of participants' faces with attractive and unattractive references. With access to a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zell, Ethan, Balcetis, Emily
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3360758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22662124
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036742
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author Zell, Ethan
Balcetis, Emily
author_facet Zell, Ethan
Balcetis, Emily
author_sort Zell, Ethan
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description Can the effects of social comparison extend beyond explicit evaluation to visual self-representation—a perceptual stimulus that is objectively verifiable, unambiguous, and frequently updated? We morphed images of participants' faces with attractive and unattractive references. With access to a mirror, participants selected the morphed image they perceived as depicting their face. Participants who engaged in upward comparison with relevant attractive targets selected a less attractive morph compared to participants exposed to control images (Study 1). After downward comparison with relevant unattractive targets compared to control images, participants selected a more attractive morph (Study 2). Biased representations were not the products of cognitive accessibility of beauty constructs; comparisons did not influence representations of strangers' faces (Study 3). We discuss implications for vision, social comparison, and body image.
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spelling pubmed-33607582012-06-01 The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face Zell, Ethan Balcetis, Emily PLoS One Research Article Can the effects of social comparison extend beyond explicit evaluation to visual self-representation—a perceptual stimulus that is objectively verifiable, unambiguous, and frequently updated? We morphed images of participants' faces with attractive and unattractive references. With access to a mirror, participants selected the morphed image they perceived as depicting their face. Participants who engaged in upward comparison with relevant attractive targets selected a less attractive morph compared to participants exposed to control images (Study 1). After downward comparison with relevant unattractive targets compared to control images, participants selected a more attractive morph (Study 2). Biased representations were not the products of cognitive accessibility of beauty constructs; comparisons did not influence representations of strangers' faces (Study 3). We discuss implications for vision, social comparison, and body image. Public Library of Science 2012-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC3360758/ /pubmed/22662124 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036742 Text en Zell, Balcetis. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Zell, Ethan
Balcetis, Emily
The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face
title The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face
title_full The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face
title_fullStr The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face
title_full_unstemmed The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face
title_short The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face
title_sort influence of social comparison on visual representation of one's face
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3360758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22662124
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036742
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