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Mirror, mirror on the wall: enhancement in self-recognition
Nicholas Epley1, Erin Whitchurch
1Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. epley@chicagogsb.edu
Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin
|June 14, 2008
Summary
People tend to perceive their own faces as more attractive than they are. This self-enhancement bias in facial recognition is linked to self-worth, suggesting an automatic process.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Self-perception and trait inferences are often subject to positive biases.
- Previous research indicates self-enhancement in various cognitive domains.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether self-enhancement extends to automatic, perceptual judgments of physical attractiveness.
- To examine the recognition of one's own face and the influence of attractiveness manipulation.
Main Methods:
- Facial attractiveness was digitally manipulated using morphing procedures.
- Participants identified their own face from a lineup containing enhanced and non-enhanced versions.
- Reaction times for face recognition were measured.
Main Results:
- Participants were more likely to recognize attractively enhanced versions of their own face.
- Enhanced versions of one's own face and a friend's face were recognized faster.
- This bias was not observed for a stranger's face.
- Enhancement correlated with implicit, but not explicit, measures of self-worth.
Conclusions:
- A self-enhancement bias exists in the automatic recognition of one's own facial attractiveness.
- This bias appears to be an automatic process linked to implicit self-worth.
- The findings extend self-enhancement effects to perceptual judgments.
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