Buy essay on Contrast Effects of Attractiveness in Social Judgment Lyn J. Chung

The goal of our research is to see at if ratings of attractiveness change if participants are primed with photos of attractive female celebrities before having them rate average females as opposed to participants who will look at unattractive females before rating average female. Participants will be divided into two different groups. One group will be shown twenty images of celebrity females for fifteen seconds each, while the other group will be shown twenty images of unattractive females. Both group will then be shown twenty more images of average looking females and asked to rate them on a scale of -5 to 5, with -5 being not attractive and 5 being extremely attractive. For this study, there will be forty participants. The participants will be male and female students of American University, a medium-sized school in Washington, D.C. The participants will range in age from eighteen and twenty-two. Twenty participants will be placed in both groups; there will be ten males and ten females in each group. We hypothesize that the participants who view the celebrities first will rate the average women as less attractive, while those who view the unattractive females first will rate the opposite due to contrast effects.
Keywords:
buy essay

Contrast Effects of Attractiveness in Social Judgment
Perception of attractiveness, both of oneself and of others, is an essential and important part of human life. Mass media and other means of disseminating information tend to show successful and highly attractive individuals, both male and female. However, such approach to attractiveness may cause social problems because self-evaluation and evaluation of others relies mostly on social judgment rather than on unbiased physical parameters.
On one hand, there are several patterns of attractiveness that are considered attractive by representatives of all test groups (Cunningham, 1986). For example, the neonate features of large eyes, small nose, and small chin; the maturity features of prominent cheekbones and narrow cheeks; and the expressive features of high eyebrows, large pupils, and large smile were considered attractive (Cunningham, 1986). However, social judgment has a profound influence on the perception of attractiveness.
There are various manifestations of social judgment and its consequences. Perception of physical attractiveness of others significantly depend on perceptual contrast effect (Wedell, 1994), or, in other words, in comparison with highly attractive people, a person of average attractiveness is viewed as not attractive, while the same person viewed in comparison with unattractive individuals is considered to be attractive. The same phenomenon works for self-evaluation: when someone is exposed to highly attractive people, the decrease of self-estimate of own attractiveness is witnessed (Wedell, 1994). Moreover, after watching TV shows with attractive females people rate females of average attractiveness as not attractive (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980). This study also indicates the informational impact of mass media on the perception of attractiveness.
Social judgment also may affect the performance and relations of the person: Olympic sportsmen tended to show better results if they were judged best (Damish & Mussweiler & Plessner, 2006); in contrast, sportsmen not supported by the public, tended to show worse results than usually. Social judgment is strongly driven by stereotypes: prejudice makes people estimate others negatively because of the attitude to the group and not basing on their physical parameters (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001). In these examples contrast effect of judgment is based on perceptional differences rather than on objective physical parameters. Interesting form of social judgment was studied by Simpson, Gangestad and Lerma (1990): those who were in a romantic relationship or married tended to be less “sensible” to highly attracted individuals and rated them less attractive than single individuals. Such perceptual derogation may be aimed at preserving stability and already matched couples, and also serves as an example of contrast social judgment.
The questions of self-perception and perception of others in terms of attractiveness as well as mechanisms driving this perception are highly important for virtually any human being; studying these mechanisms will help to reach a more balanced attitude to life and increased quality of life. (Simpson, Gangestad , & Lerma, 1990). Improved quality of life is supposed to be reached by creating a positive attitude to self and improving self-estimate. As Harker and Keltner (2001) show, positive perception of self and life have a significant impact on individual’s success and well-being.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the comparative ratings of attractiveness. The hypothesis is that respondents will rate average females as unattractive after being shown photos of highly attractive females, and will rate average females as attractive after viewing the photos of unattractive females first. In this way, social behavior in regards to attractiveness will be studied. Basing on the results of the research, the impact of media on self-perception and on life perceptions can be further studied.

Method
Participants
The participants were 20 male and 20 female undergraduates from American University in Washington DC. Participants were compensated with a chance to enter into a $20 lottery. These participants ranged in age from 18 to 22. Participants were randomly assigned to see and rate 20 pictures of attractive or unattractive woman before shown 20 pictures of average women. Participants were asked to participate in a study for an experimental psychology class. All participants were treated in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association (2002).
Materials
Materials required for this study were a) photos of 20 celebrities (highly attractive females) and photos of 20 average females; b) photos of 20 unattractive females, and photos of 20 average females. Each photo of average females will be rated on the scale from -5 to 5, where -5 is highly unattractive, 0 is average, 5 is highly attractive. Therefore, there are 20 estimates to be done by each respondent.
The score will be computed the following way: for the photos of average females an arithmetic mean will be calculated for the two groups and compared with one another.
Procedure
As a between subjects study, there will be 40 respondents randomly assigned into 2 groups, each with 20 people. Each group will consist of 10 males and 10 females. Forty individuals will be an adequate sample that will ensure statistical validity of the results.
First, participants in the “attractive” group will be shown photos of celebrities for 15 s each. The “unattractive” group will be shown 20 photos of unattractive females, also for 15 s each. All the participants will be shown 20 images of average females and will have to rate them (from -5 to 5). The hypothesis states that the group which viewed unattractive photos first, will rate average females as attractive, while the other group will rate these females as unattractive in comparison to celebrities, thus illustrating the contrast effect of social judgment.

References
American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of
conduct. American Psychologist, 57(12), 1060-1073.
Cunningham, M.R. (1986). Measuring the Physical in Physical Attractiveness: Quasi-
Experiments on the Sociobiology of Female Facial Beauty. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 50(5), 925-935.
Damish L. & Mussweiler, T. & Plessner, H. (2006). Olympic Medals as Fruits of Comparison?
Assimilation and Contrast in Sequential Performance Judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 2006, 12 (3), 166–178, 10.1037/1076-898X.12.3.166.
Dasgupta, N. & Greenwald, A.G. (2001). On the Malleability of Automatic Attitudes:
Combating Automatic Prejudice with Images of Admired and Disliked Individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81 (5), 800-814
Harker. L. & Keltner, D. (2001). Expressions of Positive Emotion in Women’s College Yearbook
Pictures and Their Relationship to Personality and Life Outcomes Across Adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 112-124.
Hill, S.E. & Reeve, H.K. (2004). Mating games: the evolution of human mating transactions.
Behavioral Ecology, 15 (5), 748–756, 10.1093/beheco/arh073.
Kenrick, D.T. & Gutierres, S.E. (1980). Contrast Effects and Judgments of Physical
Attractiveness: When Beauty Becomes a Social Problem. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 38 (1), 131-140.
Levin, D.T. (2000). Race as a Visual Feature: Using Visual Search and Perceptual
Discrimination Tasks to Understand Face Categories and the Cross-Race Recognition
Deficit. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 129 (4), 559-574.
Schooler, D. & Ward, L.M. (2006). Average Joes: Men’s Relationships with Media, Real Bodies,
and Sexuality. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 7(1), 27–41, 10.1037/1524-9220.7.1.27.
Simpson, J.A. & Gangestad, S.W. & Lerma M. (1990). Perception of Physical Attractiveness:
Mechanisms Involved in the Maintenance of Romantic Relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59 (6), 1192-1201.
Steffen, A.C. & Jansma B. (2009). Brain Evoked Potentials Reflect How Emotional Faces
Influence Our Decision Making. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 2(1), 32–40.
Thornton, B. & Maurice, J.K. (1999). Physical Attractiveness Contrast Effect and the
Moderating Influence of Self-Consciousness. Sex Roles, 40 (6), 379-392, 0360-0025/99/0300±.
Wedell, D.H. (1994). Contextual Contrast in Evaluative Judgments: A Test of Pre- Versus
Postintegration models of Contrast. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(6), 1007-1019.