Sara S
07-26-2008, 07:51 AM
-seeing ourselves in photographs
and mirrors:
"Researchers have determined that mirrors can subtly
affect human behavior, often in surprisingly positive
ways. Subjects tested in a room with a mirror have
been found to work harder, to be more helpful and to
be less inclined to cheat, compared with control
groups performing the same exercises in
nonmirrored settings. Reporting in the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, C. Neil Macrae,
Galen V. Bodenhausen and Alan B. Milne found that
people in a room with a mirror were comparatively
less likely to judge others based on social
stereotypes about, for example, sex, race or religion.
" 'When people are made to be self-aware, they are
likelier to stop and think about what they are doing,'
Dr. Bodenhausen said. 'A byproduct of that awareness
may be a shift away from acting on autopilot toward
more desirable ways of behaving.' Physical
self-reflection, in other words, encourages
philosophical self-reflection, a crash course in the
Socratic notion that you cannot know or appreciate
others until you know yourself. ...
"In a report titled 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall:
Enhancement in Self-Recognition,' which appears
online in The Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, Nicholas Epley and Erin Whitchurch
described experiments in which people were asked to
identify pictures of themselves amid a lineup of
distracter faces. Participants identified their personal
portraits significantly quicker when their faces were
computer enhanced to be 20 percent more attractive.
They were also likelier, when presented with images
of themselves made prettier, homelier or left
untouched, to call the enhanced image their genuine,
unairbrushed face. Such internalized photoshoppery
is not simply the result of an all-purpose preference
for prettiness: when asked to identify images of
strangers in subsequent rounds of testing,
participants were best at spotting the unenhanced
faces.
"How can we be so self-delusional when the truth
stares back at us? 'Although we do indeed see
ourselves in the mirror every day, we don't look exactly
the same every time,' explained Dr. Epley, a professor
of behavioral science at the University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business. There is the
scruffy-morning you, the assembled-for-work you, the
dressed-for-an-elegant-dinner you. 'Which image is
you?' he said. 'Our research shows that people, on
average, resolve that ambiguity in their favor, forming a
representation of their image that is more attractive
than they actually are.' "
Natalie Angier, "Mirrors Don't Lie. Mislead? Oh, Yes."
The New York Times, Science Times, July 22,
2008, F1.
and mirrors:
"Researchers have determined that mirrors can subtly
affect human behavior, often in surprisingly positive
ways. Subjects tested in a room with a mirror have
been found to work harder, to be more helpful and to
be less inclined to cheat, compared with control
groups performing the same exercises in
nonmirrored settings. Reporting in the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, C. Neil Macrae,
Galen V. Bodenhausen and Alan B. Milne found that
people in a room with a mirror were comparatively
less likely to judge others based on social
stereotypes about, for example, sex, race or religion.
" 'When people are made to be self-aware, they are
likelier to stop and think about what they are doing,'
Dr. Bodenhausen said. 'A byproduct of that awareness
may be a shift away from acting on autopilot toward
more desirable ways of behaving.' Physical
self-reflection, in other words, encourages
philosophical self-reflection, a crash course in the
Socratic notion that you cannot know or appreciate
others until you know yourself. ...
"In a report titled 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall:
Enhancement in Self-Recognition,' which appears
online in The Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, Nicholas Epley and Erin Whitchurch
described experiments in which people were asked to
identify pictures of themselves amid a lineup of
distracter faces. Participants identified their personal
portraits significantly quicker when their faces were
computer enhanced to be 20 percent more attractive.
They were also likelier, when presented with images
of themselves made prettier, homelier or left
untouched, to call the enhanced image their genuine,
unairbrushed face. Such internalized photoshoppery
is not simply the result of an all-purpose preference
for prettiness: when asked to identify images of
strangers in subsequent rounds of testing,
participants were best at spotting the unenhanced
faces.
"How can we be so self-delusional when the truth
stares back at us? 'Although we do indeed see
ourselves in the mirror every day, we don't look exactly
the same every time,' explained Dr. Epley, a professor
of behavioral science at the University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business. There is the
scruffy-morning you, the assembled-for-work you, the
dressed-for-an-elegant-dinner you. 'Which image is
you?' he said. 'Our research shows that people, on
average, resolve that ambiguity in their favor, forming a
representation of their image that is more attractive
than they actually are.' "
Natalie Angier, "Mirrors Don't Lie. Mislead? Oh, Yes."
The New York Times, Science Times, July 22,
2008, F1.