When Males are More Sensitive to Self-Perceptions Than Females

Self-Ratings of Physical Attractiveness in a Competitive Context: When Males are More Sensitive to Self-Perceptions Than Females
Gad Sadd, Concordia University & Tripat Gill, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
as published in The Journal of Social Psychology, 2009, 149(5), 585-599


I found this study to be fascinating because I felt it showed a different result than I would have expected. The researchers used the "Ultimatum Game" to see how a competitive atmosphere will impact a person's judgment towards their competition's attractiveness. The "Ultimatum Game" is one in which there is a "recipient" and an "allocator". The allocator makes an offer to the recipient on how they are willing to split the resource they are given (in this study $10 was used). The recipient then accepts the offer and they get to collect the amount as offered, or the recipient rejects the offer and neither player gets anything. After the game was played between the participants they were given a questionnaire that among other questions had the participants rate their own attractiveness and that of their partner. The person administering the experiment also rated both participants' attractiveness.

Results of the study showed that among the male-male groups participants rated their own attractiveness higher than that of their partner's. Among male-female groups the males rated the females higher in attractiveness than they rated themselves. Lastly, among the female-female groups they tended to rate each other as similarly attractive. As for the ratings of the person administering the experiment all females were rated higher in attractiveness than all males in general. The researchers also point out that the males self-ratings when facing a male opponent were higher than that of either the opponent or the experiment administrator showing an overconfidence bias in the males self ratings.

I just thought it was interesting that the males' rating results on attractiveness were the ones that differed the most when comparing themselves to others. I always thought females were the ones that were more likely behave in that way. The researchers suggest that the males' rating differences is due to an evolutionary kind of influence, and that adding competition into the mix of rating attractiveness causes males to want to be the most successful and attractive.