Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Be Happier - Less Wrong
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I took a look at the paper, and in particular the sample image they include:
My first impression was a lot more attraction to the female 'pride' picture than any of the other female images - while pride in females was found to be highly unattractive. Now I want to determine whether my preferences differ from some norm or whether this picture is an unusual case.
I do allow that much of my preference may have been determined simply due to the combination of hideously unflattering t-shirts and arms being up in the air compensating for that and actually making breasts evident. If giving all the people ghostly shirts was supposed to be some clever attempt to isolate the influence of clothing then it seems somewhat shortsighted. (Mind you if males were consistently not attracted to the 'pride' female despite it being the only one with apparent breasts then that is just all the more significant!)
You need some actual poll here, but yes, the pride image seems obviously more attractive. It is possible that the other confounders played a role, but I at least think that I find pride attractive generally.
OK.
Come to think of it if I rate the pictures based on how happy they seem to me at first glance the 'pride' picture still wins out over 'happiness'. That quite possibly speaks primarily to how happy I feel when in the respective poses.
Pride it is. What we need now is an experimental design to discern whether LWers prefer pride because we're contrarian; because wannabe-rationalists are less threatened by strong, confident women; because we're unusually attracted to prominent breasts; or some other reason.
Purely out of scientific curiosity, I'm sure.
I was thinking that giving volunteer instructions on the poses they are to make and letting them take their own pictures with a foot-pedal to operate the shutter might work. Does anyone see a problem with that solution?