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yew 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!)
Were those pictures seriously used in a psychological study? It strikes me as obvious that the 'pride' images would stand out for having much more implied animation. Though I could see attractiveness swinging both ways depending on viewer personality.
Edit: These seem to have been used in the actual study (via). Maybe that really is just an example?
If those are the pictures, it looks an awful lot like they completely failed to control for the identities of the people in the pictures. For example, the "pride" group is better described as the "professional athlete" group.
Yes, these images were even included in the published pdf of it. It would be useful to be able to see the other images that they used. Perhaps this image is an exception to the norm and the author included it rather than the most representative one because he got a crush on cute-pride-chick during the editing process.
Odd. Those look like stock photos, while the ones in the grandparent clearly aren't. I can see either being used pretty readily, but I'm having trouble coming up with a rationale for both.
Similar mistake. Most of "female neutral" pictures contain only the head; "female happy" has more examples with hands etc.; "female pride" is in a sport context; "female shame" has many full-body pictures.
Authors of the study probably never heard about ceteris paribus.
Thanks for tracking down the original images. They seem like much better choices than the pictures in the comment above here.
Just an impression, but I think that something which can make men (and possibly women) attractive isn't pure sadness-- it's sadness which somehow conveys "but the right person can make me happy".
I personally think the original images used in the study are even worse choices, because at least there is some uniformity between displays of emotions taken from the article, which better control for possible confounders.
Now for the actual pics used in the study. In the set of male pics that are supposed to display pride, there seem to be far more pics that convey athleticism or wealth, as others have pointed out. In the happiness pictures, there seem to be far more close-ups and profile pics, with the rest of the body being hidden from the viewer. I would argue that the shame pics are animated in comparison.
Seems like an overall poor study based on these sample of pics, and certainly should not be a recommendation for men to not smile next time they are out in public.