People judge others differently if they've used a beauty filter in their photos

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-11-27 11:01

International

Photo by Antoine Beauvillain on Unsplash

People don't just change their opinion on how attractive someone is if they use a beauty filter in their photos, they also judge their intelligence and trustworthiness differently, according to an international study. Previous research has uncovered a 'halo effect' where people are more likely to assume a person they consider attractive has positive personality attributes. In this study, the researchers tested if that was the case by asking participants to judge images of 462 people with or without an AI beauty filter applied. The researchers say participants rated 96.1% of the people in the images as more attractive if they had a filter on, and people with a filter were generally rated as more intelligent and trustworthy by the participants. For women, however, the researchers say men rated them as less intelligent after the filter was applied.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Filter fraud– Beauty may not be in the eye of the beholder when a filter is applied. Participants rated images of 462 individuals and found in 96.1% of cases they were rated more attractive with a beauty filter applied – they were also rated more intelligent and trustworthy. Females were, however, ‘perceived by men as less intelligent after the application of the filter’. The authors warn guidelines on filter use may be needed where they could influence decision making. Royal Society Open Science

What is beautiful is still good: the attractiveness halo effect in the era of beauty filters
Royal Society Open Science

This study explores the under-examined impact of cognitive biases in the digital world by investigating the attractiveness halo effect using AI-based beauty filters. By means of a large-scale online study with 2,748 participants, we find clear evidence of the existence of the attractiveness halo effect. We also study the influence of age, gender, and ethnicity of the stimuli and the raters, and discover a weakening of the halo effect in the beautified condition. Our findings help resolve conflicting literature on the topic yet raise ethical concerns about the use of beauty filters and their potential to mitigate cognitive biases.

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Journal/
conference: Royal Society Open Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: ELLIS Alicante, Spain

Funder: A.G. and N.O. are partially supported by a nominal grant received at the ELLIS Unit Alicante Foundation from the Regional Government of Valencia in Spain (Convenio Singular signed with Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Innovacion, Industria, Comercio y Turismo, Direccion General de Innovacion), along with grants from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (ELIAS; grant agreement 101120237) and Intel. A.G. is additionally partially supported by grants from the Banc Sabadell Foundation and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (ELISE; grant agreement 951847). B.L. is partially supported by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101120237 (ELIAS) and by the PNRR project FAIR—Future AI Research (PE00000013), under the NRRP MUR programme funded by the NextGenerationEU. M.M.-G. is supported by grant CIGE/2022/066 by Generalitat Valenciana and grant PID2020-118071GB-I00 from the Ministerio de educación y formación profesional. D.F. is supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación y Universidades (Spain) [PID2023-148033OB-C21], and by grant 2021 SGR 01421 (GRBIO) administrated by the Departament de Recerca i Universitats de la Generalitat de Catalunya (Spain).

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