You think your partner is attractive? Ask strangers
It’s said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Now, scientists have confirmed it after finding that people rate their partners more attractive than strangers do. Researchers said this “positive illusion” about partners’ hotness may help keep relationships stable, LiveScience reported.
Past research had turned up evidence that people rate their boyfriends, girlfriends and spouses as especially kind and intelligent compared with other people. But it’s not known whether this rosy outlook extends to physical looks.
To find it out, the researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands recruited 70 couples. Each of the couples first had a headshot taken by a photographer. Then half of them filled out a questionnaire about their ratings of their own attractiveness and their partner’s attractiveness. Next, they filled out some dummy questionnaires about other topics to throw them off the scent of the experimental question.
After that, they got to look at the photo of themselves and their partners taken at the beginning of the session and were told to rate the attractiveness of both. Other couples completed the same process, but looked at the photos first.
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