Study finds men are more likely to think they're better looking than they are

Is anyone surprised?

New research has found that men rate themselves more attractive, compared to women.

The study from Osnabruck University in Germany discovered that males tend to self-enhance their appearance, while females rate looks in a more fair-minded manner.

Image Credit: Pixabay

The research involved 100 men and 100 women, all aged between 18 to 30.

They were presented with a series of images showing five types of body build - thin, average-weight, overweight, athletic and hypermuscular.

Participants were shown a person of average attractiveness on one of the body types, then their own head was generated onto the body. 

The same manipulation procedure was also conducted on the other four body types. 

Participants were then asked to rate the images. 

The experiment revealed that men gave higher scores when rating bodies with their own heads, while women were more self deprecating.

"Men rate moderately or low-attractive bodies more negatively and the ideal body more positively when bodies are presented with their own face compared to another person’s face.

"In contrast, women are less influenced by identity and mostly rate in a fair-minded manner."

The study author concluded that over-confidence is "beneficial for men's self-worth and body satisfaction".

She also revealed why women rate themselves lower: 

"It has been suggested that it is important for women to appear friendly and agreeable and to emphasise similarities in groups in order to encourage harmony and positive feelings in a group.

"Thus, women may refrain from evaluating themselves as better than other women in order to avoid appearing selfish or conceited.

"This would fit with our finding that women do not evaluate bodies more positively when the bodies are presented with their own face."