The cheerleader effect, also known as the group attractiveness effect, is the
cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
which causes people to think individuals are more attractive when they are in a group. The term was backed up by research by Drew Walker and Edward Vul (2013) and van Osch et al. (2015).
Media
The phrase was coined by the fictional character
Barney Stinson
Barnabus Stinson is a fictional character portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris and created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series ''How I Met Your Mother'' (2005–2014).
One of the show's main characters, Barney is known f ...
(
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris (born June 15, 1973) is an American actor, singer, writer, producer, and television host. Primarily known for his comedic television roles and dramatic and musical stage roles, he has received multiple accolades throughout ...
) in "
Not a Father's Day
"Not a Father's Day" is the seventh episode in the fourth season of the television series '' How I Met Your Mother'' and 71st overall. It originally aired on November 10, 2008.
Plot
In the bar, Barney is unimpressed with the women there, not see ...
", an episode of the television series ''
How I Met Your Mother
''How I Met Your Mother'' (often abbreviated as ''HIMYM'') is an American sitcom, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays for CBS. The series, which aired from September 19, 2005 to March 31, 2014, follows the main character, Ted Mosby, and his ...
'', first aired in November 2008. Barney points out to his friends a group of women that initially seem attractive, but who are all unattractive when examined individually. This point is made again by two other characters,
Ted Mosby
Theodore Evelyn Mosby is a fictional character and the protagonist in the American sitcom ''How I Met Your Mother'', portrayed by Josh Radnor. He serves as the show's narrator from the future, voiced by Bob Saget, as he tells his children the " ...
(
Josh Radnor
Joshua Thomas Radnor (born July 29, 1974) is an American actor, filmmaker, author, and musician. He is best known for portraying Ted Mosby on the popular and Emmy Award–winning CBS sitcom ''How I Met Your Mother''. He made his writing and dir ...
) and
Robin Scherbatsky
Robin Charles Scherbatsky Jr. is a fictional character created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series ''How I Met Your Mother'', portrayed by Cobie Smulders.
Robin is the on and off love interest of Barney Stinson (Neil ...
(
Cobie Smulders
Jacoba Francisca Maria "Cobie" Smulders (born April 3, 1982) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her starring role as Robin Scherbatsky in the CBS sitcom '' How I Met Your Mother'' (2005–2014) and as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill in the ...
), later in the episode, who note that some of Barney's friends also only seem attractive in a group.
Studies
2013 study
Across five studies by Walker and Vul (2013), participants rated the attractiveness of male and female faces when shown in a group photo, and an individual photo, with the order of the photographs randomised. The people photographed got higher scores for their group photos.
This effect occurs with male-only, female-only and mixed gender groups, and both small and large groups. The effect occurs to the same extent with groups of four and 16 people. Participants in studies looked more at the attractive people than the unattractive people in the group. The effect does not occur because group photos give the impression that individuals have more social or emotional intelligence: this was shown to be the case by a study which used individual photos grouped together in a single image, rather than photos taken of people in a group.
Proposed explanation
Drew Walker and Edward Vul proposed that this effect arises due to the interplay of three
cognitive phenomena:
#The human
visual system
The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the a ...
takes "ensemble representations" of faces in a group.
#Perception of individuals is biased towards this average.
#Average faces are more attractive, perhaps due to "averaging out of unattractive idiosyncracies".
[
When all three of these phenomena are taken together, the individual faces will seem more attractive in a group, as they appear more similar to the average group face, which is more attractive than members' individual faces.]
2015 study
A 2015 study by van Osch et al. confirmed the results obtained by Walker and Vul.
Proposed explanation
The research team offered two different explanations for the group attractiveness effect:Selective attention
Attentional control, colloquially referred to as concentration, refers to an individual's capacity to choose what they pay attention to and what they ignore. It is also known as endogenous attention or executive attention. In lay terms, attenti ...
to attractive group members.
#The Gestalt
Gestalt may refer to:
Psychology
* Gestalt psychology, a school of psychology
* Gestalt therapy, a form of psychotherapy
* Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, an assessment of development disorders
* Gestalt Practice, a practice of self-exploration ...
principle of similarity.
They claim that selective attention fits better the gathered data.
Controversy
A 2015 replication of Walker and Vul's study failed to show any significant results for the group attractiveness effect. The research team hypothesized that this may be due to cultural differences, since the replication study was performed in Japan.
References
Further reading
* Article on Walker and Vul's 2013 study.
{{How I Met Your Mother
Cognitive biases
Crowd psychology