Abstract
People tend to evaluate their own traits and abilities favourably and such favourable self-perceptions extend to attractiveness. However, the exact mechanism underlying this self-enhancement bias remains unclear. One possibility could be the identification with attractive others through blurring of self–other boundaries. Across two experiments, we used the enfacement illusion to investigate the effect of others’ attractiveness in the multisensory perception of the self. In Experiment 1 (N = 35), participants received synchronous or asynchronous interpersonal visuo-tactile stimulation with an attractive and non-attractive face. In Experiment 2 (N = 35), two new faces were used and spatial incongruency was introduced as a control condition. The results showed that increased ratings of attractiveness of an unfamiliar face lead to blurring of self–other boundaries, allowing the identification of our psychological self with another’s physical self and specifically their face, and this seems to be unrelated to perceived own attractiveness. The effect of facial attractiveness on face ownership showed dissociable mechanisms, with multisensory integration modulating the effect on similarity but not identification, an effect that may be purely based on vision. Overall, our findings suggest that others’ attractiveness may lead to positive distortions of the self. This research provides a psychophysical starting point for studying the impact of others’ attractiveness on self-face recognition, which can be particularly important for individuals with malleable, embodied self–other boundaries and body image disturbances.
Highlights
People tend to perceive themselves in a positive manner, displaying attributional, memorial, and evaluative biases that favour the self (Sedikides & Green, 2000)
The main effect of attractiveness and the interaction between attractiveness and synchrony were non-significant. The findings of this first experiment showed that synchronous stimulation led to higher levels of enfacement, measured both at an implicit and an explicit, self-report level, replicating the “enfacement illusion” and confirming the important role of multisensory integration in face ownership (Paladino et al, 2010; Sforza et al, 2010; Tsakiris, 2008)
The main hypothesis regarding the role of facial attractiveness in face ownership was, only partly confirmed, in the sense that attractiveness had dissociable effects on unisensory and multisensory perception during the enfacement illusion
Summary
People tend to perceive themselves in a positive manner, displaying attributional, memorial, and evaluative biases that favour the self (Sedikides & Green, 2000). A pervasive bias in learning, thought to be arising from selfenhancing motivations, leads people to change their beliefs about the future more readily when confronted with good news rather than bad news (Sharot & Garrett, 2016) They tend to evaluate their own traits and abilities favourably, creating flattering images of themselves (Dunning, 1999) and such favourable self-perceptions extend to physical attractiveness. The results suggest that the recognition of one’s own face as being more attractive than it is, represents a distinct form of self-enhancement, produced by relatively implicit and automatic psychological mechanisms This selfenhancement bias was correlated with implicit measures of self-worth and it was, suggested that this may reflect a top–down effect of making positive associations to the self, leading to positive distortions of it. A plausible mechanism underlying this self-enhancement bias for face recognition could be a blurring of bodily boundaries between self and attractive others, resulting in the identification with attractive faces
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