Photo: flickr
The so-called ‘cheerleader effect’ is the phenomenon that people seem more attractive when they are in a group than when they are alone.
But now the cheerleader effect has scientific backing from a study published recently in Psychological Science (Walker & Vul, 2013).
In fact, the study finds that both men and women are perceived as more attractive when they are in a group than when alone.
The effect is the result of the way we look at groups and what people, on average, deem an attractive face.
Generally people find 'average' faces most attractive.
When psychologists say 'average' in this sense, they mean if you average out the faces of lots of different people.
They don't mean people who are average-looking.
Source material from Psy Blog