When I first went to the U of A, my roommates and I decided to do an experiment based on the attractiveness of people. We devised “The 17 Point Attractivity Scale”, such that 0 is rated as disgustingly ugly/repulsive and 17 is perfectly attractive (17 is also equated with desires of marriage). The experimentation was generally conducted in the following manner. We would never inquire (ask) about ourselves, and when asking about “attractivity” of specific people we always explained that the results would never be released (which was true). We would begin by asking a participant to think about the most normal/average (not attractive, but not unattractive) person they could think of and use this person as the standard for the average (8.5) on the 17 point scale. After creating a database consisting of approximately 70 sample participants, we compiled the data so that each person had measurements of how they were rated and how they rated others. We definitely found some interesting results.

Firstly, the ancient belief that women know if other women are attractive is COMPLETELY FALSE! In other words, for the guys reading this, if a girl says she knows of a cute girlfriend that she wants to hook you up with – be careful! Interestingly, women are generally more confident in their ability to rate other women, whereas men were very clear to point out their inability to rate other men, which was true.

Our experiment also included a “delta” scale, which accounted for changes in attractiveness from initial contact to now (which is not “now”, but “back then”, obviously). Our results showed that everyone had a significant attractiveness change over time (both in being rated and in rating others) – probably due to personalities (i.e. learning to like or less-like a person due to their personality).

Furthermore, most people naturally apply a normalization or “bell curve” when they rate others, which means that people consider most of humanity to fit within the “mid-range” or average section of the scale (between 7 – 10). But strangely the actual average came to “above average” (~8.9), which meant that either; our sample participants were above average looking, or they felt generous (i.e. felt bad for giving lower ratings), or were semi-desperate. This led to a non-standard – askew – bell curve, which varied for each person and we found that most people who were rated outside of the “mid-range” level had a more narrow rating bell curve plot (so they were usually more picky if they weren’t rated as average). The narrow bell curve also occurred more often in people who had a larger delta average (i.e. They were more picky if they showed significant change in rating attractiveness of others - i.e. attractiveness based on personality).

Lastly, and most interestingly, the experiment revealed that people are usually attracted to others who are at the same attractiveness level as themselves; but oddly they’re attractiveness ratings match the general averages for everyone else. In other words, if two people of the opposite sex are both given an average of five, they generally rate each other very high (i.e. 11-13); but when they rate people who do not average five, they often give a similar rating that everyone else gives. To be practical, this means, if you find someone to be attractive, and that person is in the same attractivity range that you're in, he/she should also be initially attracted to you; but unfortunately, that person could also just be significantly more attractive than you, and you’re probably just fooling yourself.