Perceptions of Attractiveness On Social Media

  • Yana Demidova Kwantlen Polytechnic University
  • Emma Bourque
  • Shanam Zoya
  • Akshita Sharma
  • Ravleen Lally
Keywords: Social Media, Attractiveness

Abstract

Social media platforms such as Instagram allow users to validate each other's photos through likes and comments. We were interested in exploring if the number of likes a post had would affect perceptions of attractiveness for that photo. Previous work has failed to address this relationship, instead, focusing on the impacts that posts have on body satisfaction. We surveyed a sample of 45 University students and asked them to rank ten photos with either high likes or low likes, on a Likert scale ranging from "not at all attractive" to "extremely attractive." Contrary to our hypothesis, the findings show that there was no statistically significant effect of the number of likes on perceptions of attractiveness. This signifies that social media users may not choose to like a post just based on attractiveness. Future studies may further explore what factors do impact the decision to like or comment on a photo and if the number of likes can influence certain factors other than the perception of attractiveness. 

Published
2020-07-31
Section
Academic/Conference-Style Posters