Can a picture with a friend help you get a date? Study finds an answer

Thanks to our growing online social life, we might come across a likeable person without actually meeting him in person. So, under such circumstances when a person wants to get noticed, pictures become the best option to catch someone’s attention in the online world. Now an interesting research conducted by four scientists has found how a picture with a friend can help a person get a date.

How an individual’s choice of a partner is influenced by his social behaviour is explained by the ‘mate choice copying' mechanism. According to experts, mate choice copying occurs when an individual's mating chances “increase or decrease based on the social interaction of the prospective partner with another individual.”

Researchers Anthony C. Little, Christine A. Caldwell, Benedict C. Jones and Lisa M. Debruine carried out a series of studies analyzing the effects of mate choice copying. They specifically explored how a person’s attractiveness to a prospective partner increased or decreased when the person was paired in a picture with different individuals.

To carry out the extensive study, the researchers made the participants analyze the pictures of individuals paired with people of the same and opposite sex. At the end of the study, they came across some interesting findings.

First, the participants were asked to analyze the pictures of the subject with individuals of the opposite sex. Interestingly, people who posed with attractive individuals of the opposite sex were voted to be more attractive. For example, if a man posted a picture with an attractive woman, he was considered to be a desirable person. According to the experts, this is a perfect example of 'mate choice copying' because the person, who was looking at the picture, found the partner attractive based on the individual with whom the prospective partner was with.

The participants were then shown pictures of individuals posing with a person of the same sex. According to the study results published in Psychology Today, “participants found pictures of potential mates less attractive when paired with attractive same-sex friends. Therefore, for both men and women, being associated with better-looking people of the same sex made them look less attractive by comparison.”

But this is not an all-inclusive study that determines the desirability factor of a partner. Because just posing for a picture with a friend cannot be the only reason to judge the attractiveness of a person. Desirability and attractiveness also depend on other factors like personality, compatibility, and others.

(All images used here are representational)