On Facebook it’s interesting how often pretty women or girls celebrating a birthday, socializing, partying, girls night out etc. will throw up group shots of themselves surrounded by a gaggle of their closest friends who are invariably other pretty females. There are rarely plain, overweight or other non-pretty hangers on in these pretty girl groups. Men’s groups appear to be a bit less selective on physical attractiveness and will often have a more homogenous mix of attractive and plain/chunky individuals.
What’s going on here? Why do pretty females seem to congregate and self select so strongly into these pretty girl cohorts?
Assuming it’s true, you may be considering this from the wrong viewpoint.
Consider a women whose attractiveness is an 8. Why would she want to hang out with a group of 10’s where she’s the least attractive woman in the group? She’d probably prefer to hang out with a group of 6’s and be the most attractive woman in the group.
I don’t know about photos, but in general, attractive women prefer to hang out with unattractive women. And the reverse is true as well: unattractive women prefer to hang out with attractive women.
Think about it: An attractive woman going out on the town doesn’t want to pal around with another attractive woman. She’ll just be competing with her companion for the attention of the men. So she’d rather hang out with a relatively unattractive woman, thereby allowing herself first choice of the men that come their way.
Likewise, an unattractive woman isn’t likely to hang out with other unattractive women. They’d never get the attention of ANY men. She’d rather hang out with an attractive friend, and have her choice pickings of the men that her attractive friend passes on.
So, two attractive women would be competing for men, which they don’t want. Two unattractive women would be totally ignored, which they don’t want. But a cutie and an ugly hanging out is totally symbiotic: the cutie gets first choice of the men, and the bowser gets second crack at the men who don’t cut it with the pretty one. Win-win!
When out celebrating, they are probably more likely to be dressed up and made up to be more attractive, and not plain. A lot of those photographs probably don’t show the whole body so someone really overweight might not be really obvious. I bet there are plenty of chubby girls in a lot of those photos, but you don’t notice them.
I think the funniest part is that not only are women picking friends by appearance, they’re primarily motivated by attracting men. This makes extra-sense when you stop and remember how gorgeous women have traditionally had so much difficulty attracting any attention from men.
If prettiness is influenced by genes and assuming the OP’s generalization contains a grain of truth, then this could be the explanation.
Another hypothesis: physical appearance correlates with personality and interests. It makes sense that women who are into make-up, fancy clothes, and hair and nails will be more likely to bond with each other than women who aren’t into these things. Guess which group is more likely to be conventionally pretty?
See also the cheerleader effect. And the fact that photographs usually capture people looking at their best, not their worst.
I’m wondering if we have an observer bias happening as well. he OP may well be noticing more pictures of pretty girls on Facebook and just skimming over the ordinary people.
I wouldn’t know, of course. All my female Facebook friends are either supermodels or NASA researchers, so my feeds are above average in every way.
I have this weird theory that women are actually people, and do people stuff like hanging out with people because they have stuff in common and get on well. Out there, I know, but I’m sticking with it.
Women who are interest in their dress, makeup and hair tend to socialize with other women who also are interested in same. They may or may not be ‘pretty’ but they know how to present themselves and of course they share techniques of improving their appearance with each other. And since they went to all that trouble to look good, they make sure there’s pictures of them posted on line.