A psychologist went viral after sharing five key signs that could indicate people are more attractive than they think.

The video, posted Tuesday (December 17) by Francesca Tighinean, a US-based Romanian professional, explains how people tend to underestimate their own attractiveness, often having a much less favorable perception of themselves when compared to how others perceive them.

Francesca also explained that people often don’t receive many compliments due to others assuming they are already aware of their attractiveness, leading them to doubt themselves. 

“You rarely get compliments on your looks and that’s because people probably think you are already aware of how attractive you are and therefore they believe they don’t have to remind you,” she said.

A psychologist went viral after revealing five key signs that she believes indicate people are more attractive than they think

Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash

The five signs outlined by the influencer are the following:

First, people raise their eyebrows when they see someone attractive. The psychologist explains how this subtle sign, called the “eyebrow flash,” is often a subconscious action done by people to signal interest and intrigue in someone else.

Second, is the “halo effect,” which causes people to assume positive personality traits with an attractive individual, leading them to go out of their way to be friendly or helpful. “We tend to subconsciously be friendlier and more generous to those we find attractive,” she said.

Image credits: francescapsychology

Third, is the aforementioned lack of compliments, where others assume an attractive person is aware of their beauty, so they don’t feel the need to remind them of it.

Fourth, is strangers staring at someone for an extended period of time. So if a person frequently catches others looking at them for longer than they should, that’s another clue.

Image credits: francescapsychology

Lastly, she pointed out that people will act surprised when an attractive person highlights their insecurities. This, according to Francesca, is a strong sign that they see the person in a much more positive light than they do themselves.

Psychological studies contradict Francesca’s statements, showing that people actually tend to overestimate their looks by about 20% on average

Image credits: francescapsychology

People’s self-perception has been a topic of constant debate in psychology. While some experts like Francesca argue that people underestimate their attractiveness, several studies actually point to the opposite phenomenon being true.

Image credits: francescapsychology

“Many studies suggest that people are objectively accurate in evaluating others but view themselves with an optimism bias,” said Daniel Yarosh, a molecular biologist specialized in beauty research.

“The best way to convince others of a lie is to believe it yourself, and natural selection is strong enough to build a genetically controlled self-deception mechanism,” he argued.

Image credits: francescapsychology

A study conducted in 2008 by the University of Chicago handed a group of volunteers pictures of themselves that were morphed to make them progressively more—or less—attractive.

When asked to pick the ones that they believed were unaltered, people on average choose photos that were 20% more attractive than they really were.

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The experiment also revealed that people not only expressed a preference toward the altered images but were more inclined to dismiss their real portrait altogether.

“They were also quicker to recognize the more attractive photo than their actual photo,“ the paper stated.

Francesca’s followers were as divided as the psychology community on the issue, with one side thanking her for the ego boost, and the other doubting her five signs

Image credits: Kateryna Hliznitsova / Unsplash

While her video garnered plenty of attention after it was uploaded on both her Instagram and TikTok accounts, not all of it was positive, as many viewers believed she was trying to feed into their delusions and others took the signs as confirmation of them being unattractive.

“Stop trying to gaslight people into thinking they’re attractive when they’re clearly not and they know it!” one user said.

“Nobody compliments me on my looks so I’m a stunner!” another joked.

Conversely, another viewer stated the opposite: “I get compliments all day, I guess I am ugly!”

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“Other than never receiving compliments nothing else about this list matches,” a viewer pointed out.

“Stop! You’re making me more delusional than I already am.”

“I’m still ugly.” The video seemed to have the opposite effect among netizens who felt less attractive after learning of Francesca’s five signs

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