Pratfall effect: how do mistakes influence attractiveness?

Our attractiveness can be influenced in a strange way when we make mistakes in front of others.

When we make a major mistake, the perception of us by people who have witnessed it changes. However, it is not that we become less attractive on a personal level if we mess up, but the mechanism by which our degree of likability and respectability changes is somewhat less intuitive than this.

In this article we will describe the variables involved in the Pratfall effect, the phenomenon whereby attractive people who make a mistake tend to be liked more than before by others, whereas with unattractive people are even less attractive when they make a serious mistake.. Let's see exactly what this psychological effect consists of.

What is the Pratfall effect?

The American psychologist Elliot Aronson, known for his research on the theory of cognitive dissonance, described in 1966 the Pratfall effect, a psychological phenomenon that consists in an increase or decrease in an individual's interpersonal attractiveness after he or she makes a mistake..

The direction of the effect depends on the degree of competence that other people previously attributed to the person who made a mistake. Thus, those who were perceived as very competent on a general level will tend to be more liked by others after making a mistake, whereas if the level of competence is average the attractiveness will be reduced.

In the context of the Pratfall effect the concept "attractiveness" is understood as a combination of pleasantness and respectability.. Thus, a person can be attractive to others by being unusually cordial, but also by occupying a position with a high level of prestige or by being very intelligent.

The word "pratfall" is an English term that can be loosely translated as "mistake" although, in fact, the meaning is closer to the colloquial expression "falling on one's ass": it refers to a failure of a certain severity that tends to be embarrassing for the person who commits it.

The Pratfall effect is influenced by many different variables, among which are the observer's level of self-esteem, his or her gender and the severity of the failure committed. We will explain later how each of these factors contributes to the increase or decrease in interpersonal attractiveness.

Elliot Aronson's study

Aronson himself conducted the experiment from which his hypothesis of the Pratfall effect emerged. In this study, the experimental subjects, all male university students, listened to one of two recorded interviews in which the same actor played two different characters.

One of these men was a very intelligent man, had had a remarkable personal and professional life, and answered most of the interviewer's questions correctly. The other character got most of the answers wrong, was particularly unintelligent and had not achieved much in his life.

At the end of the interviews both men would make humiliating mistakes ("pratfalls"). These had opposite effects depending on the character: while the experimental subjects rated the intelligent man more positively after the mistake, their opinion of the second man worsened even more.

Subsequently, research similar to Aronson's has been carried out. Although the results have been replicated in a general way, it has also been possible to clearly determine some important nuances involved in this phenomenon.

Findings

Aronson's research and later research along the same lines have found some striking peculiarities regarding the Pratfall effect. These have to do mainly with variables of a psychosocial nature. It should be borne in mind, on the other hand, that this phenomenon is framed within the field of social psychology.

One of the most characteristic aspects of the Pratfall effect is that it is not clear that it occurs in women to the same degree as in men.. These findings are associated with some relatively old research, so the influence of gender role may be less today in many places.

These studies suggested the personal attractiveness of someone who makes a serious mistake would tend to decrease for women regardless of whether or not they perceive her as an intelligent and/or likable person.

The magnitude of the failure is also very important. Attractive people who make minor mistakes become slightly less attractive, while if the mistake is serious they will be liked more by others but will also lose a very small part of their respectability. On the other hand, those who are unattractive will be even less attractive after making a mistake, no matter how serious it is.

Another relevant variable is the self-esteem of the person who observes the error: if it is high, he or she will prefer a competent person who does not make a mistake to one who does. In this sense, the social comparison effect is very significant; according to some hypotheses, the Pratfall effect is due to the ability to empathize with the person who makes a mistake. is due to the ability to empathize with the person who makes a mistake..