--- title: How The Company You Keep Can Affect Your Attractiveness description: Your level of attractiveness varies depending on who you're with and how good-looking they are in comparison to you, a new study shows canonical: https://time.com/4512976/attractiveness-varies-depending-on-who-youre-with-says-new-study/ author: Kate Samuelson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-29T15:53:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-07T06:48:48.884Z article:section: Health og:title: Your Attractiveness Depends on Who Else Is Around: Study og:description: Your level of attractiveness varies depending on who you're with og:url: https://time.com/4512976/attractiveness-varies-depending-on-who-youre-with-says-new-study/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0acdb5e5f3af40a8/6988aa5ca988ca73696b9c85/women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: women og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Your Attractiveness Depends on Who Else Is Around: Study twitter:description: Your level of attractiveness varies depending on who you're with twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0acdb5e5f3af40a8/6988aa5ca988ca73696b9c85/women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Your Attractiveness Depends on Who Else Is Around: Study > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=b598510d-d95f-4eb6-8ad1-68505e2f54bc&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Looking Good & Feeling Good on the Cheap [Watch (HLS stream): Looking Good & Feeling Good on the Cheap](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BRSYPB5z.m3u8) (1:13)  _Published 2016-04-06. You don't have to compromise for the things that make you feel good._ by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Sep 29, 2016 3:53 PM UTC by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Sep 29, 2016 3:53 PM UTC Your level of [attractiveness](http://time.com/3841230/4-secrets-that-make-you-more-attractive-in-photographs/) varies depending on who you’re with and how [good-looking](http://time.com/4057616/yes-you-really-do-have-a-type-science-says/) they are in comparison to you, a small [new study](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/08/26/0956797616661523.abstract) shows. You may think a person’s attractiveness is fixed, but research suggests that context is key when assessing how good-looking someone is. In a cruel, if unsurprising, twist, a person will rank higher on a scale of attractiveness when compared alongside less attractive people than they would when judged alone. For the study, which was led by psychologists from Royal Holloway, University of London, and published in the journal [_Psychological Science_](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/08/26/0956797616661523.abstract), 40 participants were asked to rate pictures of different faces for their attractiveness. They were then asked to assess the same faces when they were placed alongside others. When adding these “distractor faces,” the level of attractiveness of the original faces increased from the first round of ranking. “Until now, it’s been understood that a person’s level of attractiveness is generally steady,” Dr. Nicholas Furl, the study’s author, said in a statement about the study. “If you saw a picture of George Clooney today, you would rate him as good-looking as you would tomorrow. However, this work demonstrates that the company we keep has an effect on how attractive we appear to others.” Furl thinks the information acquired in this study could be useful to those working in advertising, website design and consumer behavior. “People may even socially evaluate a person differently depending on who is standing nearby,” he concluded. ## Transcript [ SOUND ] Young people, of course they wanna save money, but they also wanna look good. They're out socializing, they wanna feel confident. What are some ways they can balance those two needs? Well, there's a lot you can do without spending a lot of money. If you wanna look good and feel good health wise, instead of getting a pricy gym membership that's $ 30, $ 40, $ 50, $ 60 whatever Go on YouTube, look at some workout videos, they got yoga, they've weight lifting, they got a whole bunch of things. If you wanna look nice in terms of your nails or your eyebrows, there's a lot you can do on your own, you don't have to go to a salon. And if you do wanna go to a salon, go to a student salon, I get my haircut for free at student's salon. And I think it looks pretty good. That's great and then with that money you save, like how can you You'll end up spending it on lattes or something. Right? What do you do with that money? So to make sure that money saved doesn't get splurged elsewhere like you're saying it's really valuable to put the money saved into a savings account specifically for all those little things that you did trade- offs for. You can watch it grow. Exactly. Tangibly seeing your savings, and it motivates you to save even more. That's great. Yeah. 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