Explicit and implicit confrontation with beautified face images and its impact on appearance and mood

The article describes consequences of explicit and implicit confrontation with beautified face images. Volunteers, who underwent two experiments, evaluated pictures of their faces that were beautified in Photoshop. In Experiment 1 (N = 108), it was shown that the participants after explicit confrontation with beautified images of their faces tended to rate their actual appearance less favorably than before the experience. Moreover, Experiment 1 showed that women after explicit confrontation had a worse mood in comparison to neutral conditions, however, in men the opposite effect occurred. The aim of Experiment 2 (N = 110) was to find an answer to a question whether the effects caused in Experiment 1 occurred due to awareness of the changes, or a real difference in appearance. The study indicates that the decrease in self-evaluation of appearance after confrontation with beautified picture of face was caused by genuine difference in appearance, however, deterioration in mood was caused by objective self-awareness of aforementioned difference. peerReviewed publishedVersion