Why You Hate Every Photo You Take of Yourself And What You Can Do About It

If you hate every photo of yourself, don’t fret. What you are experiencing is a natural phenomenon that scientists have dubbed the “mere-exposure” effect. From the professional family photos taken at Macy’s or the ones you may recently got printed from CVS Photo, the “mere-exposure” is quite common.

Formulated by psychologist Rober Zajonc in 1968, his hypothesis about the the phenomenon says that the more exposure we have to a certain stimulus, the more we will tend to like it. In other words, things tend to grow on us. Over time and after repeated exposure, we acquire tastes for certain things eventually.

Zajonc’s “mere-exposure” effect hypothesis was tested back in 1977 by psychologists Theodore H. Mita, Marshall Dermer and Jeffrey Knight. In their paper titled “Reversed Facial Images and the Mere-Exposure Hypothesis,” they concluded that “individuals will prefer a facial photograph that corresponds to their mirror image rather than to their true image.”

So what does this “mere-exposure” effect have to do with the fact that you aren’t comfortable with the “you” in the photographs? Well that “you” in the photograph is a reverse image of the “you” that you see in the mirror everyday.

Because of the “mere exposure” effect, you would normally tend to best associate the image of the “real you” with the “mirror you.”

But since people are rarely perfectly symmetrical, you would tend to find something not exactly right with the “photograph you.” You would find yourself uneasy to the point of actually hating the “photograph you” since it doesn’t exactly match the “mirror you,” which in your mind is the “real you” as a result of the “mere-exposure” effect.

When you look at the “photograph you,” you see a slightly-off version of who you think you are.

But of course, to other people’s eyes, the “photograph you” looks more like the “real you” than the “mirror you.” So what can you do to get over this hang up you have over your photographs of yourself?

While not directly addressing the “mere-exposure” effect on your psyche, writer Jenn Hand in a blog entry at the Huffington Post offered three suggestions on how you can overcome your hatred for the photographs of yourself.

Firstly, she recommends that you “observe the picture from a bigger perspective. Glance at it like you would if you were just browsing, taking mild interest in what was going on in the photo.

Refuse to let yourself ‘go there’ — don’t start honing in on every single, little detail that you think looks awful about yourself.”

Secondly, Ms. Hand recommends that you keep in mind that “no one is even noticing half of the things you notice about yourself in the photo. So the next time you’re anxious about hating what you see, remind yourself that no one else is even seeing half of what you’re seeing about yourself.”

And thirdly, she advised: “Go beyond what you look like and think about the experience you were having. Fill yourself up with the amazing times you were having in the moment that picture was taken.

It will change the way you look at photos.” In other words, don’t be too self-absorbed. There’s nothing really wrong with your picture.