← all facts
perception
You prefer images of yourself when they are reversed.
A 1977 study showed that people prefer their own mirror image, while their friends prefer the standard photographic version.
We see our own faces in the mirror daily, creating a familiarity bias toward that specific orientation. Because faces are not perfectly symmetrical, a standard photograph shows a left-right reversal that feels inherently "wrong" to us. Your friends, who rarely look at you in a mirror, perceive the true, non-reversed orientation as correct.
You are essentially a stranger to your own photograph.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Mita, Dermer, and Knight, 1977, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- What the check found
- The study by Mita, Dermer, and Knight (1977), 'Reversed facial images and the mere-exposure hypothesis', confirms that subjects prefer their own mirror image while friends prefer the standard non-reversed photograph.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.