one-way glass between them. Men had to look at each woman and describe their appearance to the artist by phone. The artist had to paint portraits for each description. Thus, two portraits were created for each woman, the first based on their own words, and the second based on the men’s
description.
The resulting portraits were immensely different, disclosing that a woman’s perception about them-self was radically different from a man’s perception. Moreover, none of these women recognized the portrait of them-self that was created by the men’s description, however they immediately recognized the portraits based of their own words. Each woman categorically denied that the portrait created by the men’s description was in fact them, believing only that the
men were just making pleasant compliments. This is an example of low self-esteem whereby
women have a lower perception of themselves than what actually exists. You may also think that
the men were just trying to be polite, however conditions were tight — the men and women had
no connection to each other. Now, imagine that portraits based on the men’s description were
worse than the women’s perception about themselves. Do you think they would have accepted the fact that they have an inflated