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Group Attractiveness Effect

Cheerleader Effect

The cognitive bias which causes people to think individuals are more attractive when they are in a group.

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Origin

A character in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother coined the term in a 2008 episode, but the effect received scientific validation in 2013 when Drew Walker and Edward Vul published five experiments in Psychological Science, conducted at the University of California, San Diego. They showed that faces rated in group photographs consistently scored higher in attractiveness than when viewed alone.

Updated February 22, 2026