Cheerleader effect

The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than when seen individually, an effect attributed to how the visual system averages faces.

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Ensemble perception: The visual system's ability to extract summary statistics from groups of objects or faces. It describes the broader perceptual process proposed to make group members seem more attractive.
Drew Walker: A psychologist who coauthored the 2010 study introducing the cheerleader effect. Walker helped establish the effect through experiments on group and individual face judgments.
Walker and Vul 2014 replication: A follow-up study testing whether group context increases perceived facial attractiveness. It found the effect across different group sizes and image arrangements.
Mere-exposure effect: The tendency for repeated exposure to a stimulus to increase preference for it. Repeated viewing can raise liking, whereas the cheerleader effect depends on seeing faces together.
Face perception: The cognitive processes involved in detecting, interpreting, and recognizing faces. The effect arises when faces are perceived among other faces rather than in isolation.
Edward Vul: A cognitive scientist who coauthored the 2010 study introducing the cheerleader effect. Vul and Walker gave the phenomenon its prominent experimental account.
Group size effect: A change in a measured response associated with the number of items in a group. Studies tested whether faces seem more attractive in groups of different sizes.
Contrast effect: A change in judgment caused by comparison with a preceding or surrounding stimulus. It shifts judgments through comparison, while the cheerleader effect is linked to ensemble perception.
Visual attention: The selective allocation of processing resources to locations or features in the visual field. Attention may spread across a group, reducing scrutiny of each person's individual features.
Social Psychological and Personality Science: A peer-reviewed journal publishing research in social and personality psychology. The original cheerleader-effect study appeared in this journal in 2010.