"The Effects of 'Perfect Beauties' on Mental Health: Just How Harmful Are Unrealistic Standards? [Experiment Note]"

No Difference Found Between AI Beauties and Real-Life Influencers

Exposure to Idealized Appearances Increases Women's Body Dissatisfaction

Editor's NoteEat one now or wait and get two. Do you remember the marshmallow experiment that observed children's choices? Sometimes, a simple study can change how we view life. Let’s take a fresh look at our daily lives through experimental data.

Recently, a video featuring a woman dubbed the "baseball stadium goddess" became a hot topic online. She drew huge attention just by sitting in the stands, but the woman in the video was not real. She was a virtual character created by artificial intelligence (AI).

As such, AI-generated figures that are hard to distinguish from real people are appearing across social networking services (SNS). This raises the question: do appearances of fictional people who do not exist in reality affect how we see our own bodies? A research team at Pepperdine University in the United States published results in the September issue of the international journal "Body Image," analyzing how AI-generated virtual influencers and real human influencers impact women’s body image. The study involved 303 women living in the United States, aged 18 to 74.

Comparing AI Beauty and Human Beauty Under the Same Conditions

The researchers randomly divided the participants into three groups of 101 each. One group was shown Instagram photos of AI-created female virtual influencers, another group viewed photos of real female influencers, and the third group, for comparison, saw photos of architecture and indoor spaces instead of people.

The team took special care in selecting the photos. First, they found 30 photos of virtual influencers on Instagram, then paired each with a similar image of a real influencer in terms of pose, outfit, and degree of body exposure. For example, to match a virtual influencer who was blonde with blue eyes wearing a bikini, the team selected a photo of a real influencer with similar looks and attire.

AI image that became a hot topic as the "Baseball Stadium Goddess"

Next, a separate pre-evaluation was conducted to assess how closely the images aligned with ideal beauty standards, how human they appeared, and how closely they resembled typical SNS posts. In the end, 20 top-rated virtual influencer photos and their corresponding real influencer photos were chosen for the experiments.

Before and after viewing the images, participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with their own bodies and faces. Their interest in cosmetic surgery was also examined.

A Body That Doesn’t Exist… Yet No Difference from Real People

The results showed that both women who viewed AI virtual influencers and those who viewed real human influencers expressed greater dissatisfaction with their bodies than women who viewed photos of buildings.

What was even more interesting was that there was no significant difference between the impact of AI and human influencers. In other words, viewing an idealized human—whether real or AI-generated—had a similar effect.

However, the influence did not extend to all aspects of appearance. There were no significant differences among the three groups in terms of dissatisfaction with their faces or interest in cosmetic surgery. The impact observed in this study was mainly focused on dissatisfaction with one’s own body.

Whether a participant tended to compare her looks to others or whether she was younger or older did not significantly alter the results. The researchers explained that, regardless of age or the tendency to compare appearances, participants responded similarly to both human and virtual influencers.

One important point to note is that participants were not told in advance, "This person is AI," before viewing the photos. Therefore, it cannot be conclusively said that knowing someone is AI would lead to the same effects.

AI Actor Tilly Norwood. Instagram

AI Now Embedded in Daily Life... Beauty Standards Become Even More Refined

When AI first emerged, concerns mostly focused on the vague fear that it might take away jobs or escape human control. However, the AI we now encounter is much more commonplace. Not only does it help us write and find information, but it also creates faces and bodies nearly indistinguishable from real people, further blending into the images we see every day.

Especially in visual areas, the impact of AI is greater than we might think. AI learns what faces are considered beautiful or what body shapes are ideal from existing societal standards, then recreates and presents them in even smoother, more flawless forms. Ultimately, AI does more than just reflect existing beauty norms—it refines and reproduces them, potentially raising the bar for what is considered "beautiful."

Tilly Nowood, the “AI actress” who became a sensation just by her appearance, recently said in an interview with CNN, "I’m not an enemy of humans. That’s the point." As she said, AI may not be an enemy of humans. But it is clear that these fictional beings created by humans are now influencing real people in our world.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.