The sketch artist could have intentionally drawn the women as slightly disproportionate from reality just to make this piece more polemic. I don't see how that was prevented?
The artist knows perfectly well what the intention is, and which group is which.
ALSO, the results are going to be skewed by standard rules of politeness -- even given a person with a perfectly balanced view of themselves, the way they describe themselves to a stranger surely should avoid being too praising (or they'd seem narcissistic), whereas someone else's description of them would be skewed to the positive side, also out of politeness -- who knows if the person being drawn is going to hear this description later, or is a friend of the artist, etc.?
It would be easy to do this better.
Imagine if this were (seemingly) a study about the value and accuracy of police sketches. Use multiple sketch artists, and let them know their sketches are going to be tested by IDing from a large lineup.
Some sources will be self-describing (i.e., someone very familiar with the face) and others will be someone with only a short encounter with the subject.
This is a plausible (fake) study, and the remaining problems (with the real intent) are much, much fewer.
A counter to your point about politeness skewing the results is that the women who were shown the sketches of themselves afterwards clearly seemed to react in such a way that indicated that they realized they were too harsh on themselves, that they had negative views of their appearance which was unjustified, and that they were relieved/flattered to see how strangers saw them. So, it's not a proof of anything, but I'm just pointing out that womens' description of themselves seemed to be pretty reflective of how they genuinely viewed themselves.
That's why I was so frustrated that they just went with the publicity stunt when this could have been real. it would have been a bit harder to spin into a slick documentary, but it would have been much more valuable.
It's just an interesting visual way to tell a story about body awareness. And of course, the whole point is to reinforce the Dove marketing approach, which is still a lot more healthy and wholesome than the typical cosmetic pitch (i.e. you're not beautiful unless you look like a skinny white photoshopped supermodel)
They make money selling nice versions of very simple gunk. I haven't checked, but I hope they're not doing the science-BS of "skin tightening" or "lip-plumping" that other brands do.
I'm sorry, but that's just uninformed bullshit http://www.adverbox.com/ads/dove/
No, they don't show people with severe skin issues but really, that's a little unreasonable for a company selling skin care products.
" I haven't checked, but ..."
Ahem
The interesting thing about this campaign is that it shows how strangers are far more complimentary about how people look than those people would be about themselves. We know our own perceived flaws far better than anybody else does; in our culture of image obsession, it is far too easy to assume that every person in the world is judging you for every little imperfection on your face and of your body.
There have absolutely been experiments conducted about people's self-perceptions as compared to others' perceptions of them. This is nothing new. But it's far more interesting to look at than your average psychological study, and since it's not saying anything especially groundbreaking – does anybody really think strangers would be more critical of a woman than that woman would be of herself? – "interesting to look at" is what matters.
No, it asserts that. It does not show it. To show it would require a valid methodology.
When I step back from a mirror (or don't wear my contacts), I think I look good. but up close I see patchy hair, blemishes, color variation, etc...
My thought was that we, as individuals, don't really know what we look like. Sure we see ourselves in the mirror but how much detail do we see?
I see my wife all the time and could probably have a pretty accurate sketch drawn of her but if I had one drawn of me it would be pretty far off.