How you see yourself

What It Covers

TED Radio Hour explores self-perception through three lenses: portrait photographer David Suh's techniques for authentic posing, psychologist Dolly Chugh's research on moral identity and bounded ethicality, and journalist Elise Hu's investigation of South Korea's beauty industry influence.

Key Questions Answered

• •Posing methodology: Photographer David Suh guides clients through yoga-like breathing exercises, mirrors their movements physically and emotionally, and even wears similar clothing like dresses to understand physical constraints before suggesting poses that feel authentic rather than scripted.
• •Bounded ethicality framework: Psychologist Dolly Chugh demonstrates humans operate on a sliding ethical scale throughout each day rather than being fixed as good or bad people. Adopting a growth mindset toward morality allows learning from mistakes instead of defensively protecting self-image.
• •Korean beauty economics: South Korea exports more cosmetics than smartphones, with nearly half of Korean women undergoing cosmetic surgery by their twenties. Headshots appear on resumes, and appearance directly impacts professional advancement, showing concentrated effects of pretty privilege that spread globally through social media.
• •AI beauty standards: Eighty percent of thirteen-year-old American girls already use AI-generated filters to alter their appearance online. These filters create increasingly inhuman beauty standards with hyper-realistic features like arched eyebrows and plump lips, widening the gap between digital and real-world appearance.