Obviously, everyone at the start of the game will flock to the people with 10s on their head, and they will be able to work out pretty quickly that they're the 10s.
Conversely, if people are always running from you, chances are you are a 1 or 2.
For the people in between, it's hard to judge what number you are exactly, as will get mixed responses from people who aren't sure what their number is either.
What the experiment is trying to illustrate is how various people are attracted to each other (Wikipedia article here). It's not just to do with physical attractiveness (although in this experiment, it kinda makes you think so), as someone who is a "10" in appearance may have a rotten personality, and only end up a "5" overall. Adding to the complexity is that different people find different things attractive - so you may be a "7" to one person, but a "3" to another.
I think people start to guess what number they are from when they're children. Especially because a lot of children don't yet understand social niceties, and so they are a lot more brutal about who they do and don't want to spend time with. I remember in primary school, each class would have to line up in the yard in two columns before we could go back to class. For some reason, nobody liked Jessica, and so one day, we were lining up in our columns, but nobody wanted to stand next to her. So whoever was next to her would run to the back of the line to avoid her, causing someone else to have to stand next to her. Thinking about it now, we must have looked pretty funny to everyone else, as we were running around in circles. I remember doing at least 3 laps of the line before deciding it was silly and standing next to Jessica (or it might have been because I was hopelessly unfit). Our entire class got told off in front of the whole school, which my brother and cousin also attended, so that was really embarrassing. I wonder if the experience scarred her, and she still thinks she's horrendous to this day.
I've been thinking about the concept of early-life versus late-life attractiveness. If you think back to high school, who were the most attractive people? Looking at the movie Mean Girls, you have the Plastics, who are the most physically attractive (and in some cases, rich) girls in the school. You have the jocks, though I don't think is a thing here, at least it wasn't at my non-sports focused public school - I took home a heap of swimming awards, but that didn't help me at all! None of the other cliques in the movie were portrayed as particularly attractive.
If you think about it, when you're a teen, the most successful people you'll be exposed to are music/movie stars and sports stars. So it makes sense for physical attractiveness and sports ability to be features that you look for in a partner. As you get older, reality hits, and those stars are suddenly so far away. Your idea of success becomes being able to make it to the end of the month without worrying about how you're going to pay the rent. You meet entrepreneurs, managers, stock brokers. Someone with a stable job suddenly becomes incredibly attractive.
Sometimes people luck out, and early in life, they are blessed with a pretty face, and the aptitude for a well-paying job later in life. Sometimes people get no hand-outs, and have a horrible experience as a teen, and end up being a bum later in life. I like to think that most people will end up with either stronger early-life traits and weak late-life traits, or vice versa. Having only early-life traits doesn't mean you're doomed to living off Centrelink for the rest of your life. Attractive people will still find people who will be interested in them. I just think it means you'll need something more than just your looks to get by. Some of the things that you could get away with as a teen won't work on people later in life.
So if you think you may be a 1 or a 2, not all hope is lost. Perhaps you will find that you are more attractive later in life.
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