The bargaining chips of beauty go far beyond attracting the attentions of the opposite sex, there is a much deeper psychological and lifestyle benefit attached to it.
Helen of Troy was said to be the face that launched a thousand ships in mythic Greece, just as Charlize Theron‘s face today launched thousands of moviegoers into cinema seats. There is no denying that beauty has an intoxicating power over those who behold it, but what are the benefits for those who possess it?
Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle pondered, ‘Beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction,’ a message that still resonates in today’s society. Research shows that attractive people are often perceived and treated more positively than their less attractive counterparts, and it goes deeper than the belief that first impressions count. The psychology behind attractiveness is complex and, like beauty itself, is ageless.
The halo effect
The power of a pretty face has been recognised and studied for decades. Social psychologists have identified something called the ‘what is beautiful is good’ stereotype. When someone is attractive, we assign many other positive attributes to him or her that have nothing to do with looks. Attractive people are typically judged as more intelligent, competent, sociable, popular and sensitive than less attractive people.
This is described as the halo effect, which many theorists argue is based on cultural myths and media portrayals that say attractive people must be good and ugly people must be inherently bad. From a young age, we are taught this. Good witches are pretty, bad witches are ugly. The princess is always beautiful and the wicked stepmother is always ugly.
In a classic study, researchers had men talk with a woman via intercom for ten minutes, and after the conversation the men were asked to rate the woman’s personality. Half the men were shown a picture of an attractive woman and told that was the woman they were talking to. The other half was shown a picture of an unattractive woman. In reality, it was the same woman talking to each of the men. The men who thought they were talking to the attractive woman rated her as more friendly, sociable and likeable than those talking to the unattractive woman. They perceived her as having a much better personality because she was beautiful.
The halo effect is a powerful concept. Consider the press coverage of United States president John F Kennedy or the public admiration for Diana, Princess of Wales. They may have been valued for many reasons, but perhaps a large part of their popularity was due to the way they looked.
Attractive people are often used to sell products – there is an assumption that beautiful people are more co-operative, helpful and trustworthy. An attractive face is not placed on an advertisement by chance.
Positive expectations for attractive people can serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Physically attractive people are seen to have attractive personality traits. This shapes the reactions and behaviours of other people towards them, which may elicit these qualities.
This is not exclusive to adults. Various studies have shown that teachers expect physically attractive students, in comparison to unattractive students, to be more academically successful and socially responsive.
Beauty and self-confidence
People are often most confident when they look their best, and being attractive seems to be strongly associated with self-confidence. Economists Markus Mobius and Tanya Rosenblat recently reported on an experiment that illustrates with beauty comes confidence. The economists found that beautiful people were a lot more confident in their own abilities, despite having the same productivity as the less attractive subjects. Results also showed higher productivity estimates for beautiful people, which suggest that people associate beauty with confidence.
In this way, cosmetic surgery today is not just about looking young, but can be a valuable method for maintaining confidence and self-esteem.
A study at Queensland’s Griffith University examined the emotional impact of cosmetic surgery on patients and their families. It found the emotional experience of cosmetic surgery was largely a beneficial one, after which many patients indicated they would undergo the same procedure again if necessary. They enjoyed significant positive psychological outcomes and growth of self-esteem and confidence.
Defining beauty
Philosophers, scientists and ordinary people have long puzzled over what makes a face attractive, questioning whether there are objective standards of beauty or if beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Plato wrote of the ‘golden proportions’ in which the width of an ideal face would be two-thirds its length, while a nose would be no longer than the distance between the eyes. Although beauty is not an exact science, some plastic surgeons believe there is a specific set of proportions that the ideal face tends to adhere to, which includes facial height, width and symmetry.
The modern philosophy of health and beauty sets out a wholeness of the body, mind and soul. In his 2004 Secret Power of Beauty, John Armstrong argues that beauty cannot be explained by a single principle. He states that components of attractiveness may include averageness, symmetry, sexual dimorphism (the difference in form of the sexes), a pleasant expression, good grooming, youthfulness and, for known faces, can reflect non-physical characteristics such as how much one likes the person.
Although there may be different kinds of attractiveness, most studies have simply asked people to judge attractiveness, which assumes some common aesthetic judgment for faces of both sexes. Agreement about which faces are attractive not only occurs between men and women, but also between people from different cultures. Today, certain facial characteristics are being accepted as a common indication of beauty across different cultures and continents – a result of the internationalisation of media images.
The beauty premium
When it comes to job interviews, looking well presented is the golden rule. Studies have found attractive people are more likely to be hired for a job. Many companies are now more interested in a recruit’s looks, speech, dress sense and personal hygiene than in how well they did at school or university.
Economists have long recognised the correlation between physical beauty and wages. A study by US economists Daniel Hamermesh and Jeff Biddle used survey data to examine the impact that appearance has on a person’s earnings. They found that the ‘plainness penalty’ is 9 percent and that the ‘beauty premium’ is 5 percent after controlling for other variables such as education and experience. In other words, a person with below average looks tended to earn 9 percent less per hour, and an above average person tended to earn 5 percent more than an average looking person.
In their examination of the wages of lawyers, Hamermesh and Biddle found that good-looking lawyers, like other professionals, make more money than their colleagues with lesser looks. Results also showed that lawyers in private practice tended to be better looking than those who worked in government jobs.
Occupations that require more interpersonal contact have higher percentages of above average looking employees. However, the beauty premium exists across all occupations.
The beauty premium applies to a variety of other settings, not just the workplace. Hamermesh and Biddle’s study revealed that women were affected by their attractiveness in the marital stakes. While a woman’s looks were unrelated to the likelihood of getting married, they did seem to influence the kind of man she married.
Women of below average attractiveness were inclined to be married to men whose level of education was one year less than her own attainment. This is a double penalty for unattractive women, as not only are they likely to be earning less than their beautiful counterparts, they are married to a man who, due to his educational standard, also has a lower earning potential.
The psychology of beauty is complex, not just because the concept of beauty is undefined but also because beauty can be a product of culture and society. However, the correlation between physical attractiveness and success is undeniable, as well as the fact that the way one carries themselves will have an immediate effect on how society perceives them.
The evolution of beauty
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but evidence increasingly suggests that our brains are hard-wired to respond positively to a thing of beauty. In addition to cultural or personal experiences, it seems our perceptions of beauty are also a product of evolution.
‘Beauty is a universal part of human experience. It provokes pleasure, rivets attention, and impels actions that help ensure survival of our genes,’ says Nancy Etcoff, author of Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty and Harvard Medical School psychologist. But, she says, appreciating beauty is not learned; it is a biological adaptation.
Recent research conducted at Exeter University in the United Kingdom supports this view. The study found that newborn babies show a marked preference for people with features that are conventionally judged as attractive by adults. It has been suggested that this in-built beauty template helps them to make sense of their new environment and an attractive face may be a signal of good genes and good health.
In the study almost 100 newborns were shown two images side-by-side, one showing an attractive face and the other a less attractive one. About 80 percent of the time the babies looked exclusively at the ‘prettier’ face and this was repeated with male faces as well as faces of various ethnicities.
‘Attractiveness is not simply in the eye of the beholder; it is in the brains of newborn infants, right from the moment of birth and possibly prior to birth,’ says Dr Alan Slater, a developmental psychologist who led the study. ‘This view contradicts views arguing that the newborn infant enters the world as a tabula rasa – a blank slate on which experience will write.’
This predisposed bias to beauty was debated long ago by British naturalist Charles Darwin. Beauty and its symbolism of health, youth and fertility played a considerable role in his theory of evolution, instinctively orientating males and females in mate selection. Clear skin, lustrous hair, facial symmetry and full lips were all indications of a healthy and therefore fertile woman to our evolutionary ancestors.
‘These in-built preferences seem to be aimed at ensuring males find suitably fertile females who are healthy enough to reproduce and in turn produce healthy children,’ says evolutionary anthropologist Sean McBride. ‘Facial neotony, or the continuation of juvenile traits into adulthood, is appealing to males because it signifies youth. We subconsciously associate large eyes, a small nose and chin, and full red lips with fertility.’
Eye of the beholder
Throughout history and across cultures, women have transformed their appearances to conform to a beauty ideal. Whether it be foot binding for femininity, corsets for cinched waists, stretched necks and ear lobes that we deem attractive, we’re encouraged to go to great lengths to achieve it.
Today Western standards of beauty emphasise a toned, slender look, exuding fitness, youth and health. However, there do appear to be some universals in beauty. Recent research suggests the ideals of human attractiveness may already come ‘hard-wired’ into the human brain, that, in fact, we have a built-in ‘template’ of beauty by which we judge the attractiveness of others.
However, you are not the best judge of your own beauty. In fact, contrary to popular opinion, you and your friends are more likely to over-rate your looks than under-rate them. The best judges of beauty are complete strangers who make a purely physical appraisal. Males and females are consistent in their judgments, with research reporting no significant differences between the physical attractiveness ratings given. We all seem to know what is beautiful and how far an individual deviates from that ideal.
The importance of beauty
Some people believe physical attractiveness has no effect on them. They state that physical attractiveness is superficial and peripheral, and that it should not and does not influence their lives. But research provides evidence at odds with this. Studies have shown that people are either not fully aware, or not fully honest, about how important physical attractiveness really is to them.
Beautiful women realise there are some definite advantages to their beauty, but they don’t seem to realise how different their lives actually are on a day-to-day basis. An analogy I like to use is that we are surrounded by air; it affects us all but because it has always been there, we simply take it for granted. We only notice it when we are deprived of it. The same goes for beautiful people and their beauty. They take it for granted because their lives have always been that way.
I hope the following examples of the power of beauty will also be a bit of an eye-opener for you:
- Physically attractive women are more likely to marry. College students were rated for beauty and then followed up several years after graduation: 34 percent of the beautiful had married, 28 percent of the good looking, 16 percent of the plain and 11 percent of the homely.
- Attractive women are more likely to marry successful men.
- Adults often treat attractive children differently (usually better) than unattractive ones.
- More physically attractive people are perceived to have more positive characteristics, as well as happier and more fulfilling lives.
- Physically attractive people are perceived to be more intelligent, sensitive, kind, interesting, sociable and more likely to attend college than their less attractive counterparts.
- The less physically attractive a person is, the less the person is liked.
- Experimental research shows that physically attractive people receive a significantly greater frequency of positive looks and smiles than do those less attractive.
- The likelihood of a peer being perceived as mentally disturbed or mentally ill increases as the person’s physical attractiveness decreases.
- Identical resumes were sent to the personnel offices of major corporations and employment agencies. The applicant’s photos were made more or less attractive by a makeup artist. Prospective employers who received the resume with the highly attractive photo offered starting salaries of 8 to 20 percent more than those offered to the applicants of less attractive.
- More physically attractive people date more, have more friends and have happier marriages. They experience less social anxiety, possess and exhibit greater individuality and are better adjusted socially.
- Both males and females expect better looking people to do better work than those less attractive. Furthermore, once completed, this work is rated higher than identical work done by a less attractive person.
- When in need of help, highly attractive people receive more of it than less attractive people.
- Both for legal crimes and social offences, the physically attractive are treated more leniently, given milder punishment and in civil cases receive more favourable outcomes and larger amounts of money. However, the physically attractive are punished more severely for crimes of embezzlement and swindling.
