Key Messages
The Biological Reasons Why We’re Obsessed With Beauty
If you’re curious about why people are so obsessed with beauty, look no further than Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty.
This book dives into the evolution of beauty and why people are biologically programmed to find it attractive.
From babies identifying beautiful faces, to why small children are so cute, the book explores how even the smallest preferences we have for looks can play a factor in lifelong decisions.
Through scientific data and research, the book explains that regardless of how aware we get when it comes to overcoming our biases, they will still subconsciously influence us from an early age.
Apart from discovering what makes someone attractive, you will also learn how beautiful people tend to be more impatient than less beautiful individuals.
With an in-depth explanation on how our natural tendency for beauty has persisted throughout generations, this book is definitely worth exploring if you’re looking for answers about this phenomenon.
Exploring The Complexity Of Beauty: How Biology, Culture And Society Intersect In Our Understanding Of What Is Beautiful
It’s no wonder that science has neglected the study of beauty – it’s been historically overlooked by social scientists and is seen as a shallow topic.
As Gardner Lindzey wrote in his 1954 Handbook of Social Psychology, there is only one entry on “physical factors” when it comes to beauty.
And the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) only emphasizes environmental factors and social conditioning, leaving little room for biological explanations.
This superficial view of beauty is changing, however; modern science has a deeper understanding of beauty than ever before.
For example, we now know that women’s beauty rituals, such as putting blush on their cheeks to imitate a natural blush, are more than just cultural projects – they are also biologically signifying nubility, youth and sexual innocence.
Additionally, advancements in evolutionary psychology have shown us how important physical attributes were for survival tens of thousands of years ago – meaning that beauty might actually be key component to our species’ history.
In summary, while the sciences have historically neglected the study of beauty – a topic with both cultural and biological implications – this is slowly changing as new perspectives emerge which present beauty in a more complex light.
This is why it deserves a closer look: to help give us an answer to one of life’s ultimate questions: what makes us beautiful?
We Know Beauty When We See It: A Psychological Examination Of Our Inborn Ability To Recognize The Beautiful
When it comes to beauty, people have an innate ability to recognize it even if they can’t define it.
As Aaron Spelling once said, “I can’t define it, but I know it when it walks into the room.” Research by psychologist Judith Langlois supports this argument.
Langlois collected a variety of pictures of people’s faces and asked adults to rate them based on attractiveness.
She then showed these same photos to babies aged three to six months old.
The babies spent more time looking at the photos that had also been rated as attractive by the adults – regardless of race or gender.
This indicates that we are born with a natural preference for beauty and our ideas about what is beautiful cannot be determined by the appearance of our parents or those around us.
Our language reinforces this belief; when describing someone who is perceived as attractive, we often use terms such as “knockout,” “drop-dead gorgeous,” “stunner,” etc., all of which evoke a physical reaction from the viewer.
It may be hard to precisely define beauty but its effects speak for themselves – everyone knows beauty when they see it!
The Biological Imperative Of Beauty: How We Recognize And Respond To Aesthetics
When it comes to survival, humans have an innate ability to detect beauty – and that’s not something new.
We all know that sweet foods are appealing since they give us energy, which helps us survive.
In the same way, our capacity to recognize beauty has evolved in order to ensure the survival of our species.
This is demonstrated in the fact that we have powerful responses when looking at beautiful babies.
The infants’ soft skin and hair, large eyes, petite noses and chubby cheeks invoke tender feelings due to the fact that we’ve been programmed to recognize these features as a sign of helplessness and vulnerability.
This phenomenon transcends across animal kingdom too – for instance Jane Goodall revealed that baby chimps were safe from potential harm as long as their tails had a pretty white tuft of hair.
This implies that biological indicators play a crucial role in determining whether or not an individual should be hurt by another for protecting oneself and its species’ perpetuation.
Not only does beauty protect baby animals but it also helps adults identify better mates with higher quality genes to pass on.
Indeed, male peacocks have multi-colored feathers with an eye-like formation: those males who display more ‘eyes’ are able to attract female partners more easily than those with fewer ornamentations.
A price is however paid here in terms of increased visibility or consumption of resources just expanding its feathers out; nevertheless this strategy intends on preserving organism life throughout generations making it worthwhile after all amounts.
Hence ultimately we can conclude that our recognition of beauty not only helps protect vulnerable members but also provide higher quality mates leading one step closer toward defending humankind’s existence – making detecting such parameters of attraction a vital survival mechanism indeed!
How Biology And Society Both Play A Role In How We Define Beauty
When it comes to perceptions of beauty, research tells us that we have a universal set of preferences that are the result of evolution.
Babies were shown to respond more positively to symmetrical patterns than asymmetrical ones, as well as preferring soft to rough textures and melodic music over dissonance.
These preferences can be linked back to factors such as health and safety, with signs of good health like glossy hair and smooth skin regarded as an indicator of reproductive capability.
Further evidence for this comes from a study on female fertility which showed women with an hourglass figure (waist-to-hip ratio below 0.8) had double the rate of becoming pregnant than those with a higher ratio.
The advantages offered by these physical cues have had a lasting effect on our culture; throughout history narrow waists have been fashionable in women’s clothing, corsets were worn for over 500 years while today’s fashion often includes items such as crop tops and form fitting dresses.
This just goes to show that what we universally perceive as beautiful is very much a result of evolution.
The Power Of Beauty: How Appearance Can Influence Our Lives And Give Us Unearned Privileges
When it comes to life’s benefits, beauty has its advantages.
Research shows that people view the beautiful as inherently good and consequently treat them better than people who are less attractive.
For example, adults gave a good-looking seven year old the benefit of the doubt when the child was seen stomping on a dog’s tail – however, similar behavior from an unattractive child was seen as potentially bad or delinquency indicating.
This same preferential treatment is seen in adults too, where 87% of people would return a lost dime left in a phone booth to an attractive woman as opposed to just 64% for an unattractive one.
This social dynamic not only reinforces “attractiveness” but also lends itself to a certain sense of entitlement that can sometimes accompany it.
In one study participants were placed in an interview with psychologists and when interrupted those deemed ‘beautiful’ generally waited 3 minutes before demanding attention – while those judged as ‘less attractive’ were found to patiently wait 9 minutes on average.
Ultimately, beauty provides many social advantages that further entrench this cycle of behavior.
It is clear then that being attractive often comes with many privileges whether imagined or real; thus speaking unequivocally to the concept that beauty provides special benefits within our society today.
Understanding The Complexities Of Beauty And Its Impact On Society
When it comes to understanding beauty and our biases, it’s important to look at both the biological and social construct theories.
Sociologist Harry Hoetink studied race relations in the West Indies in the 1960s and found that beauty standards were always modeled after the dominant population.
This damaging hierarchy continues to this day in places like Brazil, where only 40 percent of citizens are white but media images still predominantly feature fair-skinned models.
The effects of this beauty construct on children is particularly damaging: attractive children are treated better than unattractive ones, with a disproportionate number of unattractive children receiving abuse or neglect.
If we want to combat such bias, we need to combine our understandings of the two components – biological preference and social responsibility – when perceiving beauty in the world around us.
Rather than ignoring our natural response towards beauty, we should instead recognize it as one of life’s true joys and use that understanding to take on a social responsibility to those less privileged than us.
Wrap Up
Survival of the Prettiest is a book that dives deep into the way in which beauty affects us and our society.
Author Nancy Etcoff draws from evolutionary theories and medical studies to argue that beauty isn’t merely a social construct, but rather an indicator of health, youth, and fertility—all qualities which signal optimal partner potential.
In order to gain a full insight into how beauty impacts our lives, it is necessary for us to adopt an approach that incorporates both biology and culture.
Through this course of inquiry, Etcoff ultimately concludes: beauty is complex because it is rooted in both nature and nurture.
As such, Evolutionary biologists’s original idea – “survival of the fittest” can come to be understood more appropriately as “survival of the prettiest”.
