What is beauty: scientists have revealed the secret of attractiveness and its influence on people

For centuries we have been told that it is impossible to judge by appearance, because beauty or ugliness cannot reflect inner qualities. But it is very difficult to ignore how a person looks — beautiful people magically attract us. I want to communicate with them, I want to trust them, but this often leads to disappointments and even problems. What is the dangerous magic of beauty, scientists have popularly explained.

Psychologist Anthony Little, who has been studying the effect of beauty on a person for many years, claims that symmetrical faces are considered attractive. This is due to the fact that symmetry falls under our concepts of normality. Absolutely symmetrical people do not exist, but the closer the appearance is to the ideal, the more attractive it is to others.

Little gave this phenomenon a special name — "averaging". This concept is much more voluminous and takes into account not only symmetry, but also proportions, dimensions of facial features, as well as their location. The combination of these parameters determines whether we seem attractive to others or not.

A study by scientists from the University of California San Diego (USA) and the University of Toronto (Canada) showed that the attractiveness of female faces is greatly influenced by the distance between the eyes. Ideally, it should be slightly less than half the width of the face.

The second most important characteristic is the distance between the mouth and the eyes. It should not exceed one third of the entire height of a woman's face. But where did such mathematically precise proportions of the ideal come from in the world of living nature, to which man still belongs?

It turns out that the craving for symmetry and correct proportions is also present in less highly developed representatives of the animal world. Biologists attribute this to the fact that symmetry often indicates the health of an individual and its ability to give healthy offspring.

Swordfish (Xiphophorus hellerii)

Behavioral psychologist Molly Morris studied the behavior of swordfish (Xiphophorus hellerii) and found that young females of this species prefer symmetrical males with the same number of stripes on both sides of the body. But at the same time, older females, on the contrary, prefer to choose a pair from among males with asymmetric stripes.

For a long time it was not possible to find out the reason for this behavior, but in the end Morris came to the conclusion that the love of old females for non-standard males is also associated with offspring. In fish, the wrong color often indicates that the individual grew too fast, which means that it ate exceptionally well.

In the wild, offspring from a male who has adapted perfectly to the habitat and has grown faster than others are more likely to be strong and more adapted to the harsh environment and various adversities. From this we can conclude that symmetry only becomes an indicator of health or good genetics.

On land, things are a little different and asymmetric people are not too pleasing to the eye. But symmetry always remains in trend and it is safe to say that subconsciously we perceive a symmetrical person as a healthy and positive person in everything.

We have considered the question from the point of view of biology, but is it possible to teach a person to see beauty by creating certain stereotypes? Psychologists Judith Langlois, Coren Apichella and Steve Shane proved that it is quite possible to develop a predisposition to certain types of faces.

People of the Hadza tribe, Tanzania

The experiment with the Hadza tribe is more visual. Hunters and gatherers from Tanzania was chosen because they, like no other, are free from media-imposed notions of beauty and are far from European canons of attractiveness in general. They were shown five photos of UK residents and five of their fellow tribesmen and asked to choose beautiful people. The Hadza chose only their fellow countrymen and none recognized the attractive European.

But the British, who were offered to make exactly the same choice, were not so categorical and chose both beautiful countrymen and people of the Hadza tribe who liked them outwardly. It turns out that biological factors and stereotypes work together in the formation of our concepts of beauty.

Psychologists Judith Langlois and Angela Griffin conducted an experiment at the University of Texas, interviewing 300 students of different genders, ages and races. Each of them was shown pictures of random people's faces for 4 seconds and after viewing the subjects to draw conclusions about each of them.

As a result, scientists came to the conclusion that men and women with unattractive faces were perceived as less intelligent, friendly and sociable. People with faces of average attractiveness seemed to students as positive as attractive, with the exception of such a parameter as "sociability". An additional test was carried out on children and it showed exactly the same results.

This is actually true, because it is well known that as you get to know a person, his appearance loses its primary importance and personal qualities of a person come to the fore. But at the same time, it is very difficult to deny the influence of the primary impression on the development of further relationships, because it often depends on whether we will communicate with a person further or not. Learn to distinguish the cover from the content and avoid discrimination based on external data — this is a very important skill these days.