Beauty trumps all

When men see the face of a beautiful woman, the same areas of the brain that light up when a hungry person sees food or a gambler sees a casino, light up (as shown on MRI scans).

This finding is the result of collaborative studies as Harvard and and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Although beauty of another woman does not impact women in the same way it does men, even women will attribute all kinds of positive character attributes to a beautiful woman before ever knowing her personally.

From an article on 20/20:


To see an indepth recap of the show that aired, go to 20/20 Webcast Video, Beauty Trumps All

This is not exactly news to most people that a beautiful person will be given some concessions, but the more recent studies showing that the impact of beauty on all levels is much wider than previously assumed.

A couple of years ago a short documentary about the science behind beauty and the brain as related to evolution was aired on German television. Apparently, what we find beautiful are the facial features and symmetry that he brain finds easies to compute or recognize. In other words, Monica Bellucci is automatically beautiful to most people because she's...easy. Easy on the brain that is.

Woman : Chic on TV is pretty - ok with that
Woman: Chic on TV is pretty and my bf thinks the same - bitch

I've often wondered whether familiarity also effects how we perceive beauty. We tend to be attracted to people who resemble our family members, we tend to be less attracted to people outside of our own race and I guess I personally (not sure if this is representative) find people attractive that I share similar features with (for example I always seem to prefer brunettes to blonds). Evolutionarily speaking this doesn't seem to make sense as we're supposed to find those people attractive with whom we share the least genetic material with so this particular point does puzzle me.

But that is hardly news is it? The number of mornings I run hopelessly for my bus, knowing that the driver will pull away, just before I get there was magically halted yesterday as I was running together with a workmate of mine I met on the way. She just happens to be very attractive and the bus driver just happened to suddenly decided he wasn't in such a hurry after all.

Yes, ER but familiarity does not necessary mean similarity.
According to research, from an evolutionary perspective men see a beautiful women as more likely to produce healthy offspring.

Incidentally, this same exact concept applies to women's general preference for tall men.

Actually this is a very interesting point. I once saw an experiment on television where partners were stopped on the street and asked if they thought that they resembled each other. Everyone stated that no way was that true, but after taking frontal facial photos of the two and splicing them together down the middle, the results were pretty spooky. It seems that we are attracted to people with similar facial features as our own, even if we dont think so.

bullshit , i have good taste in women

Familiarity doesn't necessarily mean similarity, I'm sure if I spent an extended period of time in China my idea of beauty would change but that which we are most familiar with is our own family and primarily our own reflection.

Yeah, I'm really into women with beards...

Absolutely, I came to the realisation recently since my boyfriend has decided to grow a beard that he bears a somewhat uncanny resemblance to my father. It's not obvious but it's there.

What I find interesting is that these areas of the brain that become more active in the male brain in response to perceived beauty are the areas for addiction.

This might be explained by peptide activity on receptors. It reminds me of something I saw on What the Bleep do we Know.

Interesting. I think that very much depends on the person; some gravitate towards the familiar, others are drawn to the less familiar. I'm blondish with green eyes and I've always gone for dark men, the darker the better, esp Latin/Black, and am a total sucker for brown eyes.

I want to conclude that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... but that is only half the truth, because the beholder's eye does seem to be ingrained with some standard view as to what beauty is. Sure, other factors override or dilute that base attraction, but it still remains that if you did a survey of thousands of people showing them a variety of pictures of people, no doubt the opinion as to who is beautiful and who is ugly would quickly become predictable - at least in terms of a trend if not on an individual basis.

JERRY ! JERRY ! JERRY !

... seriously dude... not right.

Offs! I have a healthy and not at all perverse relationship with both of my parents.

@Mehithabel

yes, beauty is in the brain of the beholder and those beauty "standards" are simply templates of sorts that the brain easily recognizes.

So long as OG doesn't shout out "Who's your daddy?!" in the throes of passion, then any misunderstandings and confusion should be avoided.

hhmmmm...interesting! As mentioned also , I was aware of some of the results, but to say the male brain response is where the "addiction" thingy is also, does that mean that I am likely to find a particular type of woman attractive and then addiction steps in and I look for the same, eg. dark hair, so even if I see a gorgeous blonde I am still likely to go for the dark haired one unconciously?

The point I was trying to make is not that he looks like my father but that he actually looks like me.
Or more specifically that we share similar features.

And these "templates" are based on symmetry. The more symmetrical (but not perfect symmetry that was found to actually lower perceived beauty in both sexes) the higher the chance of attracting a mate.

Animals that are more symmetrical are more likely to attract a mate. One scientist found that he could turn attractive male swallows into unattractive male swallows (and also ruin their chances of a good sex life) by clipping their tail feathers with scissors.

Dudette, you gotta break out the Bic occasionally then.

Oh ok it's a typo then , cos that's totally not what I get from what u wrote. I've read it 5 times now , which is twice more than normal. I'm fast like that.

No Arshoo, because hair color and skin tone preferences are not preferences based on symmetry. That is interestingly enough often based on our level of racial acceptance and cultural conditioning.

Yes but why does the brain respond to them? I've heard theories that there is maths behind beauty; certain rules of proportions and symmetry that produce a result the majority of people will respnd to as beautiful. And we do respond differently to beaty - beauty disarms us and we want the beautiful person to view us positvely... so I guess it is all down to good ol fashioned survival. It is not the beauty that is important but the health and fruitfulness the beauty bespeaks which ensures the desire to procreate.

See, it is a great act of philanthropy to go out and attempt to procreate with the most beautiful people you see, remind them of this to encourage them to comply!

EDIT: SD was faster on the symmetry thing.. and did a much better job of explaining it too!

That actually made me laugh startlingly loud in front of my colleagues who now know I'm doing something else instead of working...

Pffft - what do they know?

Confused of Munich.

exactly,

It wsn't a typo, I'll explain my logic. Assuming that my father is indeed my biological father, we will share 50% of the same genes. Which means we will also share more or less half of the same physical features (barring the obvious differences between male and female). Since the point I was replying to was righter's statement about couples looking alike so therefore someone who resembles one of my parents will more or less resemble me.

I've always been told that I look more like my father so for me the logic holds.

I could determine if a girl was fit, even when I was a baby...apparently

I read somewhere (but can't remember where) that this symmetrical beauty is based on divine proportion, that coming from the number phi.

@ ER
Nope that's shitty logic - cos u've got dominant and regressive genes , for example I kno a black lady here at work - her kid is 100% blue eyed blonde Viking.

This seriously needs to go down with BTC's "When a straight man makes a statement about gay rights it carries far more weight than if I start bleating on about it." as being seriously dumb.

Absolutely, theGolden Section. The relationship between the width of your nose to the length of your mouth, for example.

Some bloke studied what made people beautiful, sorted out some proportion matrix, and came up with this weird 'mask' that he could whack on photos and it pretty much always worked - certain featurepoints wuold line up on this masky thing. Worked for blokes as well as birds.
Cannot remember if it worked for all races - I've 'eard that asians and whites don't 'see' faces the same way from birth - hence all the rather inaccurate stereotype of chinese people "looking the same". If you think about how you describe somebody size and hair colour often comes first; oh, so and so is tall/short with blond/brown hair. Pretty bloody hard to do in China; oh, so and so is short with black hair.


Maybe. When I first moved to Singapore, I could not always tell if people were chinese or malay.


Seeing as allw e know about your dad is that he has a beard, you ain't painted yourself in an attractive way there.

To carry this discussion on towards the social implications of beauty..

The roll beauty plays in attracting a mate is one thing, but how do you feel about the fact that very often, the more beautiful person will get the job, be helped out on the street and received other social perks.
Regardless of how obvious or imperceptible the prejudice working against the less attractive is, how often do you think this type of so-called “lookism� occurs?

@Don,

His name was Dr. Marquadt!

Hey I never claimed I was attractive

I've always tended to go for people who totally don't resemble me or my parents - either tall and blond or short with black hair for example. Obvious way to broaden the gene pool (not that I have, or at least I don't think I have ).

As for beauty being more important than wealth etc, I am not sure. A very weatlhy vaguely attractive girl is probably more of a pull for me than a poor stunner. Well, for 'longer term' thinking anyway

This is also true. The mask will always make a perfect hexagon of width of nose, to edges of mouth to width of chin, if the person is considered beautiful. It is all about symmetrics.

I like the article on the importance of height for women (probably not important to men?)


I can't look past height either, men had to be at least as tall as me (175cms) to get a look in, but add my usual 5cm heels to that and we are looking at 180cm .
I have found after the fact, that men I am attracted have sometimes looked uncannily like my brothers (who all look unalike), so I would back up Silva's assumption about family resemblences too.

Become a programmer. The more of a star trek obsessed eccentric nerd you are, the more trust people have in your techy skills. Fact.

According to evolutionary psychology, that would make you female.

hmm.. Lassie,

So you are thinking more like a woman than a man?

It is statistically, historically and scientifically proven that the female sex puts a man's height and wealth (evolution told the brain this means healthy babies and a mate who will "bring home the bacon") above facial symmetry when choosing a long term mate.

I have not often heard a man say -all other things being equal, that he would choose the less attractive but wealthier woman over a poor, beautiful one.

edit: apparently ER and I thought the same thing at the same time

Sorry to harp on about the geometrics here, but here is an example. Nicole Kidmans perfect hexagon...

aha, righter!

And this is another point. Plastic surgery is changing this evolutionary trump card that beauty holds.
Before plastic surgery (she had very slight refinements) Nichole Kidman did not have perfect symmetry.

As well did Angelina Jolie:

give me a minute and I will post the pics..

Of course you have dominant and recessive genes but that's entirely beside the point. The point is I do physically resemble my father as I stated earlier.

We both have green eyes
We both have dark hair
We both a have strong jaw
We both have thick eyebrows
We both have roundish faces
We both have prominent cheekbones

All of which (other than the hair colour) interestingly enough, I share with my boyfriend. And no, for those who must take the piss I don't have a beard nor is my jaw as pronounced or my eyebrows as thick.

My original question had to do with whether familiarity influences attraction, I then used myself as an example of it quite possibly being the case.

Well I understand you ER, its not exactly rocket science facial geometrics

Before refinements of the nose and it has been suggested that her lower lip was reduced when she was in her late teens:

And now, she was very pretty before, she is absolutely stunning now.



The point of this is just to show that if before, there was some kind of evolutionary and genetic benefit of choosing the beautiful over the less beautiful, it now could become null and void due to our ability to drastically alter our symmetry.

I think plastic surgery has a lonnnnnng way to go before it trumps evolution. And I hope it never gets there.

As for lookism (shiver, I do hate isms), yep it occurs every day in a million different ways but that is just the way it is, was and always will be and there is no point in trying to pretend otherwise in the name of the holy grail of unattainable universal equality. To do so is to defy human nature, it would seem from the science of beauty. We look how we look so unless someone has undergone a big change to suddenly move into the ugly or beautiful box, they're never really going to fully know the extent to which their looks impact their experiences.

People of course develop awareness over time and learn to work with what they've got - and there are so many other factors in this post caveman era which determine our attractiveness that very few of us fall into either the truly spectacularly compelling/beautiful or spectacularly repelling/ugly box.

Well she is bloody gorgeous in all three. (Does that actually now mean that I look like her???!!). Anyway, here is the facial symmetry thing