Why do we like some people and faces and dislike others? If it’s only a matter of taste, is it worth arguing about them? Understand psychologists Jeremy Wilmer and Laura Jermyn.
Is it really, as the writer Oscar Wilde said, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”? Research1 speak in favor of this assumption, since in 50% of cases we evaluate the attractiveness of people based on our own life experience.
“If you and I were asked to rank photographs of people in terms of attractiveness, I assure you, half the time our preferences would coincide,” says psychologist Jeremy Wilmer.
The study, which he conducted with colleagues, consisted of two parts. At first, 35 people rated several dozen portraits offered to them on the site in terms of attractiveness. We know from earlier work that most of us like symmetrical faces. It was symmetry and modern standards of beauty that determined the choice of participants in half the cases. And what about the other half? On what basis did they choose attractive faces?
We evaluate the attractiveness of a person based on our personal preferences.
For a similar experiment, 547 pairs of twins and 214 pairs of twins were invited. This was done in order to study the reaction of genetically identical people who also grew up in the same conditions. So the researchers wanted to find out what role nature and nurture play in assessing the attractiveness of people.
“If genes really play a leading role, then twins should be absolutely identical in their choice, unlike twins,” argues Jeremy Wilmer, “but on the other hand, if family atmosphere and social education play a big role, then we expect that and the twins will match in their preferences.
But the results of the experiment disproved this assumption. “We found that, despite the genetic similarity of the twins, their aesthetic preferences were radically different,” the scientist noted. According to him, this is because we evaluate attractiveness based on our personal preferences, which are not influenced by the similarity of genes or a common childhood.
Our taste is influenced by the emotions and impressions that we have experienced and which for us are associated with someone’s appearance.
What determines our choice? What kind of people do we consider beautiful? Psychologist Laura Jermyn, co-author of Jeremy Wilmer, has several hypotheses.
“If you look at a person and you associate him with something pleasant, then his face will seem more beautiful to you,” she explains. – And vice versa. If someone’s appearance causes negative associations, you will never call a person attractive, his facial features will be unpleasant to you. That is why good friends seem to us more beautiful than acquaintances. It’s all about the positive emotions we experience.”
But that’s not all. If the features of your loved ones, friends that you find beautiful, match the facial features of strangers or colleagues, most likely you will feel affection for them, they will be pleasant to you. If you do not see any familiar features in the face, you will like it less.
Simply put, our taste is largely influenced not by the environment in which we grew up, not by genes and not by generally accepted standards, but by the emotions and impressions that we have experienced and which for us are associated with someone’s appearance. Scientists do not stop doing research on this topic, and who knows what else will be found? But while science says: yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
1 L. Germine «Individual aesthetic preferences for faces are shaped mostly by environments, not genes», Current Biology, October 2015.