the biology of beauty

Summary of
The Biology of Beauty Many articles are written by
modern psychologists and psychoanalysts that stress the importance of
beauty in human and animal breeding as well as survival. One such
article The Biology of Beauty suggests this importance and backs it up
with many facts and figures as well as surveys on normal people. The
article states many theories and hypotheses and also tries to explain why
beauty plays such an important role in sexuality and power. What is
beauty? According to this article, beauty is a combination of symmetry,
special qualities, and traits. Symmetry is perhaps the
most supported part of beauty in this article. The article states that
symmetry shows abundance of sexual hormones, health, and strength
of the immune system. They support their hypothesis of symmetry's affect
on the abundance of sexual hormones with various scientific evidence.
Two psychologists, Steven Gangestead and Randy Thornhill measured
the symmetry of hundreds of men and women in college. They also
asked them to complete a personal confidential survey that gave
information on their health and sex lives. What they found was that the
men and women with better symmetry had started having sex 3-4 years
before the people with average symmetry. Gangestead and Thornhill also
completed another survey involving women's responses to symmetrical
men and men with average symmetry. The results were as expected. The
women with symmetrical partners responded twice as much compared to
the women with men having average symmetry. The rate of contraception
was also much higher. Animals are much more severe in their choosing.
Female penguins won't accept males who aren't plump and symmetrical,
and female scorpion flies only accept males with symmetrical wings, as
they are better at hunting and protecting. Also, less symmetrical men and
women surveyed had more ailments and more frequent accounts of
illnesses compared to symmetrical men and women who were overall

much healthier. Special qualities also play a role in beauty. A
person with normal features is not considered as beautiful as one with a
few outstanding features. New Mexico State University's Victor Johnston
conducted a computer survey called FacePrints in which participants of
all ages and ethnic groups were asked to give their accounts of a perfect
face into the computer. What they came up with was very surprising.
Instead of selecting a female with average facial features, the men
leaned toward a girlish face consisting of many outstanding features.
Their ideal face consisted of a small chin and jaws as well as large eyes
and luscious lips. Women value the opposite of the face constructed by
men: a face consisting of a strong jaw and chin, prominent cheekbones, a
broad forehead, and a severe brow. Infants were also tested by
psychologist Judith Langlois. In her experiment, Judith showed the infant
pictures of attractive and unattractive faces. What she found was that
infants stared much longer at the pictures of attractive faces and quickly
looked away from the pictures of unattractive faces. The infants,
however, had no inkling of what was attractive from media or T.V, so our
idea of attractiveness could very well be inate. So beauty is not just a
means of selecting the most fit partner. Traits are also an
important factor in attractiveness and beauty. Traits reflect fertility and
sexual potency in particular. An expert in female traits, Devendra Singh
works as a psychologist at the University of Texas studying the attractive
traits of the female figure. His survey on attractive female figures gives an
outlook on what men find most attractive. According to the results of his
survey, men found figure N7 in Devendra's chart the most sexually
attractive. Following in popular choice were N8 and U7. The men that
took the survey ranged in age from eight to eighty five and yet the favorite
of each age group, N7, had a waist to hip ratio of .7 or 70%. So
here is the definition of beauty as portrayed by the article. The ideal man
should be above average height, have a broad forehead, perfect

symmetry in wrist, ankles, and elbows as well as face, a strong chin, a
large jaw, a prominent brow, slightly above average musculature, and a
waist-hip ratio of .9 or 90%. The ideal woman, on the other hand, should
have large eyes, a small jaw, chin, and nose, full lips, firm, symmetrical
breasts, unblemished skin, and a waist-hip ratio of .7 or 70%. My opinion
concurs with the article for the most part, and their consistency of taking
in account that beauty isn't everything and that most people are married
and have children despite physical impurities is very admirable. I think
that appearance regretfully does have a strong influence in how we
perceive people, but it is good that these limits are not severe, and that
we can earn others respect with kindness, intelligence, and a good
personality. I think that this ability to break through physical barriers
separates us from the animals, and even though we may not be as fit for
survival as if we had full physical choices, the ability to choose not just on
physical attributes makes us a better, smarter more admirable species.