The Powerful Influencing Effect of People's Faces on Your Behavior
by www.SixWise.com
A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but what a face can do
is apparently priceless. Princeton researchers discovered
that people might make fast, subconscious decisions based
solely on appearance at times when it was thought the decisions
were based on more rational measures.
In this case, participants in the study were asked to choose
which political candidate seemed most competent by looking
only at their picture. The people were able to predict the
outcome of nearly 72 percent of three U.S. Senate races based
only on this visual information.
What makes a face attractive? Simply being "average"
may do the trick.
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"The findings are striking--I didn't believe them at first,"
said Alexander Todorov, assistant professor of psychology and
public affairs. "I think that a lot of inferences that
we make about other people are fairly automatic and can even
occur outside of conscious awareness. The catch is that these
inferences can influence important deliberate decisions."
From Birth on We Make Decisions Based on Appearance
One study found that, within the first 3 to 6 months of life,
a baby established a preference for "attractive"
people. They look at attractive faces longer than unattractive
faces during this age span, then, when they reach 1 year,
begin to show a more positive response to attractive people
than unattractive people.
Further studies have shown that very young children make
choices about who they'd like to play with based on facial
attractiveness and body form. Evidence has even been found
that physical attractiveness influences social acceptance
among children in nursery school.
But kids are not the only ones with such views. In a study
in which 400 teachers analyzed the same school records for
two children (one attractive and one unattractive), the
teachers gave higher ratings of education potential to the
attractive children.
Is Beauty Really in the Eye of the Beholder?
A review of the literature on the effects of facial attractiveness
from 1932 to 1999, published in the Psychological Bulletin,
found that beauty is, in fact, NOT in the eye of the beholder.
It was found that most people agree about who is or is not
attractive (within and across ethnicities), and there may
be universal standards by which attractiveness is judged.
Plus, that old saying 'don't judge a book by its cover' seems
to go largely ignored. Adults and children considered attractive
were judged more favorably and treated more positively than
their unattractive counterparts, even by those who knew them.
Even moms are more affectionate to their infants
if they're attractive.
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Moms Even Judge Their Babies
Surprisingly, according to the Langlois Social Development
Lab, mothers appear to be more affectionate toward and play
more with their infants if they're attractive, compared to
those who were less attractive.
Plus, mothers of less attractive infants rated them as more
of a disruption to their lives than mothers of attractive
infants. Although none of the mothers treated their infants
badly, attractiveness did influence even maternal behavior.
What Makes a Face Attractive?
There are several theories out there as to what actually
makes a face attractive. Some researchers believe that youthfulness,
a smile or a symmetrical face all play a role. And, according
to the Langlois Social Development Lab, a face must be "close
to the population mean" to be considered attractive.
In other words, it must be average.
Are We All That Superficial?
What does all this mean in the real world? Are we all just
superficial beings wrapped up in judging one another on our
looks? Not really. Many researchers suggest that these preferences
are ingrained in us, and that we may prefer an attractive
person in choosing a mate because we believe attractiveness
on the outside may also be a sign of a healthy inside (and
thus a more reliable mate).
Or, as in the case of the first study, the participants made
subconscious decisions based on the photos--they probably
would have a hard time describing why they felt one candidate
looked more competent than the other, it was almost an instinctual
decision.
Others believe in a theory known as the cognitive information
processing theory. It says that the average of a category
is preferred over other examples of the category. The Langlois
Social Development Lab uses the example that an average-size
dog is usually rated as a better example of the category of
"dog" than is a Great Dane or a Mexican Chihuahua.
Similarly, an average face may be rated as a better "more
attractive" example of a human simply because it's more
familiar or more "face-like" to more people.
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Sources
Science
June 10, 2005;308(5728):1623-6
Health
Orbit June 9, 2005
Langlois
Social Development Lab
How
Physical Appearance Affects Personality
Advances
in Experimental Social Psychology