The Rocky Mountain Collegian

April 3rd, 2007

The Definition of Beauty

The definition of beauty is described as this: “Beauty is a quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (such as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (such as personality).”

What I find most interesting about beauty and how people perceive it, is the fact that most people are not aware that science plays a vital role in how humans decide what is “beautiful” or “attractive”. It is proven that most people worldwide agree on certain physical aspects that make another person attractive.

This phenomenon is often called the “universal correlates of beauty”. It says: “Strong correlations between attractiveness and particular physical properties have been found across cultures. Despite significant variation, there nonetheless exists a tremendous degree of agreement among cultures as to what is perceived as attractive when it is associated with human health. Healthier looking skin is universally associated with attractiveness. Infants, who presumably have not yet been affected by culture, tend to prefer the same faces considered attractive by adults. Some experiments have been done in America that support this finding. These findings are used to imply that a large part of attractiveness is determined by inborn human nature - not nurture.”

Some Determinants of Male Physical Attractiveness:

• Small Waist
• Broad Shoulders
• Erect Posture
• Average Height (when woman are looking for long term relationships)
• Taller than Average Height (when woman are looking for short term relationships)

Some Determinants of Female Physical Attractiveness:

• Shorter Physical Stature Than Themselves (meaning men)
• Waist-Hip Ratio of 0.7 (which means your waist is 70% smaller than your hips)
• Proportionate Body
• Facial Symmetry

One last somewhat disturbing fact I found: “When a person is seen as attractive or unattractive, a whole set of assumptions are brought into play. Across cultures, what is beautiful is assumed to be good. Attractive people are assumed to be more extroverted, popular, and happy. There is truth in this — attractive people do tend to have these characteristics. However, this is probably due to self-fulfilling prophecy; from a young age, attractive people receive more attention that helps them develop positive characteristics.”

Any of you ugly people feeling sorry for yourselves yet? Well get over it, Mother Nature must have endowed you with some other advantageous trait so get off your ass and figure out what IT is, or accept your life as the under-privileged ugly duckling.

All info found on the website; Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 am and is filed under Fort Chick Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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