I can’t remember where I heard this fact (sorry) but I remember hearing somewhere that in other time periods, fat women were considered prettiest because it showed that they were wealthy enough to get lots of food. Some of the people in the Northern regions also thought that fat looked better, and that slimmer people needed more fat on their bodies, while people in other, warmer, regions idolized skinny. It all has to do with the conditions and what they signify.
There seem to be at least three constants in what is considered attractive, that cross time and culture:
- Youth
- Health
- Symmetry
I recall watching a documentary in a sociology course that was similar to the one referenced by AV8R. However instead of slides or pictures of people, two women where used. One was considered plain (not ugly or anything that would scare a kid), and another, more physically “attractive”. The results where the same, the “test babies” would almost exclusively crawl to the more attractive individual. My question to the above post would be, even if makeup was the sole reason one of the women was more attractive, would that necessarily make any difference? I don’t think the researchers were looking into what specifically made the baby prefer the more attractive person, but only that the baby did in fact show a preference towards “attractiveness”.
I think that some of our appreciation for certain characteristics is hardwired.
Can’t remember the study/cite but it was proposed by some biologists that the features of mammallian babies (large heads, chubbiness, cute button noses etc) were inately attractive to adult mammals and therefore served as some sort of protective mechanism for the survival of the babies…the adults were less likely to attack them if they were aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Perhaps this same sort of process occurs when we are adults as well, although I think such minor traits as hair colour are probably more of an environmental/social learning. Overall, I believe that most people tend to agree about what is ‘attractive’ or less-attractive, but that does not necessarily have an impact upon who we choose for a mate. There are many other factors at play, and attractiveness may well be one of the least important.
If symmetry is such an important part in attractiveness, as listed by Walloon, why do so many people now try to change or break their symmetry with one ear / eye brow/ cheek piercings?
Yet this deliberate breaking of the facial symmetry can bring a sub-section of society to find the person more attractive…why?
Does the lure of the ‘birds of a feather’ connection count for more than symmetry in attractiveness these days?