What is Beauty?
Elizabeth B. Pearce
Although the famous saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” originated in the 3rd centruy BC and was revived in its current form by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in 1878, it can also be said that society, and the media in particular, create and reinforce stereotypical ideas of beauty.
Beauty is a social construct. It is based on societally agreed upon ideas that have been ingrained into our systems and our psyches over time and have been accepted as the norm. These ideas of beauty slowly become embedded into our minds on a micro level, and affect the way we operate. There is a bi-directional relationship with societal forces including media, marketing, businesses, government, and other institutions. These forces influence youth, affecting appearance, cosmetics, behavior, and clothing. The media, of which 90% is controlled by four media conglomerates who are owned by predominantly White and wealthy males,[1] are responsible for creating and reinforcing preferences and biases which reinforce the dominant culture’s idea of beauty.
Western society has identified particular aspects of physical appearance as being beautiful, or desirable. People with these characteristics are favored and featured. This is known as the halo effect, in which additional favorable characteristics are associated with “attractiveness.” One example of this effect applies to academia. While it is acknowledged that the face’s physical appearance may indicate important characteristics such as physical health, it has also been found that it is used inaccurately to predict a person’s academic performance. Using the faces of university students, researchers learned that subjects inaccurately attributed competence and intelligence to more attractive faces.[2] This can have long term implications for success in education, as other research has found that teachers’ expectations of learners can have a positive or negative effect on their learning.[3]
Another example from academia describes how gender, perceived attractiveness, and age intersect to affect how students’ perception of physical appearance moderate their experience of the actual behavior of faculty. When students rated the perceived qualities of instructors based on appearance in a 2014 study, women’s age and attractiveness were linked (older women were judged to be less attractive). Less attractiveness correlated with judgments students made about prospective faculty; that those less attractive (and older) were also less likely to be organized and/or have rapport with their students, illustrating the halo effect.[4]
There have been some insightful analyses of attractiveness and facial symmetry related to pay and job attainment in sports. The most well-known relates to “quarterback-face.” Using computer measurements, economists found that while taking into account career statistics, experience, Pro Bowl appearances, and draft position, one standard deviation of symmetry of facial struct