Why Are We Blinded by Beauty?
Regardless of how beauty is defined, it’s clear that people seen as physically attractive are at a social advantage. Perhaps that’s why billions of dollars a year are spent on diets, fitness activities, shaving, waxing, hair coloring, makeup, perfumes, tattoos, body piercings, and cosmetic surgery designed to plump up sunken skin, peel and scrape wrinkles from the face, vacuum out fat deposits, lift faces, reshape noses, tuck in tummies, and enlarge or reduce breasts.
What creates the bias for beauty, and why are we drawn like magnets to people who are physically attractive? One possibility is that it is inher- ently rewarding to be in the company of others who are aesthetically appealing— that we derive pleasure from beautiful men and women the same way that we enjoy a breathtaking landscape. In an fMRI study of men, for example, research- ers found that areas of the brain known to respond to rewards such as food, money, and drugs such as cocaine are also activated by facial beauty. Or perhaps the rewards are more extrinsic. Perhaps, for example, we expect the glitter of another’s beauty to rub off on us. When average-looking men and women are seen alongside someone else of the same sex, they are rated as more attractive when the other person is good-looking and as less attractive when he or she is plain-looking.
