critical thinking

DANIEL COLEMAN

Daniel Goleman was born in Stockton, California in 1946. He has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard and has also taught there. Dr. Goleman is the author of several books, including The Creative Spirt (1992), Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1995), and Destructive Emotions: How We Can Overcome Them: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (2003). "Equation for Beauty Emerges in Studies" was written during the many years during which Goleman was a writer for the New York Times, where he edited the science page and wrote articles on psychology and brain sciences.

Getting Started

Could there be an equation that accurately measures out the dimensions of a beautiful woman's face? And could that equation hold true across cultures? Do physically attractive men and women get treated differently from less attractive people? Which are more likely to succeed? Do cute babies get treated differently from not-so-cute babies? What matters more to us in finding a mate—attractiveness, or kindness and intelligence? Before you read the essay, think about your own ideas about the importance of physical attractiveness and its relationship to success in life.

he beauty of the female face, it appears, is mathematically quantifiable. Moreover, new research is identifying why the emerging equation can attempt to define what has for so long been thought of as strictly subjective.

In the last two decades, psychologists have come to realize that physical attractiveness, in males as well as females, carries with it an impressive array of social and psychological benefits— from getting more attention from teachers in childhood, to earning more money in adulthood.

Researchers are now attempting to determine precisely what constitutes attractiveness, and what makes it so compelling.

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While much of this research has thus far focused on the female face, psychologists are now also studying the features that make a man's face attractive. But, in mating, a man's looks matter less than his social status and wealth, according to David Buss, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, who has studied characteristics most commonly sought in a mate by men and women and has studied the role of attractiveness in human evolution.

In an article in The American Scientist, Dr. Buss reported that 5 the sexes agree for the most part on what they seek in a mate. In general, men and women say they value kindness and intelligence most, and agree on the importance of an exciting personality, good health and creativity. But for men, the physical attractiveness of a partner is significantly more important than it is for women, according to Dr. Buss. And for women, generally, a mate's earning capacity is a greater consideration than it is for men.

One explanation for these differences, in Dr. Buss's view, lies in the evolutionary advantages those preferences hold for each sex. In evolution, signs of beauty in a woman are cues that she is young and healthy—thus at the peak of her reproductive ability— and therefore desirable, according to Dr. Buss. These factors were of great importance through most of human history; in the past more women died in childbirth than do now.

For a man, physical appearance is not as great a signal of his reproductive value, however; age imposes fewer constraints on a man's capacity for reproduction. But a man is in a better position to further the survival chances of his offspring if he has access to resources or power, and so it has been to women's advantage to seek mates who had this access, Dr. Buss argues.

"So there is a selective advantage in evolution for those men who can best distinguish among women to find a mate who is at her peak reproductive powers," says Dr. Buss. "There would be an advantage to women whose physical make-up most closely resembled the signs by which men recognized a woman's health and fertility."

The attractive female face is just such a sign, according to research reported recently in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Michael Cunningham, a psychologist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. In a series of experiments, Dr. Cunningham asked 150 white, male American college students to rate the attractiveness and social attributes of 50 women from pictures of their faces. Twenty-seven of the women were finalists in the Miss Universe contest. Though most of the women were white, seven were black and six were Asian.

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Dimensions and proportions of what was regarded as attrac- 10 tive emerged with remarkable consistency and precision from Dr. Cunningham's research.

Elements of the perceived ideal of the attractive female face included: eye width that is three-tenths the width of the face at the eyes' level; chin length, one-fifth the height of the face; distance from the center of the eye to the bottom of the eyebrow, one-tenth the height of the face; the height of the visible eyeball, one-fourteenth the height of the face, the width of the pupil, onefourteenth the distance between the cheekbones; and the total area for the nose, less than 5 percent of the area of the face.

Dr. Cunningham's data describe an ideal, not an actual face. Nor can they be regarded as anything suggesting absolute beauty; rather they are measures of a developed standard, a way to describe the images that a culture, in this case the American culture, defines as attractive.

Very small differences in these ratios made a large difference for attractiveness. For example, the ideal mouth, Dr. Cunningham found, was half or 50 percent the width of the face at mouth level. If that percentage varied by as little at 10 points, his research subjects found the face much less attractive.

PERSONALITY AND DIMPLES

Of course, a woman's personality and intelligence may matter to an individual man far more than her face in whether he will find her attractive. Moreover, any given man may be drawn to a particular feature—dimples and freckles, say, or a strong, classical nose—that the ideal lacks.

But the purport of the Cunningham research is that there is 15 strong agreement on what constitutes facial attractiveness, though the specifics of the ideal may vary from culture to culture.

Dr. Cunningham believes his research holds clues to just why the specific facial patterns of female beauty he identified hold such social and psychological power. The large eyes, along with a small chin and nose, he says, are facial features that typify a newborn. The high wide cheekbone and narrow cheeks, though, are signs that a woman has reached puberty. And the high eyebrows, dilated pupils and wide smile are all signals of positive emotions: interest, excitement and sociability.

"The infantlike features draw out in them the same caretaking response a baby would; they make a woman seem cute and

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adorable," said Dr. Cunningham. "But the signs of maturity signal that a woman has reached childbearing years, which adds a sexual dimension. And the sociable emotions signal personality traits that people are drawn to.'

A 'COMPELLING' COMBINATION

"The sum total of the features signify someone who is slightly young and helpless, though sexually mature and friendly," Dr. Cunningham added. "And men find that combination compelling.

Research continues to show that being attractive carries a pronounced psychological advantage in life, that a powerful stereotype applied to attractive people equates their beauty with goodness. "Most people assume that good-looking men and women have nearly all the positive traits," according to Elaine Hatfield, a psychologist at the University of Hawaii who has reviewed the research on the social psychology of attractiveness in her book Mirror, Mirror. . . published in 1986 by the State University of New York Press.

Other people, for example, tend to assume that beautiful women 20 and handsome men are warm, sensitive, kind, interesting, poised, sociable and outgoing, and will have good jobs and fulfilling lives.

These social perceptions are one of the benefits of cosmetic facial surgery, according to judgments made of photographs of men and women before and after their surgery. Those who underwent the surgery were seen by others afterward as more self-assertive, intelligent, likable, and able to succeed than they were before the surgery, according to research reported in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

The positive treatment of those with an attractive face begins from infancy, with parents tending to give more attention to cuter babies, and continues through life. The teachers of attractive children tend to assume they are more intelligent and popular than their peers. Such expectations, psychologists believe, become part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Whatever the reason, good-looking people have been found, on average, to end up in jobs with higher pay and prestige than do their less attractive competitors.

In one study, girls in high school were rated for attractiveness and 15 years later the more attractive women were found to be in families with significantly higher net incomes than were their less attractive classmates.

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Of course, looks alone do not guarantee success. For in- 25 stance, the more handsome men in the West Point Class of 1950 rose to higher ranks while at the Academy than their less attractive classmates did, according to a report in the American Journal of Sociology, by Allan Mazur, a sociologist at Syracuse University. However, as the cadets' careers continued in the military after graduation, looks helped less and less in promotions and other factors came to the fore.

While there is no sure evidence that the specific features identified in his research have been seen as attractive through history, Dr. Cunningham believes that in cultures as ancient as that of classical Egypt women were using cosmetics to mimic or emphasize these features, just as modern cosmetic facial surgery does today.

Some experts disagree with the arguments for the evolutionary advantages of attractiveness. "I'm skeptical of these evolutionary arguments because there is a huge leap from the data to the explanation," said Ellen Berscheid, a social psychologist at the University of Minnesota, who is a leader in the research on attractiveness.

Attractiveness in women should matter less in dating and marriage as women gain more equal footing with men in positions of power and success, according to Dr. Berscheid.

Questions

I. According to the Coleman article, what are some of the benefits of physical attractiveness? When do these benefits start to accrue?

2. In seeking a life partner or even a date, there seem to be differences in what matters for men and what matters for women. Which of these differences does Coleman describe? What explanation does he provide, and do you agree with it? Do the findings of the studies he presents agree with your own experiences? Explain your answers.

3. Coleman writes: "Research continues to show that being attractive carries a pronounced psychological advantage in life, that a powerful stereotype applied to attractive people equates their beauty with goodness" (paragraph 19). Has this been your experience in life? What books, movies, or other types of entertainment support this point of view? Which ones counter it? Do you think that people on reality TV shows who go through physical transformations will be viewed or treated differently by their friends and family as a result of their new looks?

4. Social psychologist Ellen Berscheid is quoted as saying that as women gain more equal footing in positions of power and success, physical attractiveness will matter less for women (paragraph 28). Do you think this is true and if so, why do you think this would be the case? If not, why not?

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5. Find a picture of a woman's face in a magazine or online that you feel shows beauty. Do the features in the image you picked seem to conform to the studies of beauty that Coleman mentions? In what ways is your choice the same, in what ways different? You might also use a ruler to see if the proportions match those found in Dr. Buss's study.

6. Write an essay in which you take a position on the following: A society where everyone is beautiful is an ideal society. All people who are not physically attractive should be given plastic surgery, paid for by the government, so that they can be made as physically attractive as possible. Explain your position with examples from your own experience and/or from popular media.