Beauty Really is in the Eye of the Beholder

There is scientific evidence to indicate that a preference to look upon so called beautiful faces develops very early in life with children expressing the same standards for attractiveness across genders and cultures. They carry these same perceptions into adulthood. While style and fashions may differ and change culture to culture, commonalities in perception of what is beautiful, persist. The secrets of attractiveness and beauty have been debated since the beginning of time. Today many men and women spend huge chunks of their income to look good by societal norms.

Beautiful people are usually the most popular, commanding the bulk of attention from employers, teachers, and even the business world. Statistics reveal that attractive people make more money than their so called normal counterparts, with the less comely pulling in 5% less on the hour than do their good looking brothers and sisters. A recent study went so far as to coin the phrase "plainness penalty." In other words, people are punished for not meeting current beauty standards with below hourly earning levels for their profession. The "punishment" amounts to 9% less on the hour.

Despite the commonality of preferences, it is not always easy to explain or describe what constitutes beauty. Most fall back on the age old turn of words "eye of the beholder" in order to explain their feelings. Some say that beauty reflects what is inside and how you view the world. We, as a people, instinctively know what we consider beauty, however, many times we are at a loss to voice our opinion

Recent studies which are designed to measure attractiveness indicate that our perception of beauty is consistent across racial lines, ages, ethnicities and cultures. As humans we all seem to agree on what does and does not constitute beauty. One recent study even showed that humans agreed on attractiveness of monkey faces. It is facial recognition that apparently awakens shortly after birth and wires each and every child into the world wide matrix of perception. That perception is set by the time they start walking.

These studies show that when we recognize beauty, we are really making a judgment about the health and vitality of the individual. We subconsciously take in facial symmetry, condition of the skin and other factors to concluding that person is free from disease, may be fertile and apparently comes from good genes. However, commonalities aside, men and women have different preferences when judging members of the opposite sex. Simply put, most women prefer a combination of both masculine and feminine facial features when describing the attractiveness of a man, while men lean toward younger and rounder faces, with high cheek bones and big eyes. These are reflections of perceived fertility. Big breasts and hips, another indicator of fertility also made the list of what men find attractive in women.