Science of Beauty. What makes a person more attractive looking

Dr. Lisa Debruine in her face research lab in University of Aberdeen has broken down the face into its different component, namely eyes, nose, mouth and skin. She took photograph of an average Caucasian man and woman by sampling from 60 males and females. The average woman has smaller jaw, thinner eyebrows and the man has more square jaw, thicker eyebrow and more square hair line. She devised a way to make a woman’s face more feminine or masculine by making eyes smaller or larger, jaw thinner or squarer, eyebrows thinner (and raising it a bit) or flatter.

She then placed the unchanged photo, the masculinised photo and feminised photo to men. 81 percent preferred the more feminised women photos. Similarly majority of women preferred the masculinised male.

Now the question is why a face gets more masculine or feminine? During childhood both males and females look similar. As adolescence arrives, sex hormones begin to be generated in both sexes. These are testosterone in men and oestrogen and progesterone in women. These hormones cause male features and female features to develop in case of men and women respectively. The more male hormone the more pronounced male features and more female hormones the more pronounced female features. The higher amount of sex hormones means a very healthy reproductive ability. This also generally indicates good health. Therefore mating with these individuals has more chances of producing healthy children.

So we find an individual attractive because his features indicate that mating with him or her will be profitable for having good children and useful in passing on our own genes to the future generation and thereby perpetuating them.

So we get a big clue on what is a sexually attractive face.

But as I delved into more exploration I found more reasons which make a face attractive.

Symmetry

R Thornhill and SW Gangstead (1994) in their research found that symmetry in face (that is how much each side of the face mirror the other side) adds very definitively in attractiveness. Further research vindicated their findings using sophisticated computer methods of morphing photos. It was found that even in twins the one with more symmetry in facial components added to the “beauty’. This preference for more symmetrical faces is seen not only in humans but in other species as well.

Other studies have indicated that symmetric facial and physical characteristics strongly indicate greater health and fitness of the person. It therefore seems the correlation between the biological quests for a fitter mate is the key in this case also.

Averageness

Well what we are talking about is not the general meaning of average, that is, it is not very good or bad. Studies have shown that that more closely a face resembles majority of other faces within a certain group of population, more attractive the face is rated within that population. This means an English man with features found in most English men will be rated better among the English people than faces with features which are not commonly found in the English population. This does not mean he will be rated higher in attractiveness rating, say among the Indians or the Chinese. Studies suggest this also may be due to the law of adaptability and evolutionary theory. Non average face suggests the person is likely to have genes that are detrimental to growth within a certain region and therefore less preferred for mating. Thus in countries like Japan and China less pointed facial features are preferred than in western countries. The method used by researchers is to produce a more “average” face is by amalgamating a large number of faces to produce a single face and then compare to individual faces.

Similarity with Parents

Some studies have shown people unknowingly prefer faces which bears resemblance with their opposite sex parent. A man will prefer a woman’s face which bears more resemblance to her mother and woman will prefer a man’s face with resemblance with her father. The preference is more strong if the relationship with the opposite sex parent is positive. However this preference does not necessarily mean that people will have partners with parent like faces.

Skin

Skin condition and health of the skin is important in beauty rating. We speak of ‘glowing skin’ and scientific studies have shown that a good skin tone which suggests good health and therefore mating preferences for people with such skin property.

Mystery of Golden Ratio

Golden ratio, represented by the Greek letter phi (φ), happens when ratio of two numbers is same as the sum of two numbers to the larger number, i.e., (a+b)/a =a/b, where ‘a’ is the larger number and is roughly is equal to 1.618.

There is some historical background related to golden ratio and beauty. Painters and architects used this ratio for many famous paintings and buildings. Examples are Notre dame Cathedral and Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting Last Supper.

This ratio has been found to be particularly significant for aesthetics of human body and face. If the ratio of your height to your navel and from navel to the head is 1.618 your body looks very well balanced. Facial masks using this ratio for different facial proportions has been devised in computer and used to improvise faces with striking results. However this theory has not yet been supported very strongly by scientific researches and subject to further scrutiny. You can use following link for a detailed study https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1OOc8HC3TY .

Body Fitness and dimensions

Body weights and dimensions also adds or distracts from beauty it is not as much significant as the face.

Overweight and underweight bodies are generally disliked. To define right body weight a ratio called Body Mass Index or BMI is used.

BMI = body mass in kg/body height² in meter.

If your BMI is between 18.5 and 25 your weight is normal (for an adult according to WHO).

Some countries use different BMI charts which give slightly different weights for males and females and for different age groups.

A study by Viren Swami, Dorothy Einon and Adrian Furrnham (2006) has showed that Americans prefer men with legs as long as the rest of the body and women with 40% longer legs than their body. However this is not totally supported by other studies and may be different for Asians and other race groups. Some other studies indicate that men prefer women with waist to hip ratio around 0.7.

I have tried to give a snapshot of pure physical parameters of what constitutes beauty. Of course as everyone knows there are other non physical characteristics like a smile and other behavioural traits that attract us which I will discuss in a later article.