The Advantages (and Disadvantages) Of Being Excessively Handsome
Beauty is a concept that is always difficult to approach Each culture establishes the parameters of what it considers beautiful in each of the areas where beauty can play a role: not only in the world of art, but also in human beings.
Thus, certain facial, bodily and communicative features are associated, according to each culture and historical moment, with greater beauty. Handsome individuals are those who, by social consensus, are seen as more desirable and physically attractive, and can be the center of attention and comments much more frequently than other less attractive people.
Related article: “Does physical appearance matter when it comes to flirting? 3 reflections on beauty”
A priori, it seems that being handsome only has advantages: greater attention, the benefits of the halo effect, and greater possibilities of interacting with others while making a good impression. However, several investigations put some nuances and point out some negative aspects that people with above-average beauty “suffer.”
A series of scientific investigations They have tried to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of being handsome For example, a study published in Sociology Compass that was developed at the University of North Carolina analyzed the social impact of beauty in various historical stages, and later compared them with each other.
They found several surprising results. Beauty was not only an important factor in society in general, but it could predict various phenomena in people considered “very beautiful.”
Of course, being physically attractive has a number of life advantages. This is where we refer to the halo effect again. Beautiful people benefit from this cognitive bias, which means that, Based on their positive “beautiful” trait, others perceive them as more generous, kind and trustworthy Based on a single positive trait, we tend to generalize the virtues in that same individual, even though we do not have the necessary information to reach that hasty conclusion.
In this sense, Beauty is also socially perceived as a sign of social status Although it is clearly nonsense, the truth is that we tend to attribute qualities such as kindness or generosity to beautiful people, and treat them in a more deferential and gentle way.
Although there is no scientific data to support it, there is a hypothesis, very widespread among the legal and judicial world, which states that Beautiful people tend to receive lighter sentences compared to ugly people even though the circumstances of the crime could have been very similar.
Benefits caused by cognitive biases
In the same study by Walker and Frevert, other data of interest were reported. Physically attractive college students tended to be seen as more competent and intelligent than the less fortunate.
All this excess attention, approval and acceptance that beautiful people receive over time has effects on their own personality. This is also an interesting question to analyze. They tend to be individuals with more self-confidence, and they even have better salaries (statistically speaking), according to one of the authors of the study. The difference in salaries between beautiful people and unattractive people could range between 10 and 20% in favor of the former.
Although we have discovered a few positive aspects of being physically attractive so far, In reality, beauty can be an obstacle or a negative factor in other contexts
Individuals who have suffered workplace harassment (mobbing), especially when it is sexually motivated, can report this. This type of sexual harassment in the workplace especially attacks young, attractive women.
Research conducted in 1985 discovered that People tend to leave a greater physical distance with beautiful people when they walk down the street This has two readings: on the one hand it can be considered a kind of symbol of respect, but it can also be understood as a tendency to exclude attractive people. It’s as if handsome men and women have a kind of superior halo that other people perceive as inaccessible.
In fact, psychologists and dating website programmers often explain that lThe user profiles that get the most attention and dates are not the ones with the most perfect and seductive photos This could be explained by the principle of inaccessibility that we have explained previously: users with more “normal” photos may benefit from this greater psychological predisposition to want to meet people who seem accessible to us, even if they are not so pretty.
Being pretty, a possible obstacle when looking for work
We have all faced a job interview on some occasion, an essential obstacle to accessing a good job position.
In interviews, beauty can be more of an obstacle, especially if the interviewer is of the same sex This could be due to a kind of unconscious protection against sexual competition, since a new worker with superior physical attributes may pose some type of unwanted competition. These are attitudes and decisions that operate at an intuitive level, but it is possible that in the business world there is a certain reluctance to confer credibility on potential employees with great physical attractiveness.
As we have seen, Beauty is a cultural construct that, whether we like it or not, has a non-negligible impact on our daily lives
The important thing is not to become obsessed at any time with our physical appearance, whether we have been more or less graced by Mother Nature. Knowing these scientific data about the advantages and disadvantages of being handsome can help us try to overcome the obstacles that we may suffer whether we are on one side or the other.
