| What do faces have to do with attractiveness
Posted: 9/18/2006 12:57:22 AM | What do faces have to do with attractiveness ?
Do you understand my question ? I mean, if you stop and think about it for a moment, it really doesn't make alot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint that we look for partners with faces that attract us. Now, I'm not denying that we all have facial types that we find more or less attractive...everybody on Earth is like this. The question is why do we care in the first place ? I can see some merit in looking for things like skin condition and what not but even then, there are other ways to determine this. So why do we even care what a person's face looks like ? We all do but I honestly can't think of one good reason for it from any sort of biological standpoint. If we were covered in hair from the tips of our toes to the tops our heads, faces wouldn't mean much to us I wouldn't think. And yet it's probably the biggest factor when we deem somebody attractive to us or not (gross deformities and other major physical defects notwithstanding)
Your best guess ? | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/18/2006 4:30:51 AM | | OP: There are many reasons why one is attracted to another, but I would not say physical appearance is the primary reason we are "attracted" to another person. Initially, yes, we someone and we think he/she is good looking that best meets our standards. How do we know? Well there are a number of people out there that will tell you all sorts of reasons, but I believe it is a chemical reaction that you share with the other person. Chemical reactions such as euphoria, pheromones, instinct and dopamine play a big role in what you feel as attraction. Then after you make contact and start to get to know the other person you can tell if you are attracted to this person mentally as well as physically. Everyone is different and everyone is going to have different ideas on what attractive is or is not. Totally a personal preference. ;) | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/18/2006 5:50:12 AM |
Looking someone in the face and being able to read them is priceless.
Yep, defintely...
Also, wouldn’t you want to wake up in the morning looking at a pleasant face?  | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/18/2006 7:39:28 AM | Faces are important because - other than the body as a whole - the symmetry of the face is an indicator of good genetics and good health and development. Also, facial features for males and females are influenced by hormones during fetal development, and we have evolved to be attracted to certain features. For example, a man who developed with lower testosterone levels is usually more effeminate feature-wise, will have a lighter beard, etc., and this is a cue in female attraction.
So, there is an evolutionary component to facial features being important to attraction. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/18/2006 7:47:53 AM | | When we are born, a face is the first thing we see, we see smiles on faces, expressions of some sort on a face, we are genetically designed to be drawn to faces, there is not another part of our bodies that is so captivating and so readible, we have eyes that can say lots of things with no words at all, lips that can do the same, bone structure as well, faces can say if you take care of yourself, or if you don't, if you have had a easy life or a hard life, they give us a guess at age and status. Teeth can say alot too. So this is why I think people are attracted to faces be it a subconscience check list we do by design looking for the best mate. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/18/2006 8:19:08 AM | | Because the face houses our lips, eyes and ears, our most effective means of communicating? I'm hugely drawn to eyes and voices, and the way a person expresses themselves. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/18/2006 4:53:00 PM | Zentral nailed it:
"Faces are important because - other than the body as a whole - the symmetry of the face is an indicator of good genetics and good health and development" | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/18/2006 6:59:25 PM | You cannot answer this question entirely from a biological standpoint.
But, you can answer this question from a psychological standpoint.
We are attracted to faces because no two faces are the same. The bodies are the same(sure, the shapes and sizes are not, but the compoments/parts that make up the body are the same).
Women have breasts and vaginas. Men have penises and "insert what you please". These parts are the same in the gender to which you belong. But your faces are not the same. No two women look alike just like no two men look alike. They vary. Even identical twins have tiny mini differences in their faces which distinguishes them. Our brain notices these minute differences and details. So, we act upon this decision and get attracted to what's different from us, no matter how tiny the difference is.
This is why the world has many heterosexuals compared to homosexuals. Men and women are different from each other, so the brains of most people notices these differences and thus we get attracted to the opposite sex.
Do you think we'd be attracted to people if all of us had the same faces?
No!
Why not, you ask?
This is because variety is the spice of life. I would not want to be with someone whose face matched mine 100 %.
We see flaws in ourselves, so we look for partners whose good points make up our bad points. We look for genetically superior parteners.This is not a conscious decision. It's a sub-conscious one. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/19/2006 6:05:40 PM | I like some of the answers here. The symmetry aspect is one I've heard of before but I'm not sure I totally buy it.
See, the way I figure it, we must have developed our attraction to certain facial types before we were wearing any clothes. In that case, making sure there were two of everthing down the sides and one of everything down the middle was pretty easy to do without looking above the neck.
This all leads back to the basic argument of whether we like certain faces as opposed to others because of biology or for sociological reasons. I suppose it could be a mixture of both but I feel intuitively that the biological component must be the decisive factor. Either way, IF it's not as a means to get a better overall picture of somebody's health and genetic strengths, then what else can it be ? As I said, it's not that that isn't entirely plausible to me as the reason we focus on faces so much but rather that since we spent most of our history as humans looking at each other in the buff , it seems redundant at best. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/19/2006 6:27:45 PM | | Reproductive attraction is based on fitness and availability. Romantic attraction is spiritual. When it comes to the history of sexual attraction, a face isn't the end men were looking at. It wasn't until about the 13th century that ideals of romantic love sprouted in western culture. Since then the idea of what is considered attractive has changed back and forth. Generally speaking when someone likes what happens when their eyes meet, they will fall in love. The experience of recognizing someone else's recognition of your recognition of them, when mutual, initiates love. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/19/2006 7:27:05 PM | I have read that when a person is looking at the object of thier affection, the pupils dilate. You blink faster when you are attracted to someone, among other things like heart rate etc.
Think back to a time when you were really in love and just gazing into the eyes of your girlfriend, OP. Doesn't it just make you melt? I think the whole thing with faces is evolutionary. When we are babies, we cannot communicate verbally, and so look to the face for confirmation. You can tell by nothing but a picture if someone is mad or happy by the expression on thier face. If it is a face that is pleasant to look at, we are going to be more attracted to it. Even babies were studied and they were more drawn to attractive faces than unattractive faces. So, ok. I have written two paragraphs here and am not really sure if I contributed anything or not....but some things don't really have an explanation. It is what it is. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/19/2006 7:30:01 PM |
it really doesn't make alot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint that we look for partners with faces that attract us
Well, evidently a fair number of people in history have agreed with you, or else by now everyone would be beautiful due to the laws of genetics.
Evidently some of my forebears were among those who agreed...... | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/21/2006 12:07:15 PM | What do faces have to do with attractiveness ?
Well I think we pay way to much attention on looks.....But i'm guilty of it. The best way I can explain it is we are raised up to mate....and the face is one of the first things you see in people... Eye color, skin color, hair, lips..ect. So in our minds we are looking for features that would mix well with your own.... I don't know if this makes any sense to others ..But I think we can safely say that it's the reason why looks matter so much. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 9/21/2006 12:18:58 PM | what do faces have to do with attractiveness?
lol.... come on OP... this is kinda silly.
Faces are the expression and general health of someone.
With no faces....
we would also not be able to recognize each other. | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 10/14/2006 3:50:02 PM | | OP: For me its the eyes, the smile and if they treat me nice with respect, and we have a great time together, looks does have a way of telling me whether the other person takes care of themselves or not which is very important to me. What if people were not interested in you because of the way you look, your face, say. Im not saying you in particular, but how would that you make you feel. Do we want to put that on others! It would be judgemental. Everyone is born with a face, its just the way we look at it. Individual perspective I guess | |
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| Here's an interesting question for you.
Posted: 10/14/2006 6:24:02 PM | You did make a contribution Simmah
As I said, it's not that that isn't entirely plausible to me as the reason we focus on faces so much but rather that since we spent most of our history as humans looking at each other in the buff , it seems redundant at best.
humans have been wearing clothes for the duration, where climate required it. Earlier hominids no doubt are ugly to us, but sexual selection has been something that's been happening for millions of years. We can't forget that 100,000 years ago there were people that would compare to today's elite beautiful people. They found an ice mummy in Peru that I thought was gorgeous. Ya, I know that's disturbed.
As technologies exploded and language developed, it became necessary to pick up on subtle clues of verbal and nonverbal communication. Symmetry is assoc. w/ health, and even cultures that mis shape their heads do so symetrically. Intelligence, posture, attractiveness are something very well determined by facial features. There are more muscles to convey emotion and ideas than are practically necessary if communication weren't so important in our evolution.
The natural environment during evolution decides features like nose shape, and skin color. Sexual selection decides what features and accesories within a culture are desirable. You could put Claudia Shiffer in a time machine and she would be met with ooghs and ahs, as well as repugnant stares, depending on the time and place she landed.
Besides sexual selection there's some studies that say that cute children are treated better than children who aren't considered as cute (what ever that is). Maybe there is also a link between child mortality and facial characteristics. If this is the case then those children would have better reproductive chances. Practicing infantacide because of defomity, sex, or any other reason could be a selector as well. | |
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| What do faces have to do with attractiveness
Posted: 10/15/2006 4:14:52 AM | | Because our purpose in life is to survive and replicate to continue our gene pool and the more perfect someone is the more likely they are to survive and reproduce perfect children who will also be perfect and have more chance at surviving and replicating as well. But a personality will always win over a pretty face. | |
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