PRETTY WOMAN- will you marry me??

Beauty has shaped history, politics and countries in ways unimaginable. Cleopatra, Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe are known till date for their exceedingly good looks. Hollywood make over movies turning ugly duckling into swan top the list of rom-coms.

One truth that guides human race since eternity is our desire to look beautiful. We groom ourselves to varying degrees to look good.

Grooming has a very direct role in evolution. In one of my earlier posts called "No country for the average man" I discussed in detail about our innate need to look our best. Biologically it boils down to our need to attract the most potential mate.

But what about beauty? Does that have a genetic basis? It sure must have. It is a physical attribute and like any other physical attribute it must be coded by some genes. However to unravel this mystery we need to extrapolate our journey from physical to psychological. Physical beauty is perceived by a psychological angle. Our brain tells us whether the person we are seeing is pretty or not. Hence to understand the biological basis of beauty we need to understand "perception of beauty".

What is it that comes across as beautiful to us? Is there an evolutionary role play here? Do our genes fool the brain into perceiving something as pretty? Is there a checklist to beauty?

Now I say that there must be some rules to beauty because a beautiful person is usually considered beautiful by majority. E.g. majority of us agree that Marilyn Monroe was pretty. This means that 99% of the “brains” perceive her as pretty. Biologically it indicates that "perception of beauty" pathway is somewhat ubiquitous. So what is this pathway then?

A lot of research has gone into how the brain responds to physical attractiveness. In an experiment where babies were shown faces, it was seen that babies spent more time gazing at pretty faces. Babies were a perfect model to study as they are not conditioned culturally. Also since only faces were being shown, no chance of subconscious input of information in form of olfactory pheromones was meddling with decision making. Hence, it was concluded that beauty in fact had an evolutionary basis as complete newborns could identify beautiful faces from a pool of faces shown to them with ranging level of attractiveness.

Structural decoding of these “pretty” faces identified by the babies has led to a whole new area of research called facial aesthetics. Last two decades has seen a great deal of study being done in this direction. So what is it that the babies liked in the beautiful faces?

Facial symmetry

Photo courtesy:  A.C.Little et al, Facial attractiveness: evolutionary based research

Which of the two faces you find more attractive above? a or b?

99% of us will call face “A” as more attractive. And that is because of facial symmetry. Face A is a vertically symmetric face i.e. if you draw a line through the nose of this face vertically to divide it into two halves; each half is a mirror image of the other. Non-scientifically speaking, the eyes are set equally apart from the nose, the nose is not tilted to one side and the lips are equidistant from the midline.

Face “B” is the same person. However, using computer graphics, his face has been skewed and made asymmetrical. On seeing closely, the nose is bent to one side, the eyes are not shaped or distanced equally from the nose and the right side of the lips is dragged out.

Though these changes seem subtle but our brain perceives them immediately and tells us that face “A” is more attractive.

Averageness

Going back to the baby gazing experiment, it was seen that babies stare more at composite of images rather than one face image. If a facial image was made by superimposing many faces, the babies stared at that resultant face more.

This is called averageness. It doesn’t mean the looks of the person is average. It means that facial structures that are an average of many faces are more attractive.

Photo courtesy:  A.C.Little et al, Facial attractiveness: evolutionary based research

Face “A” is made by superimposing three faces. Face “b” is made by superimposing shapes of nine faces. Hence, we find B more attractive than A. Face “c” is made by superimposing not only shapes but also facial color of nine faces. Hence it is the most beautiful among the three.

Secondary sexual characters

More feminine faces with smaller nose, narrower chin and high cheekbones give rise to a pretty face. Similarly in men, more masculine features like broader jawline and prominent brow ridge make for a more desirable man.

 Photo courtesy:  A.C.Little et al, Facial attractiveness: evolutionary based research

Face “b” has been made more feminine/masculine from their face “A” counterpart. It also shows that more feminine/masculine features are considered more beautiful in general.

These three rules are not to give rise to “Laws of Shallowness”.  Equation for beauty! How vain is that! However, these laws have evolutionary significance. That’s why the babies are choosing them.

Perfect genes give rise to perfect symmetry. Hence individuals with perfect symmetry have healthier and sturdier genes. This would mean that choosing such people as your mate would allow these sturdy genes to be passed onto your offspring.

Averageness of looks arises from the fact that the individual has almost all alleles of genes present in the population. S/He has the maximum chance of having genes of resistance to diseases and parasites prevalent in that population. Again, good choice for a mate.

Secondary characters like pinched nose or thinner chin arise in women due to higher estrogen level. And estrogen is directly proportional to the fecundity of the female. She is most likely to give you healthy offsprings. And many numbers of them! Good choice, once more!

So, as in all my posts, I rest my case again. All social beliefs (good or evil) are a result of our genes controlling us to give rise to healthy offspring. And beauty, which most morals speak against, is one such thing.

Billions of dollars worth cosmetic industry is thriving on it. The fashion industry is making fortunes off it and so is Bollywood and Hollywood.

I find it best not to fight my evolution. So I will not live in a genetic gut feeling vacuum. However, though I cant control what my genes wish me to pass on to my offspring, I do have control over one very important aspect of evolution. Thought evolution.

Recently a lot of research has gone into the psychology of personality attractiveness for mate selection. A person whose personality we find magnetic seems to be our choice of mate selection. The classical beauty might force us to croon our neck for a minute extra to get his/her glimpse in a subway but the longer terms selection of a mate has many psychological aspects to it.

Personality, self-esteem, happy temperament play equally important roles in humans’ mate selection. And the good news is that recent scientific studies have shown preliminary data on how attributes like a smiling face are translated by our genes are “good future parent”. Hence what i can surely do is focus on my daughter's personality development, intellectual skills, self esteem and happiness quotient

Thus, while on one hand I do support the anti- Fair and Lovely cream campaign; I feel genetically you cant deny what beauty does to you. Hence no matter how evolved you might feel you are socially; the matrimonial will still read “Gori, beautiful, and thin” for a very long time to come!