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WHAT  IS 

?BEAUTY 

.

The search for beauty spans centuries and continents. Paintings of Egyptians dating  

back over 4,000 years show both men and women painting their nails and wearing  

makeup. On the other side of the globe, the ancient Maya of Central America  

considered crossed eyes1 

 beautiful, and hung little balls between children’s eyes to  

develop this look. In 18th-century France, wealthy noblemen2 

 wore large wigs of long  

white hair to make themselves attractive. In cultures throughout the world, people have  

gone to extreme lengths to achieve beauty. 

Today, people continue to devote a lot of time and money to their appearance. According  

to a recent report, one out of three consumers globally say they are spending more  

money on beauty and health-care products than ever before. Worldwide, sales of makeup,  

dieting, hair- and skin-care products—as well as gym memberships and cosmetic  

surgery3 

—generate billions of dollars every year. And there is at least one good reason  

for the desire to be attractive: Beauty is power. Studies suggest that good-looking people  

make more money, get called on more often in class, and are perceived as friendlier. 

But what exactly is beauty? Trying to define it is difficult, and yet we know it when we  

see it—or so we think. “Beauty is health,” says one psychologist. “It’s a billboard saying,  

‘I’m healthy. I can pass on your genes.’” And our awareness of it may start at a very early  

age. In one set of studies, six-month-old babies were shown a series of photographs.  

The faces in the pictures had been rated for attractiveness by a group of college students.  

In the studies, the babies spent more time looking at the attractive faces than the  

unattractive ones

The idea that even babies judge appearance  

makes perfect sense to many researchers. In  

studies done by psychologists such as Victor  

Johnston at New Mexico State University and  

David Perrett at the University of St. Andrews  

in Scotland, men regularly showed a preference  

for women with certain features: larger eyes,  

clear skin, fuller lips, and a smaller nose and  

D 

chin. Another study suggests that women prefer  

men with large shoulders and a narrow waist.  

According to scientists, the mind unconsciously  

tells men and women that these traits—the full  

lips, clear skin, strong shoulders—equal health  

and genetic well-being. In other words, it’s a  

fundamental part of human nature to look for  

these qualities in a mate.

Not everyone agrees with this notion,  

however. “Our hardwiredness can be  

altered by all sorts of expectations— 

predominantly cultural,” says C. Loring  

Brace, an anthropologist at the University of  

Michigan. What is considered attractive in  

one culture might not be in another. Look  

in most Western fashion magazines, for example, and the women on the pages are  

thin. But is this the “perfect” body type for  

women worldwide? Douglas Yu, a biologist  

from Great Britain, and Glenn Shepard, an  

anthropologist at the University of California  

at Berkeley, say no. For them, what is  

considered beautiful is subjective and varies  

around the world. Yu and Shepard found in  

one study, for example, that native peoples in  

southeast Peru preferred shapes regarded as  

overweight in Western cultures. 

Take another example: In every culture,  

one’s hairstyle sends a clear message. In  

the Huli culture of Papua New Guinea,  

men grow their hair long as a symbol of  

health and strength. Teenage boys in this  

culture learn from a young age to style  

and decorate their hair—a behavior more  

commonly associated with the opposite  

gender in many cultures. It is also the men  

in this culture who are the objects of beauty.  

For certain festivals and celebrations, men

dress up and paint their faces. The more  

colorful a man is, the more masculine4 

—and  

attractive—he is considered. 

For better or worse, beauty plays a role in  

our lives. But it is extremely difficult to define  

exactly what makes one person attractive  

to another. Although there do seem to be  

certain physical traits that are considered  

universally appealing, it is also true that  

beauty does not always conform to a single,  

uniform standard. In the end, beauty really  

is, as the saying goes, in the eye of the  

beholder