Physical beauty characterizes attractive facial features, facial expressions, physical qualities of the body, bodily expressions, and grooming. These are the major groups of appearances that people pay attention to while they are communicating with others. Physical beauty is not only aesthetically pleasing. It can also be a signal of other qualities in a mating partner.
Universal Standards of Physical Beauty
The physical beauty of a person’s appearance is an objective reality that artists and scholars have explored for centuries. Among those qualities are symmetry, proportion, balance, and others. Artistic and literary works have depicted many cultural traditions of beauty across times and cultures (e.g., Ahmad, 1994; Feldman & Gordon, eds, 2006; Ishigami & Buckland, 2013; Prettejohn, 2005).
The physical beauty of some qualities of appearance is universal. People of different races, nationalities, ethnicities, and ages consistently perceive some faces as more attractive than others. Cross-cultural studies have revealed that people recognize such attributes as symmetry, facial averageness, sexual dimorphism, and skin homogeneity as universally attractive (see for review, Fink & Neave, 2005; Vashi, 2015).
Do People Perceive Physical Beauty Similarly Across Cultures?
Researchers found substantial cross-cultural consistencies in the perception of facial attractiveness in many studies. Multiple studies found that the cultural ideas of an attractive face vary relatively little across such cultural samples as African Americans and European Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Taiwanese (Cunningham et al., 1995).
It seems like the ideal of a pretty woman’s face is quite similar across cultures. For example, people perceive the faces of women as attractive when they have
“high eyebrows, widely spaced large eyes with dilated pupils, high cheekbones, small nose, a narrow face with thin cheeks, large smile, full lower lip, small chin, and fuller hairstyle.”
(Cunningham et al., 1995, p. 275).
People across many societies mostly agree on who is attractive and who is not. For instance, neonate qualities, raised eyebrows, and a big smile are attractive across many cultures.
Many societies place especially high expectations on female physical beauty. According to evolutionary studies, attractive appearance indicates health, youth, and thus female fertility. Among those qualities of appearance are such cues to health as symmetrical features, a low ratio of hips to waist, clear and smooth skin, the absence of sores, full lips, white teeth, and lustrous hair (e.g., Langlois et al. 2000; Sugiyama, 2005).
Is Physical Beauty the Same All over the World?
Similarities in the qualities of face and body attractiveness across cultures seem surprising because different racial and ethnic typologies of facial and body features are quite distinct. Despite their obvious physical differences, Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, and Whites have similar physical beauty standards. It is difficult to believe, isn’t it? These questions still await deeper and more detailed exploration.
However, other attributes and standards of physical attractiveness vary across cultures and across time. For example, the appearance of sexual maturity and expressive qualities varies to some degree, while hairstyle, weight, and grooming vary highly across cultures, depending on local ecology and fashion (Cunningham et al., 1995; Fallon, 1990; Langlois et al. 2000).
How Does Physical Beauty Look Across Cultures?
The stereotypes of attractiveness differ across societies and times (see for review, e.g., DeMello, M. (2007, 2013).
The prototypes of attractive appearances evolve depending on ecological, social, and cultural contexts. Therefore, men and women look good in a particular society if they fit the relevant cultural prototypes of what types of body, posture, and adornment are beautiful (Osborn, 1996).
What is beautiful is culturally good
Thus, cultural stereotypes of beauty really do make differences. As noted elsewhere, “what is beautiful is culturally good” (Wheeler & Kim, 1997). For example, the ideals of certain patterns of body size vary.
It is worth noting that ideal body sizes differ less between Western and non-Western societies than between socioeconomic groups (Swami, 2015).
The Cultural Ideal of a Thin Body
In recent decades, modernization—often equated with westernization—has affected the cultural evolution of the ideal body size. Cultural shifts in the minds of urban populations of middle and upper socioeconomic status have resulted in the prevalence of the thin ideal (Swami, 2015). Modernization and westernization promote a thin ideal in many countries.
The Cultural Ideal of Skin Beauty
The cultural stereotypes of skin beauty also vary in different parts of the world. For example, in America, many people see tanned skin as beautiful. The images of bronzed celebrities are common.
Different from this cultural stereotype, people in many parts of East Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, perceive white skin and a milky, smooth complexion as beautiful and associate these qualities with youthfulness. A milky and smooth complexion is perceived as attractive.
In India, fair skin and a lighter complexion are considered significant signs of beauty. The association between fair skin and beauty is definite in that culture.
The Cultural Ideal of Facial Beauty
Despite the cross-cultural similarity in the qualities of facial beauty, which I noted above, in some societies, men may perceive women with a large chin, a large nose, and small eyes as attractive, while in others, they may be considered unattractive. For example, people on Mangaia, the island in the South Pacific Ocean, think that attractive Mangaian girls have:
“a smiling face, shiny black hair, small eyes ‘like those of a pigeon,’ with small breasts, large hips and round cheeks; her lips should be neither too everted nor too thin, and she should have skin that is neither black nor white”
(Marshall, 1971, p. 124)
Who Is Attractive and Who Is Not? It Depends…
Beautiful women are physically attractive and have desirable bodies and faces. Do men always want them for mating and dating? Do they always love them? Yes, objectively, they may rate them attractive but select another one that is more beloved to them.
“Genetic factors cause sugar to be highly palatable but that does not prevent individuals from controlling their sugar intake.”
(Cunningham et al., 2002, p. 276).
“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”
We certainly like beautiful people, but we don’t necessarily love them. We love someone, not because he or she is beautiful. We rather see him or her as beautiful because we love him or her. In many cases, it is true that “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”
How we perceive people—attractive or not—depends on our moods (see for review, Cunningham et al., 1995).
Being in an optimistic, neutral, or pessimistic mood, we can see others in positive or negative ways. A passionate lover sees the world brighter, while he or she perceives the loved one more romantically and idealistically than they actually are. The lover looks at the beloved and the relationship through “rosy filters.” The perception of shortcomings and flaws fades.
When we are in love, we are selective; we do not perceive other individuals of opposite sexes as beautiful as our beloved. We do not see other possible mates as attractive because we unintentionally downplay their beauty. They are good-looking but not beautiful.
According to studies, a lover who is in a romantic relationship evaluates highly attractive people of the opposite sex as less attractive. Such a lower rating works as a defensive mechanism that helps the lover guard his or her love for the current partner from other possible rivals (Simpson, Gangestad, & Lerma, 1990).
You can also be interested in the articles:
Genetic secrets of love attraction
Genetic diversity and love attraction
Why do we love good-looking people?
To males and females, how important is a mate’s physical attractiveness?