World Works Differently for the Most Beautiful

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/moral-boundaries/202108/why-the-world-works-differently-the-most-beautiful

by lota-putty • 5 years ago

36 11 5 years ago

Rijek33• 5 years ago

I always had to work more to impress people in interviews than some of my better looking friends. Doubly so for dating, this should be no surprise people are biased towards genetic fitness as are all animals

SirIntruder• 5 years ago

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." - Lav Tolstoy

alecst• 5 years ago

Cutetilitarianism -- the philosophy of maximizing the world's total cuteness. The most ardent follower might be my ex girlfriend.

Tarsul• 5 years ago

the interesting follow up question would be: Are beautiful people more moral?

There certainly can be a reinforcement effect: If the world is nice to you, you are nice to the world. However, if you notice that the world is nice to you for no good reason (like your looks), you might abuse this, e.g. you take things for granted (e.g. people doing stuff for you) that you should not. However, I'd bet most studies that would try to find out if beautiful people are more or less moral, couldn't be reproduced since there are way too many things that might affect this.

lupire2• 5 years ago

You're conflating niceness with morality.

988747• 5 years ago

The author of the article clearly doesn't get it. They say "8- to 12-year-old children evaluate harms more severely when they are directed toward more attractive animals." and then tries to explain that with "beauty is pleasurable". Sorry, it has nothing to do with that.

We are genetically conditioned to be attracted to beauty, to equal beauty with health, and good genes. We choose beautiful mates in effort to maximize our children's chances of survival. The fact that we also like pretty animals, and everything else described in the article, is just a side effect of that.

vimacs2• 5 years ago

This comment is like saying to somebody explaining the increased rate of car crashes with people talking on phones as a consequence of divided attention as saying that has nothing to do with that and it's because we're genetically conditioned to only focus our conscious attention on one task.

Mechanics and second order effects matter. Reductionism is a useful conceptual tool but it isn't a good representation of wider reality because things are more than the sum of their parts.

You seem to be missing the fact that genetics are simply encoding the proteins and it is the biological feedback systems mediated by dopamine that are actually driving our actions.

pmdulaney• 5 years ago

I imagine that to be a stunningly beautiful young woman is similar to the experience of being a Hollywood celebrity. And not manifest sour grapes, but to slowly lose that beauty over time must be difficult.

jvanderbot2• 5 years ago

They "lose beauty" in the eyes of the static, 20 year old beholder. But to peers / in their age cohort, they will always be more beautiful than average. That can continue to help.

There's an age-centered / age-pass filter in most people's eyes anyway. Just about everyone older than, say, 40 is invisible (not a person) to an avg 20 year old. (Source: Was once 20, am now 40)

lupire2• 5 years ago

After high school, no one cares much about age cohort. There's no 40-50yr-old bracket at my job or in a political campaign or at a car dealership.

World Works Differently for the Most Beautiful

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