They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which means that different people possess different standards of beauty and that not everyone agrees on who is beautiful and who is not. This is the first stereotype or aphorism that evolutionary psychology has overturned. It turns out that the standards of beauty are not only the same across individuals and cultures, they are also innate. We are born with the notion of who’s beautiful and who’s not.
On the surface, the aphorism “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” appears quite reasonable. Many introductory college textbooks in sociology and anthropology include pictures of people who are considered to be beautiful in different cultures, and some of them look quite bizarre to the contemporary western eye. However, evolutionary psychological research has overturned this common assumption and widespread belief.
Within the United States, both East Asians and whites, and whites and blacks agree on which faces are more or less beautiful. Cross-culturally, there is considerable agreement in the judgment of beauty among East Asians, Hispanics, and Americans; Brazilians, Americans, Russians, the Aché of Paraguay, and the Hiwi of Venezuela; Cruzans and Americans in Saint Croix; white South Africans and Americans; and the Chinese, Indians, and the English. In none of these studies does the degree of exposure to the western media have any influence on people’s perception of beauty. How is it possible for people from such diverse cultures to agree broadly on who is beautiful and who is not?
It appears that people from different cultures share the same standards of beauty because they are innate; we are born with the knowledge of who’s beautiful and who’s not. Two studies conducted in the mid-1980s independently demonstrate that infants as young as two and three months old gaze longer at a face that adults judge to be more attractive than at a face that adults judge to be less attractive. Babies are wonderfully hedonistic and have no manners, so they stare at objects that they consider to be pleasing. When babies stare at some faces longer than others, it indicates that they prefer to look at them and find them attractive.
In the most recent version of this experiment, newborn babies less than one week old show significantly greater preference for faces that adults judge to be attractive. Another study shows that 12-month-old infants exhibit more observable pleasure, more play involvement, less distress, and less withdrawal when interacting with strangers wearing attractive masks than when interacting with strangers wearing unattractive masks. They also play significantly longer with facially attractive dolls than with facially unattractive dolls. The findings of these studies are consistent with the personal experiences and observations of many parents of small children, who find that their children are much better behaved when their babysitters are physically attractive than when they are not.
Even the most ardent proponents of the traditional view that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” must admit that one week (or even a few months) is not nearly enough time for infants to have learned and internalized the (supposedly arbitrary) cultural standards of beauty through socialization and media exposure. These studies instead strongly suggest that the broad standards of beauty might be innate, not learned or acquired through socialization. The balance of evidence indicates that beauty is decidedly not in the eye of the beholder, but might instead be part of universal human nature.
But what are the culturally universal and innate standards of beauty? What common features characterize beautiful faces? How are beautiful faces different from ugly faces? These questions lead us to the next stereotype to be overturned by evolutionary psychology: “Beauty is only skin deep.” I will talk about it in my next post.
译文:
【所有刻板印象都没错，除了……】二：“美在观者眼中”
人们说“美在观者眼中”，意思是不同的人对美有着不同标准，并不是所有人都会一致认为某人美或不美。这是进化心理学所推翻的第一个刻板印象或者谚语。事实证明，不但不同的个人和文化对美的标准都是一样的，这种标准还是与生俱来。我们一生下来就有谁美谁丑的观念。
从表面上看，“美在观者眼中”这句谚语似乎很有道理。许多社会学和人类学的入门级教科书中都列有不同文化中的美人照片，其中有些在当代西方人眼里简直是奇形怪状。然而，进化心理学研究却已打破了这个普遍观念和广泛信仰。
在美国范围内，无论是东亚人与白人，还是白人与黑人，都在评定哪张面孔更为美丽上达成一致。对以下人群跨文化研究证明他们具有非常一致的对美的评价标准：东亚人、西班牙人与美国人；巴西人、美国人、俄罗斯人、巴拉圭的阿切族人和委内瑞拉的希维族人；圣克罗伊土著和美国人；南非白人和美国人；中国人、印度人和英国人。在所有这些研究中，西方媒体的作用都没有达到影响人们对美的认识的程度。来自各种文化的人们怎么可能对谁是美女有着如此广泛的认同呢？
不同文化间共享同一美的标准，原因在于这是与生俱来的，我们生下来就知道谁漂亮、谁难看。八十年代中期的两个独立研究分别证明，两三个月大的婴儿注视那些被成人评定为漂亮面孔的时间要比被评定为不漂亮面孔的时间长。婴儿是绝对以快乐至上而不讲礼貌的，所以他们只会盯着让他们感到愉悦的东西看。当婴儿注视某些面孔的时间更长时，这就表明他们觉得这些面孔更漂亮，更能吸引他们。
在这个实验的最新版本中，出生不到一周的婴儿就对被成人评定为漂亮的面孔表现出更大的偏爱。另一个研究显示，比起戴难看面具的陌生人，12个月大的婴儿对于戴着漂亮面具的陌生人表现出更大的观察兴趣，与他们玩得更多，和他们打交道时也较少哭闹和退缩。同样的，他们和脸蛋漂亮的娃娃玩的时间也比和丑陋娃娃玩的时间长得多。这些研究的发现也与许多父母的亲身观察经验一致，他们会发现如果保姆长得更漂亮，小孩就会表现得更听话。
就算是对“美在观者眼中”这一传统观点最热心的支持者也得承认，一周（或者几个月）时间完全不足以让婴儿通过社会化和媒体影响学会（假定存在的）对美的文化标准。相反，这些研究极力认为美的广泛标准是与生俱来的，而不是通过社会化学习或获得的。一致的证据表明美决不是存在于观者眼中，而是人类普遍天性的一部分。
但这种天生的跨文化通用的美丽标准是什么呢？美丽的脸要有那些共同特征呢？美丽的脸和丑陋的脸的区别在哪里？这些问题将我们引入下一个被进化心理学推翻的刻板印象：“美色是肤浅的。”我会在下一篇文章中讨论这个话题。