Beauty and choosing a mate

Psychological research suggests that people generally choose mates with a similar level of attractiveness. The evolutionary theory is that by mating with someone who has similar genes, one's own genes are conserved. Moreover, a person's demeanor and personality also influences how others perceive his or her beauty.

In one study, 70% of college students deemed an instructor physically attractive when he acted in a friendly manner, while only 30% found him attractive when he was cold and distant. Indeed, when surveyed for attributes in selecting a mate, both males and females felt kindness and an exciting personality were more important in a mate than good looks. Thus, to a certain degree, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

Douglas Yu of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, agrees. "It's true by definition. Beauty is always judged by the receiver," he says. At the same time, he says in an email "there is inter-observer concordance, a measure of objectivity," so that individual perceptions of beauty, factoring in other characteristics such as personality and intelligence, can often be aggregated to form a consensus opinion. One of the offshoots of Yu's work in ethnobiology was a piece in Nature in 1998 that showed that the hourglass-body standard of beauty in women, previously thought to be `universally' preferred, was in fact likely swayed by advertising.