Skin Deep
Summaries of hypothetical crimes were given to judges, who were asked to choose the appropriate and fair legal sentences. One set of judges received no physical descriptions of the guilty party; the other received the same summary except the criminal was described as ‘attractive’ or ‘handsome’.
This slight change resulted in more lenient sentences across the board for the attractive criminals. The judges didn’t even need to see the man or woman.
I like this study because it proves something we all suspect: pretty people (generally meaning other people) have easier lives.
Beautiful isn’t necessarily good, and good isn’t necessarily beautiful — but if you’re going to spend five minutes trapped in an elevator with a stranger, which would you prefer?
The good news is that five minutes is all the advantage that the pretty people get. Well, maybe fifteen. Possibly even longer if viewed from far, but once you start interacting, talking and walking, it soon becomes irrelevant.
I don’t think I’m particularly profound — in fact, I’m downright shallow. Regardless, I’m not going to spend longer than fifteen minutes absorbed in the beauty of any timeless objet d’art, much less another human. I don’t have the concentration. I think I’m about average in this respect.
No, the most aggressively attractive person has at most fifteen minutes to physically dazzle in human interaction, then it’s down to personality and charm, intelligence and wit. And that’s how they’ll be judged for the rest of the time you’ll know them. Maybe you’ll have flashes when you suddenly remark how pretty they are, but it’s more of a pleasant surprise.
Granted, fifteen minutes of privileged treatment is a lot — there’s always someone new to dazzle. I can imagine it would be useful in bars, pretty much any service situation, job interviews, and apparently criminal sentencing. But as useful as being pretty might be, for the vast expanses of life between court hearings, one’s prettiness is irrelevant compared to one’s capabilities. That’s very reassuring.
I don’t consider myself pretty, and sometimes I can be hard on myself. That’s normal, especially among the beautiful (and during criminal sentencing). I don’t have the extreme form of deep-seated conviction of my own unattractiveness — that’s called body dismorphia. If you’re convinced that you’re always uglier than the people around you, you likely have a distorted view of yourself. This is something to talk to someone about — it’s not a nice way to live. Do something about it.
In conclusion, I exfoliated today using a packet of sugar (as recommended on the excellent What Not to Wear). It’s been five years since my last exfoliation, and I was surprised how much dead skin I actually took off. I could have made a second face with it!
Has anyone heard of the sentencing study and provide me a link? I hate vague writing with “a study exists…” or “experts say…” or “statistics prove that…”
Also, did you note my carefully chosen pronouns? This was inspired by a very attractive (and interesting and charming) person — but it goes back a few years and you don’t know who it is, even if you think you might.
GKarlsen
Holy Smokes!!!
I think that the 15 minutes bonus is actually pretty huge. True, you do have to back up your attractive wrapping paper by having something interesting in the box – but a lot of times getting someone to notice in the first place is crutial.
An analogy: it doesn’t matter how interesting the book is, if you can’t convince anyone to pick it up, it ain’t gonna sell.
Anyway, I know that I’m definitely guilty of this, I always assume that hugely fat people are stupid and lazy, basically I’m prejudice against them – though I do overcome it if they turn out to be good people (even if I’m not).
Sadly, physical appearance is all we have to go on until we actually meet people. Our genes would tell us that physical beauty is an indication of being a winner in the game of natural selection (life) – people are nicer to winners…
I’ve heard about a similar study where they showed photographs of attractive and ugly people to infants and found that the babies were noticeably more interested in the attractive people, suggesting (contrary to political correctness) that there is an objective standard of beauty and that it is not something that varies according to culture or is influenced by advertising. So to those people who say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I say science doesn’t agree!
I exfoliated today using a packet of sugar
I’m not even going to touch that one.
Of course, the fifteen minutes is enormous. It’s one thing when a more attractive person smiles their way to a first-class upgrade on the airline, and another when they get community service for the same crime you went to jail for.
Many people would give even much longer than fifteen minutes before the ‘wrapping paper’ is sacrificed to get at the ‘box’.
I guess my point is it’s less relevent to be superficially attractive when the most important parts of your life is spent with people that you interact with longer than fifteen minutes.
It’s a good point about picking up the book because you like the cover — which I do — but in practise, we just don’t have the opportunity to choose our daily contacts based on their looks. We generally get to know people in spite of their wrapping paper, not because of it.
It would be a sad, but pretty, life otherwise.
I forgot to mention that gkarlsen is the exception anyway. He dazzles us with five minutes of wit and brilliance, and then we just keep him around because he is so very pretty.
Also, study reveals: babies are stupid.
As usual, I think that everyone is right in their special own way. Personal attractiveness opens doors – that’s all – but that is really important.
The best comparison I can make is this: If you are the son of a famous rock star, then you absolutely get a chance to be a rock star too. If you’re good, then you’re in – and people will forget where you came from. But if you suck, then you still suck – and you won’t get anywhere (and people will laugh at you). But the key point is this: there’s people out there who would be good but don’t get their chance. The son of the rock star always does.
The same principle applies here. Attractive people get the breaks. They can run downhill. To get anywhere important, they still have to run, but it’s easier than running up a hill carrying a bag of bricks.
What’s this odd tinglingly heat I feel in my face?
Also, I agree that you shouldn’t trust babies – they are the most selfish beings imaginable – it’s always got to be all about them, them, them, and, as mentioned, they just ain’t that bright.
Experts say that statistics suggest a study was conducted…
I found a link to some interesting studies on attractiveness. It’s quite well done.
The conclusion is a bit depressing, however: “The more attractive the presented faces were, the more successful, content, friendly, intelligent, socialble, accessible, exciting, creative and busy the persons were estimated.”
I recommend the site, especially the conclusions.
Fat people are actually smarter than the norm. They spend so much time thinking and managing the lives of others that it leaves little time for exercising. At least, that is my current excuse.
60 minutes and Dateline have both done specials on ‘prettiness.’
This week I lied to a good-looking guy looking for an apartment in my building. I told him it was a nice place to live and neglected to mention the crazy amount of car break-ins the garage, the guy who tries to sell me crystal meth on my walk to work and the fact we suspect a prostitute lives down the hall.
So I guess life isn’t all easy for the handsome. They have to look out for fat people liars.
Wait a second, wait a second…
Is it the sugar or the exfoliating that you take issue with?
For god’s sake man, try it — it takes less than a minute, and it encourages new skin cell growth and elasticity. Once a week, and you can get everything you need from Starbucks for free.
Call me a peasant if you will (okay, okay, enough already) but “exfoliating” sounds like something they do to prisoners at Abu Ghraib.