Ugly people have their advantages. They value praise more, are less dependent on their appearance, value kindness, are more affable and less susceptible to intimidation.
Better to be beautiful, and not vice versa, isn't it? However, scientific studies indicate that the least attractive people value praise more, are less dependent on their appearance, and value kindness. They are friendlier and less likely to be intimidated.
The debate about the influence of appearance on human behavior has been going on for a long time. Already in the IV century BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle uttered his famous aphorism: "physical beauty is better than any letter of recommendation." Nevertheless, the facts indicate that the least attractive people - and this includes the author of this article, who will further allow himself to speak in the first person - can succeed even in areas that are exclusively for the beautiful. Three centuries after Aristotle, in the 1st century BC, Cleopatra conquered Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, despite the fact that her external data were far from the standards of beauty of that time. On a coin recently discovered during excavations, she is depicted as, apparently, she looked: a strongly protruding chin, a protruding forehead, thin hair, bags under the eyes, a hooked nose and an enlarged thyroid gland.
On the one hand, praise for external beauty is rather ephemeral, since beauty itself is short-lived. Compliments are just a set of hackneyed expressions, while love for a person presupposes certain inner qualities that persist throughout life. Therefore, admiration for physical beauty, which may disappear in a few years, is not taken seriously.
And we, less attractive people, on the contrary, are noticed more quickly when we improve our appearance. The system of cognition of the environment works according to the principle of comparison: it reveals only new, and not permanent, signs. And therefore, an ugly, but self-conscious person is more likely to attract attention than a handsome person who is always doing well.
In this case, it was not the connection with the memory itself that played the role. When participants in the experiment recalled photographs with beautiful faces, they associated them with positive feelings. Almost all studies on the influence of beauty, first of all, take into account the fact that we remember with great pleasure outwardly attractive people. But experiments like the one carried out at the University of Jena indicate that this does not happen very often, since in many cases the memories were simply forgotten.
What is more important: to be remembered in a positive way or remembered for a long time? If you follow the well-known expression “let them talk about you, even if it’s bad,” then in many areas the main thing is to leave a mark, no matter which one, positive or negative. There are a large number of actors, salespeople, TV presenters and ladies' men whose success is due to the fact that they have a memorable face: perhaps imperfect, but effective. Over the years, this effect manifests itself even more: when external data begin to lose their meaning, it becomes much more important what distinguishes you from others, the mark that you leave in others.
The effect was so noticeable that in many media articles about this experiment appeared under headlines such as "Beautiful women can pose a threat to the health of men." The results of the above study turned out to be very revealing, because, as Alicia Salvador, one of those who led the experiment, reminded us, cortisol levels increased significantly, since they were not models, but ordinary students. Undoubtedly beautiful, but these were ordinary girls who participated in our experiment."
In everyday life, this fear of beauty is common. Few are trying to get to know young men and women with extraordinary external data. Although it is believed that such shyness affects, first of all, insecure people, researchers of these problems remind: in matters of courtship, most people experience self-doubt, and this fear deprives attractive people of a large number of chances. The feeling of anxiety caused by beauty can go to an extreme: in clinical psychology, a special term has even appeared to denote this phenomenon: venustraphobia
There is one more unpleasant news for beauties and handsome men. In these issues, we usually focus on our target group, from a young age we develop aesthetic techniques with the help of which, we think, we can achieve success, considering that the most attractive people are not available to us. By the way, with a beautiful friend / girlfriend you feel much more constrained at the disco. It is much easier to go with someone who has more modest external data than ourselves.
The results, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, confirmed the hypothesis that couples with varying degrees of attractiveness, men and women, had greater dedication and loyalty from those who were less attractive. In any case, this is how the other side perceived it. So we, ugly, are trying to somehow compensate for the lack of attractiveness with positive aspects in our behavior, respect for our loved one.
