Does beauty pay?



Does beauty really pay?

If you think about the real world today, most of the people who are successful or have a great career in the industry are usually good-looking people. We all have that preconceived notion that if someone looks great he or she would become successful someday. Beauty will likely help one achieve almost everything such as fame, an adequate job, and more. For short, beauty certainly matters in most aspects regardless of other factors.

The existence of alterverse on Twitter, the rise of entities such as beauty pageants, and the selective approach of institutions such as how flight attendants are chosen based on their physical psyche are clear manifestations of why beauty pays. Even to the extent where institutions are fair the generalization such as white is better, pointer nose is better, good looking are good people still brings so much premium to those individuals who possess good looks for instance. JH Langlois in his maxim of beauty articulated the different narratives of why beauty pays in the social reality. For instance, society is selective in terms of hiring people in their company, most industries choose those who are more appealing to them or how media constantly portrays beautiful as glass looking skin, symmetrical type of face, and the likes.

Averageness theory claims that faces are perceived as attractive when their facial configuration approximates the mathematical average facial configuration of the population. Conversely, faces that deviate from this average configuration are perceived as unattractive. A study suggests that the maxims we have as a positive gesture are most likely myths and not the reality: Beauty is more than just in the eye of the beholder; people do judge and treat others with whom they interact based on attractiveness; and, perhaps most surprisingly, beauty is more than just skin-deep.

However, beyond that there are external factors to consider, I met so many people who possess that white skin, almost symmetrical faces, and are tall but when I started talking to them all that physical beauty that they possess usually goes into a bubble. This means that beauty may vary for an individual and while society is giving us the standard of beauty, some factors usually alter this perception. For example, a long night conversation with someone, a good talk, same interests, socialization, and the likes are few points that perhaps change how we perceived people.

The effects of facial attractiveness in initial impressions and long-term conversations of strangers to actual interactions can affect how we see an individual. But this only goes for the individual level but on the societal aspect, beauty standards remain to social engineer people of what is beautiful and what is not. 


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