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Why is physical beauty so important in today’s society, especially in consumer marketing?

Psychology Today reports on the unethical aspects of beauty as it is represented in main stream media.  They report that facial symmetry has been shown to be the key determinant in our estimating of what is seen as beautiful and what’s not.

The article asks a simple yet poignant question, “If you were to set your sights, say, on a shopping mall, a fast-food restaurant (vs. a swanky one), an amusement park, or just out on the street, what percentage of the people around you would you label “truly beautiful?”

That is, individuals sufficiently attractive enough for a modeling agency. Five percent? 10 percent? Maybe 15?

To clarify, the article is referring more to facial appearance than overall physical attractiveness when they notate beauty. This is because faces are what people are drawn to and focus on the most  in interactions with other people.

Extremely attractive people are over represented in movies and TV, so that we might begin to entertain the illusion that they depict something much closer to the norm than is actually the case. The article goes on to ask, should we compare ourselves to these “model few”, or does doing so create a complex about our ordinary (specifically normal) looks even if it is subconscious?

Research by Anjan Chatterjee and his research team demonstrated that although certain physical aspects of beauty may be culturally influenced, there’s a high degree of cross-cultural accord (both with adults and children) as to what’s seen as beautiful. These findings provide compelling evidence that these aesthetic perceptions are “encoded” by what’s common in our biology—that finally our biases are determined by factors both out of awareness and universal.

They noted (Chatterjee et al), “A person’s attractiveness influences social interactions in ways that extend far beyond domains in which attractiveness per se [e.g., modeling] is directly relevant.” Or, to put it somewhat differently, facial beauty—as it’s automatically, or genetically, “computed” in our heads—steers us toward a favorable cognitive bias independent of a particular person’s educational or social history, past performance, or character.“

As the article points our we can see the practical power of beauty as well as its random distribution as unjust…

How do you see beauty?  Do you see beautiful people as receiving perks in life? If so, What are these perks?

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A new study has found that anger is the most influential emotion in online interactions.  These findings are from research by Beihang University  and acquired by looking at “Weibo” a Chinese social network similar to Twitter but with twice as many users.

Researchers looked at over 70 million “tweets” if you will over a six month period. Rage was the emotion that was most likely to spread across from this social media site. It could spark angry “tweets” up to 3 degrees of separation from the original source.

What does this tell us about social media, and why is it so much easier to rage at a screen than at a person?

According to USA Today, although this is really a study of the Chinese social media mindset there are some compelling parallels with the mindset of the Western Twitter community.

In a past blog on Hate Reading, we noted similar findings among Western social media sites from Twitter to Facebook, “Some research suggests that downward emotional comparisons can improve people’s well-being.”

“Some research suggests that downward emotional comparisons can improve people’s well-being.” – See more at: http://www.humintell.com/2013/10/hate-reading-on-social-networking-sites/#sthash.YHRmTuBr.dpuf

While it has been known that one person’s emotions can influence another’s feelings it is newly discovered and very interesting that the Internet has the ability to magnify negative emotions.

ate Reading, mostly of social media sites, provides us with “satisfaction from fury-fueled engagement with someone who should theoretically not provide it.” – See more at: http://www.humintell.com/2013/10/hate-reading-on-social-networking-sites/#sthash.YHRmTuBr.dpuf

Studies from  2004 noted that people act out more intensely and frequently online than they would in-person for obvious reasons.  USA Today goes onto note that new theories suggest that subconsciously talking on a computer can seem more like talking to ourselves.

It’s very difficult to link words on a screen with the reality that there’s a living breathing human being on the other end of the connection.

Do you have any Pertinent ideas about Anger and the Internet?
ate Reading, mostly of social media sites, provides us with “satisfaction from fury-fueled engagement with someone who should theoretically not provide it.” – See more at: http://www.humintell.com/2013/10/hate-reading-on-social-networking-sites/#sthash.YHRmTuBr.dpuf
ate Reading, mostly of social media sites, provides us with “satisfaction from fury-fueled engagement with someone who should theoretically not provide it.” – See more at: http://www.humintell.com/2013/10/hate-reading-on-social-networking-sites/#sthash.YHRmTuBr.dpuf
ate Reading, mostly of social media sites, provides us with “satisfaction from fury-fueled engagement with someone who should theoretically not provide it.” – See more at: http://www.humintell.com/2013/10/hate-reading-on-social-networking-sites/#sthash.YHRmTuBr.dpuf