The Evolution of Beauty

Attractiveness. Beauty seems like something that has an obvious selective advantage. We are attracted to beautiful people, hence we are most likely to have sex with them (or choose them as our reproductive partners) hence beautiful people are expected to have more children.

Health. Humans also find healthy-looking people to be beautiful, hence one expects that genetic predisposition to illnesses would be weeded out, not just because they killed their bearers, but also because they made them less attractive to potential mates.

Fertility. Many of the elements of beauty, e.g., low waist-hip ratio in women, are also signs of fertility. Inasmuch as beautiful people do tend to possess these features, they are also expected to be more fertile; yet another reason why beauty ought to increase.

Are there factors working against beauty? At first, I couldn't think of any, but I've managed to come up with such a list.

Supermodel Syndrome. Supermodels often claim that men are too afraid to approach them. It is conceivable that people might not try to obtain what they believe to be unattainable, although I'm not sure how powerful a selective force this is.

Jealousy. Beautiful people are attractive. Hence, they are in demand and may be more likely to be unfaithful. Hence, they may be perceived as potentially risky mate choices ("What if he runs away with one of all these women that like him?")

Female protection. Child-birth is a risky business, especially for women. It is conceivable that men may have avoided getting their prettiest wives pregnant too often, for fear of losing them.

Elite Dissolution. Since beauty is a good, it probably tends to be concentrated more in the higher social strata; powerful people can choose beautiful mates. But elites are unstable and are dissolved through revolution, migration, or war.

Elite Feminization. Powerful men tend to marry beautiful women. The most beautiful women are the most feminine ones. This probably results in a trend towards feminization of the elite - which may facilitate its dissolution through internal or external pressure.

It would certainly be interesting to objectively compare different ethnic groups, social groups, and races in terms of beauty. That could be done by asking a large and varied panel of judges rate randomly chosen members of different populations. It could also be done by direct measurement of things that are known to be considered beautiful, such as Waist-to-Hip ratio in different groups.

PS1: I have some ideas as to the role that race has played in the evolution of beauty. I strongly suspect that races are at least partially the result of the (probably unconscious) esthetic striving of populations. A racial ideal emerges as a reference point that identifies a population, distinguishing it from foreigners; as such it becomes desirable and is positively selected, furthering its presence in the population in a feedback loop.

PS2: The correlation (positive or negative) between beauty and intelligence needs to be investigated as well. There may be a common factor between the two, inasmuch as they are both influenced by health (in the general sense). There may also be some negative dependence, although more thought and empirical data has to be put into this matter.

Posted by Dienekes at April 16, 2003 04:51 PM | PermaLink