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Posted on: May 24, '08

The Beauty Context

(This post is not very educative or humorous..just the rambling of an idle mind)

I have always wondered if all of us have the same perception of beauty. It’s not the “eye of the beholder” thing, but the issues connected with the race, nationality and culture of the beholder and the object beheld. For example, would Indians find a Miss China as beautiful as the Chinese themselves? I am speaking here only about feminine beauty and of the face. Is there a magic face that is considered beautiful all over the world? Are large eyes universally considered beautiful? Or how about thick lips ?

I though one way of checking this out was to conduct the following experiment. Take face pictures of beauty contest winners or film-stars from countries like India, China, Japan, Uk, France Russia, Indonesia, USA, Brazil, etc. Basically a selection of countries covering the major ethnic groups of the whole world. Then ask a group of Eskimos to select a picture of a beautiful Eskimo woman. Similarly from other tribal groups such as the Aborigines from Australia the Maoris from NZ, the Red Indians, the European Gypsies, the Indian Todas and Lambadis and so on. This covers the minority ethnic groups. So let’s say we now have 30 pictures.

Next select 30 people (men or women who could be the same people that selected the pictures) from these groups and ask them to rate the pictures on a scale of 1 to 10. The scores would tell us if beauty is a shared perception or if it is not a shared perception.

But there is a problem. In fact 2 problems. For the experiment to be authentic, statistics needs that the people who select pictures and the people who rate them, should be un-corrupted representatives of their ethnic group. Now there are 2 problems with this. How does one find “unbiased” selectors and unbiased judges? By unbiased I mean people whose beauty perceptions have not been modified by influences from other cultures.

First, thanks to human migrations in the last several thousand years, genes have been pretty freely mixed about, destroying the concept of “pure” regional beauty. India is a very good example. In India we are a mix of Caucasian, Mongoloid and Negro races ourselves. (see footnote) . We therefore have very few mainstream communities who are racially “pure”. So this is the historical bias, and applies not only to India but to many other countries. For a quick look at human migration see this very interesting link

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/

Second is the bias due to cultural interactions in modern times. This has been specially magnified with the arrival of satellite television and the dominance of white-culture (read American / European) in our media in India. Among the educated Indian middle class, the perception of beauty is very heavily influenced by the Greek concept. This is especially strong in ‘English-medium” Indians.

I m hoping someone will conduct this experiment. Or maybe someone already has. Finally, could the findings be put to some use? Would advertisers be able to create a single campaign with one face that can be used all across the world?

Footnote: According to a widely accepted theory in anthropology, there are three major races. These are the Caucasian, the Mongoloid and the Negro. A very large percent of the world population (say 90 percent) is covered by these three races or a mix of these three. In India the closest examples of the undiluted races are Kashmiris (Caucasian) , people from the north east (mongoloid) and the tribal groups from South India and Andaman islands (negroid).

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Latav2063 said:
It would be a miracle if THE beautiful face could be found for beauty does lie in the eyes of the beholder and perceptions of beauty vary..an interesting and thought provoking blog.
Thanks EM4T ji for sharing this.

June 06, '08

BrainyBakra said:
Its all in the eye of the beholder.

Shakosh, are you listening?

Nice post !!

June 03, '08

oliveintl said:
very interesting BLOG.... but if beauty is not so easy to define... why don't we go the reverse way and choose the ugliest first.....

June 03, '08

daisyann26 said:
nice to know

June 03, '08

earmarkedfortrouble said:
Welllll....1st of all; yee bee a member since 2006 and not visible 2 Mee's blind eye so far????
As also U write UR self 2 be Panchvi fail and writes about ANTHROPOLOGY???? Daal mei kuchh toh GHOR kalaa hai!!!!
Now komming 2 this blob here; Aiye kno knots how 2 konduct kno kinda experiments; just use the most SCIENTIFIC METHOD of zem all in komming 2 results of zee most komplikated of researchs; AND that bee flip a koin; with pre-dermined options on Heads or Tails; ON landing of zee koin; after ceeing which side bee up; just decide on zee reverse!!!!
That bee that!!!!
AS also all women below 40 years bee a 'Beti' bee 2 mee here(As analyzed in one of mee blobs; replaced by a 'DUH' now; SAD); YET itt seems 2 bee a 'LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT' wid one kalled 'SALTANATT' here!!!!
That bee what beauty is as far as Mee is koncerned.....
GGGRRRRRRIIIINNNNNNNN

June 03, '08

IN_MY_BOX said:
I do think that more than anything it is the press media that tells us /shows us what they think we should be looking at when we think off beauty,
To many ppl are afraid to say what atracts them to someone, Mybe becorse they dont want to be seen as odd,

June 01, '08

sriangood said:
Has any one seen the program "The naked science" on National Geographic. It was very intersting and addressed the issue being discussed here.

Their conclusions are reflected in some of the comments. Shomeonly has basically given the crux.

A very good blog.

May 31, '08

King-Bulls-Ring said:
Have you heard of the term 'collective psychology'?
Centuries after centuries, millenum after millenium, group of humans followed a pattern and it became 'norm' in due course. Then every new thing is 'compared' to that 'benchmark norm' and rated accordingly.
Beauty is just one such thing. Any kind of belief, including religions and faiths are all based on collective psychology.
Its also a belief, inculcated over centuries, embedded deep in our minds, and probably written into our Genes (which scientists only believe but, yet to prove).

May 28, '08

chithrajust said:
well--------------beauty too, is culture specific! mmm, while most of what you have said reads true, i'd still make a guess that 'big eyes' and 'thick lips' are found appealing across the globe!

thought provoking, as many have said, but then, why bother in all this summer heat? just sit back and enjoy the beauty the world has on offer guys! ogling has been made official these days!!! ha haaaaaa

May 28, '08

Bharathselvan said:
providing an insight into races and beauties. genrally many men like skinny laides and lean ones are exceptions. beauty depends on also whether one likes the person or not

May 27, '08

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