Does Facial Appearance Matter?
Babies. Babies as young as three months strongly prefer attractive
mums to unattractive mums (Samuels
1985). Attractive babies receive more affection and attention from there
parents and other adults, and are more likely to grow up to be well balanced
adults themselves.
Children. Children grow up to believe that heroes are good
looking, heroines are beautiful, and bad people are ugly. These
stereotypes remain with us all our lives.
Teenagers. Although they may not admit it, young teenagers are more concerned about their appearance than their relationships with their parents, their siblings, their friends, their work, or their pastimes. Handsome cadets achieve higher rank by the time they graduate (Ackerman 1990).
Criminals. A judge is more likely to give an attractive criminal a shorter sentence. Unattractive people are more likely to become criminals, four out of five females committed for aggressive offenses were rated as unattractive (Cavior 1974). Criminals who have their appearance improved by facial surgery are less likely to return to prison. (Lewison 1974)
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Paula, aged 14 |
Paula, aged 16 |
She was told she would need to have her jaws cut and repositioned, but was treated with orthotropics (growth guidance) instead. |
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Intelligence. Good looking people are likely to be perceived as more
intelligent. Surprisingly good looking people are actually found to be more
intelligent, possibly because they receive more attention at school. They
are also likely to get better jobs, rise to higher positions, and earn more
money (Bull
1988).
Status. You will be considered to have higher status if
your partner is good looking than if they are plain (Hartnett
1973).
Personality. Although many people claim to judge personality
by the shape of a face, most studies have dismissed this possibility.
However, one study (Squires
and Mew 1981) of long and short faced people concluded that
the former tended to be less conventional while the latter were
more so.
Does Beauty Lie in the Eye of the Beholder? The answer is
no, research has shown that we all tend to put peoples appearance
into approximately the same rank order, regardless of their race,
colour, or background. (Cross
1971). Recent research (Mew
1993) would suggest that while we generally agree about who
is very good looking, opinions differ when we are considering the
less good looking who populate the real world around us. In fact
we tend to prefer people who look like ourselves.
Can orthodontic treatment change faces? While it is certainly
possible to damage a face, most orthodontists do not believe it
is possible improve the shape of the face with appliances. This
may be true with traditional treatment but it does seem that Orthotropics
can achieve changes in facial appearance, as well as oral posture.
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