THE “STATICS” OF BEAUTY AND THE “DYNAMICS” OF ATTRACTIVENESS

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A little riddle embarrasses those taken up with the issue of attractiveness. It is well known since long ago that people with ugly faces not rarely seem to others quite nice, while those with regular (“canonical” – beautiful or handsome) features rather often do not enthuse. What is the matter?

It is a box which opens of itself. Almost a century back, the psychologist Perrin conducted an interesting research among students. They reported which traits were considered by them attractive or repulsive. It had been found out that physical features, especially related to the sex, played the crucial part. But, at the same time, the “static” qualities such as beauty or ugliness were subordinate to “dynamic” ones – expressive behavior, gentle temper, grace of manners, social merits, personal habits, etc.* To put it simpler, the physical attractiveness depends on not so much features or figure as behavior. Consequently, it is no less acquired than predestined. Sure, the possession of static beauty makes the mastering and appropriation of attractive qualities by far easier. However the key value belongs to the person’s own wish and his readiness to cultivate the virtues he already enjoys, albeit in a rudimentary shape.

Hence three simple inferences can be made:
  • The famous incredible stories of love like that of beautiful Angelica for maimed count de Peyrac are not an unsolvable paradox, but a mere illustration of the nature of human perception;
  • People considering themselves deprived of beauty may keep their pecker up, as they always have a chance to get ahead of the beautiful women and handsome men with ugly souls, or those too sluggish to change their manners and habits;
  • When attempting to solve a riddle not always one needs to devise a new theory; sometimes it is enough to rummage the results of previous researches that have eluded the public’s heed and remained on the fringes of scientific mind, in order to find the ground for a reasonable explanation of “unexplainable” phenomena.

* Perrin F. A. C. Physical Attractiveness and Repulsiveness // Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1921. Vol. 4. P. 203 – 217.

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