Many of us would love to be more attractive or be more beautiful than what we are. It is what many multi-billion dollar industries are based upon. However new studies may suggest that your good looks may in fact be holding you back in the workplace and in other areas of life. It may even be the reason you are still single!
Many of us assume that beauty gives people a pass in life, people are kinder to them, give them more attention and are definitely more likely to want relationships with them, but this isn’t necessarily the case. A study led by psychologist Maria Agthe looked at physical attractiveness and applications for university scholarship positions. It found that male evaluators were unimpressed by male handsomeness and female evaluators actually penalised women for their beauty.
It is suggested by the psychologist that humans see opposite-sex individuals as both opportunities and threats. Opportunities to have relationships with them, and threats to their own status in a group. Therefore, good-looking people will often be ostracised, particularly by their same-sex superiors.
In the second part of the study, Agthe and her team found that while good-looking evaluators did not evaluate good-looking applicants harshly, average-looking or below-average looking evaluators did. Clearly backing up the competition theory.
Not only may you be held back in forming a romantic relationship due to being good-looking, your relationships may also be shorter and less satisfying than those of our less aesthetically pleasing brethren. A further study carried out by Christine Ma-Kellams of Harvard University, looked at physical attractiveness and marriage outcomes over a 30-year period. It found a strong correlation between the level of divorce and how good-looking each of the partners were. They also found that celebrities who were judged to be more attractive were likely to have more short-term relationships and marriages.
What may be happening, according to the research, is that in relationships, people begin to block out thoughts of others who they deem attractive. However, those who were better-looking did this to a far-lesser degree. Perhaps those who are not the paragon of beauty are simply happier with what they have and therefore begin to more appreciate those that have chosen to make a life with them.
There is an upside though, if you are feeling down about being single, just remember – you may just simply be far too good-looking!
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