Passage Five
How physically attractive someone is plays a major role in
determining your ideas about the desirability of developing an acquaintance or a
friendship with that person. Attractiveness seems to influence our perception of
others’ traits. Attractive people are judged to be more poised, sociable,
independent, interesting, exciting, and to have greater sexual warmth.
In one study concerned with the importance of physical attractiveness,
Karen Dion and her colleagues asked university students to rate a series of
photographs of both males and females as high, average, or low in physical
attractiveness. The photos were then passed onto another group of students, who
were asked to rate those pictures on a number of personality traits and to
predict future events in their lives. The results showed that, regardless of
whether the rater(评判人) was the same or the opposite sex as the subject,
attractive people of both sexes were rated as having more socially desirable
personality traits than less attractive people. In addition, attractive people
were predicted to have greater personal happiness and more prestigious future
occupations than less attractive people.
These impressions of
beautiful people do not suddenly appear during adolescence. As early as age 4 or
5, attractive children are more popular with their peers than their unattractive
counter parts. Adults also form more favorable impressions of attractive
children. In one study, women read a description of an aggressive act performed
by a 7-year-old child. The description was ac companied by a photograph of
either an attractive child or an unattractive one.. When the women were asked to
describe the child whose picture they had seen, they characterized the
unattractive child as bratty(讨厌的), selfish, and antisocial. The attractive child
was likely to be excused for aggressive acts because these were assumed to be
deviations(偏离) from the youngster’s usual behavior.
Attractive
people are apparently not unaware of their effect on other people. Being
attractive may help determine the way that people actually behave as well a show
they are perceived. Attractive males are more assertive(武断的) than less
attractive males. They also have less fear of rejection and have more of their
social interactions with females than with males. Attractive females are not as
assertive as females who are less attractive, but both groups of women have an
equal number of social interactions.