Is beauty really in the 'eye of the beholder'? Yes, and here's why

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/cp-ibr092415.php

Public Release: 1-Oct-2015
Is beauty really in the 'eye of the beholder'? Yes, and here's why
Cell Press

Many of us have had the experience of disagreeing with friends or family about which celebrity is more attractive. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 1 show in a study of twins that those differences of opinion are mostly the result of personal experiences that are unique to each individual. In other words, even identical twins don't agree.

Of course, some aspects of attractiveness are pretty universal and may even be coded into our genes, the researchers say. For example, people tend to prefer faces that are symmetric. Beyond such limited shared preferences, however, people really do have different "types."

"We estimate that an individual's aesthetic preferences for faces agree about 50 percent, and disagree about 50 percent, with others," write joint leaders of this project, Laura Germine of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University and Jeremy Wilmer of Wellesley College. "This fits with the common intuition that on the one hand, fashion models can make a fortune with their good looks, while on the other hand, friends can endlessly debate about who is attractive and who is not."

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Comparisons between identical and non-identical twins allowed the researchers to estimate the relative contribution of genes and environments to face preferences. Prior studies of twins and families have shown that virtually every human trait--from personality to ability to interests--is to some large degree genetically passed down from one generation to the next. Indeed, the researchers even found this in an earlier study for another aspect of face processing: the ability to recognize faces.

In contrast, they now show that the origin of the "eye of the beholder" --the uniqueness of an individual's face preferences--is mostly based on experiences, not genes. Those experiences, moreover, are highly specific to each individual.

"The types of environments that are important are not those that are shared by those who grow up in the same family, but are much more subtle and individual, potentially including things such as one's unique, highly personal experiences with friends or peers, as well as social and popular media," Germine says.

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