Lookism: Are You Pretty Enough for Success?

In the last decades, the fight against stereotypes and prejudices became entrenched trend in all developed countries. We, as a civilized society, seek to get rid of any discrimination, if there is a group of people that exposed to it. Perhaps, one of the oldest and most stable types of discrimination, which has been preserved to our days from ancient times, has a global character and covers all ages and social groups and will continue in the future, is Lookism- discrimination based on visual appeal.

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It is believed that attractive people get more privileges and concessions, and in general they are priced higher than people with plain appearance or with visible physical defects. You may think that this is ridiculous, in our modern and progressive society such banal stereotypes were deleted long ago, but research confirm the validity of this effect for attractive people.

For example, in the study Beauty is wealth: CEO appearance and shareholder value It has been proven that

• CEOs with an attractive appearance have a higher payment, increase investment in the company and increase stock prices more effectively than their unsightly competitors on similar positions.

• Analysis of transactions from 1985 to 2012 showed that attractive top-managers achieve more favorable terms. Studies of the performances of the CEO on TV showed that the reaction of shareholders on the beautiful CEO is much more positive than on ugly.*

• Back In the 1970 during the interviews it became clear that beautiful people earn on average 5% more than people with unremarkable appearance.*

In principle, is not necessarily to carry out some extensive research to make sure that the attitude to beautiful people is always better than to ugly. They have a wider set of privileges in all spheres of life by default. Each of us has noticed this "rule" personally (the beautiful ones noticed bonuses and used their appearance, the ugly ones noticed the contempt and fought with it).

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The beginning of the public fight against this kind of discrimination can be considered as the 70s, when in USA was formed the society for the protection of the rights of full of people. The employers began to refuse in employment for various positions, referring to their physical unfitness or giving their posts more pretty colleagues. Over the past 40 years we failed to achieve appreciable results in combating lookism. Can be considered only the local victories, and the situation is only getting worse

In the modern world the phenomenon of lookism has gained great momentum and has evolved to the term "body fascism". Now not enough to have beautiful features, you need to have slim body corresponding to the reference parameters, - a new criterion for success, which spawned a craze with fitness and plastic surgery.

Halo Effect

This problem cannot be solved by laws, because its origins are in the subconscious of people. The point is that this is one of the basic cognitive distortions of our brain, which is called the halo effect. We project our first impression of the object on all the other qualities and abilities, which it may possess. And with what do we face in contact with the other person in the first place? With his appearance.

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The majority of people in contact with an attractive person ascribe to him other positive qualities, which he may not have. The visual appeal is associated with positive qualities such as kindness, honesty, diligence, intelligence of default (thanks to the images of the princesses and princes from fairy tales). Whereas ugly people are also automatically receive a negative evaluation of their qualities from others (again, thanks to the collective image of villains who always look frail, sick and scary). Halo effect creates the illusion that if a person is good outside, he is good inside.

The halo effect is a common tendency of people to give a higher assessment of personal qualities or characteristics of those whom they find more attractive. That is, our feelings tend to dominate cognitive processes when we evaluate the others. The opposite effect - on the contrary projects a negative experience or impression on all of the other characteristics of the object. One negative emotion associated with a stranger, automatically degrades his image in your eyes.

Templates that are triggered in halo effect are formed not by laws, they are influenced by social culture, fashion and time. Criteria of appearance will always remain important in triggering of halo effect, because in the first place we perceive and process visual information. But at the level of thinking the external and internal associations are changing.

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In ancient times, athletically stacked people considered attractive (like today), in the middle ages, the banner of beauty went to pale and skinny. In the Baroque era (17th-18th centuries), curvaceous forms became the standard of beauty. But even in one historical time criteria of attractiveness varies due to the difference in culture.

Due to globalization and eliminate of physical and linguistic barriers in our time, a reference image of attractiveness is the most common for the planet in the history. In post-industrial society an attractive and positive image is athletic, has a neat appearance, energetic man with a snow-white smile in an expensive suit. However to be precise it is a border image of the industrial and post-industrial periods, and instead it is forming a new pattern:

Today, through the development of technology as engines of progress and the economy the image of the geek is coming to the fore, it changes from negative to positive. Now technically advanced people are the standard of success, intelligence, independence and individuality. It is not the image of the sociopathic hermit who lives with his mom and reads comics, like it was before. Suits ceased to be mandatory, like physical attractiveness, intelligence on a level with the muscles becomes the criterion of attractiveness/sexuality, and it all happened in less than a decade.

So that there can be no question of any effective fight against this kind of "discrimination", because the evaluation criteria in this issue are constantly changing and it works on a subconscious level, beyond any laws. Those who yesterday were considered ineligible pleasant appearance, today could be standard of attractiveness.

It is worth noting that one of the key components of the success of attractive people is the following:

They understand that their appearance meets the cultural and social ideas and norms of a society, so they are more confident in themselves, and confident people inspire confidence and sympathy. Because of it, such people have good communication and social skills that impact on their lives positively.

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Therefore, the main task it does not fit in standard pattern of physical beauty today, but to strive for your own shape, which will suit you and in which you feel confident. There is many examples when not the most physically beautiful person is sympathetic due to his charisma. As corny as it may sound: love yourself and others will love you. @natord