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Beauty and the Brain
Maunsell, Kiera Dasondi, Manav Pandey, Abhimaneu Vasconcelos, Larissa Perianez, Alin
Maunsell, Kiera
Dasondi, Manav
Pandey, Abhimaneu
Vasconcelos, Larissa
Perianez, Alin
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Journal article
Date
2023-05-09
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Psychology and Neuroscience
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http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10126
Abstract
The intrinsic desire for beauty bleeds into every facet of life, whether in framing one’s identity or defining the status quo. As a concept, beauty remains notoriously difficult to define, yet is ever present in day to day life, especially in relation to pleasing our egos. Beauty’s prominence has been documented since antiquity- dating back to ancient Greece through the notion of Kallos, an ideal to aspire for both physical beauty and moral integrity [1]. Although, at the time there were no scientific discoveries to cement this philosophy into fact, the new millennium has found empirical evidence to support the notion that what embodies beauty is equated to virtue in the mind of the observer. The “Beauty-is-Good” stereotype is a phenomenon in which physically attractive people are assumed to be more socially adept and morally good than others. In Ancient Greece, a woman named Phyrne was on trial for impiety and was exonerated on the basis of her beauty, as it was an indication she was favored by the gods. Beauty for our intensive purposes can be classified into facial attractiveness, audiovisual beauty, and moral goodness [2]. Audiovisual beauty is implicit to the senses, an automatic assessment of incoming stimuli based on aesthetical rules. These evaluations can be either learned, or intrinsic. For instance, humans have an automatic ability to categorize facial features as attractive or unattractive when they are just a few weeks old [2]. Moral goodness utilizes one’s higher order cognition to comprehend socially acceptable behavior. To experience moral beauty, it is necessary for emotion to accompany the judgment. In every person, there is an extremely delicate interplay between our emotions, genetic composition, and judgements that give rise to the experience of beauty, which influences one’s perception of themselves, others, and their environment. Through better understanding of why we experience beauty can a person evaluate their unconscious assumptions and conscious thought processes to redefine beauty for the better.
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Citation
Maunsell, K., Dasondi, M., Pandey, A., Vasconcelos, L., Perianez, A., & Cliver, K. (2023). Beauty and the Brain. Grey Matters, 5, 28-33.
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Available at: https://greymattersjournaltu.org/issue-5/beauty-and-the-brain
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Grey Matters, Iss. 5, Spring 2023
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