Psychology

Physical beauty is the awareness of the physical traits of an individual as aesthetically gratifying or beautiful. Its variation is referred to as looks and most anthropologists believe that its an important factor in social relation and can include various implications such as sexual attractiveness and physique. However, physical attractiveness is dependent on three factors universal perceptions common to all cultural backgrounds, social aspects and character subjective preferences. Despite universally held perceptions of beauty in both sexes, men tend to place significantly higher value on physical appearance in a partner than women do. This can be explained by evolutionary psychology as a consequence of ancestral humans who selected partners based on secondary traits. It is worth noting that physical appeal can have a significant effect on how people are judged in terms of recruitment, job opportunities, friendshipmating, sexual behavior and marriage.

However Charles Darwin on sexual selection theory states that certain evolutionary traits can be explained by intraspecific competition. He further defined sexual selection as the effects of the struggle between the individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex, (Darwin, 1871). According to his statement, it is usually men who fight for female partners or intrasexual selection. On several occasions, intrasexual takes place. This is where one sex competes for another sex leading to intersexual. In most cases, females often prefer to ally with males with external ornaments or exaggerated morphology. These can credibly arise as a result of female preference for some aspect of male attributes that is mostly increased by genetic drift.

Evolutionary psychology is more on knowledge and principles from evolutionary ecology. In real life, it deals with the way of thinking but not the study of visions, reasoning or social attributes. Evolutionary psychology cannot be classified as behavioral genetics interested in the extent to which different people in a given environment can be accounted for by different genes. It is therefore a thinking process where the mind naturally selects and adapts itself with the social behavior exposed to it. Different theories on the origin of man and the ecological adaptations have defined the principles behind certain behaviors. A scholar by the name Charles Darwin made a major contribution in relation to different species he made a bold prediction that, In the distant future, he sees an open field for far more important researches. That psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation, (Darwin, 1871). This further clarifies that psychology is never constant but changes with time and as years turn, various attributes fades out of the society and other social traits are adopted by the society.

To some extent, human beings are ruled by instincts that enable them to reason beyond personal appearance and even in mating process, hence it brings out the difference between human beings and other animals since they can reason and have opposite views. However, William James, he argued that the instincts in man has been found to be highly flexible than the other living organisms, (William, 1895). It is therefore true that instincts helps during the thinking process and decision making. This can further explain why people laugh when receiving a gift and cry when hurt or when they receive a message of death of a close friend. This can be explained in psychological terms as natural feeling that human beings poses that enables them to be judgmental enough and to come up with the solutions of various problems and even in selection of a partner. The ability to see, speak and to be able to differentiate between the beautiful and the ugly can clearly explain to us that psychological views originates from the mind and symbolizes itself as a behavior.

In the modern world, beautiful and tempting facial appearance has evolved many times in relation to mate selection and this explains why most people are attracted by beauty and vocal signals rather than the traits of an individual. Studies however show that both sexes have different tastes and preference in selecting a partner for instance, women prefer men with heavy wide jaws, heavy brows and broad cheek bones (William, 1895 Darwin, 1871). On the other hand, males prefer smooth faced ladies, tall and slim. They also tend to partner with ladies of symmetrical faces and bodies unlike women. Human beauty therefore defines the choice of a partner during the mating process. Health assessment is important in relation to evolutionary views. In the distant past, people were exposed to different diet and drugs that vary greatly with the modern diet and therefore contributing to the physical appearance of an individual in relation to facial, body and olfactory signals. Although beauty standards vary differently both in terms of culture and time, its worth noting that the living standard and the environmental challenges are major factors leading to ones appearance.

Due to exaggerated nature of secondary traits in mate selection, it can prove to be a hindrance to individual chances of partnership thereby undermining quality in a relationship consideration. According to Fisher  Bennett, in the book, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, he argued that people who are beautiful are naturally active and have better chances of getting a partner than the ones who are not beautiful though he contradicts the statement by saying that beauty is relative and depends on an individual selection and demands (Fisher  Bennett, 1999). He further claimed that physical attributes such as the breast can be a factor in dating though it varies from one society to another for instance women with big breasts are preferred in western countries as compared to other areas since they believe that they have higher level of sex hormones which promotes fertility. Beautiful people are assumed to be extroverted, famous and happy even though its a self fulfilling theory. On the contrary, physical beauty can have various effects both socially and economically since most people who are so concerned with the beauty tends to spend a lot of money on beauty productscosmetics hence expensive and require one to work for better income as compared to the average earners. Some argue that high income earners are associated with beauty than the poor individuals in the social ranking.

In understanding the theoretical and empirical research in evolutionary psychology, it is wise to first analyze the variables in the society that has led to different changes empirically. One method in use by evolutionary psychologists is using acquaintance of the location of evolutionary adapted ness to produce a hypotheses on possible psychological adaptations evaluated against empirical evidence because little is known regarding psychological adaptations and the evolutionary context in which people developed in regard to population size, structure, eating habit  and lifestyle. In most cases, these factors vary from one society to another and therefore alter with the physical attributes of an individual. Different societies are faced with the selection pressure as a result of the changes that occurs in the society. Many environmental issues have led to these changes such as changing from hunting to farming by our ancestors, sharing, mate choice, interpersonal aggression, child rearing, interpersonal assistance, diseases and a host of other fairly predictable challenges that constituted significant selection pressures.

Evolutionary psychologists clarifies that their findings about the past and the present on the mate selection is purely dependent on the aggressiveness, interpersonal relations and ones adaptations in line with the environmental challenges such as pregnancies, food shortage, diseases and famine.

It is therefore true according to Charles Darwin to conclude that psychology is based on new foundation since it depends wholly on ones mental power, environmental challenges and hisher capacity to grade beauty regardless of the quality of an individual. This can therefore mean that most people vary in their way of thinking and thereby have different opinionsjudgment on beauty and other attributes. Most people are influenced by beauty as compared to the qualities of an individual or personal attributes. In the modern society, people tend to ignore certain values such as honesty, respect and intelligence and embark on beauty though beauty may vary from one individual to another. In the early days of dating, people were trained or advised to go for the character rather than the beauty since certain ethics were valued in a society. With the changes and demands in the society, many have concentrated on beauty rather than the traits thereby leading to behavioral degradation. However, humans are intensely sensitive to variations in physical appearance, some theorize for reasons of evolution. Personal appearance therefore varies from genetic, age or disease.