Social Attraction
Social attraction between people is very important. Aspects of social attraction such as love, understanding and care are difficult to explicate because they often go against many norms in life. It is crucial to ensure that these aspects are maintained along a certain line and many people keep it that way. For instance, love is governed by respect, trust and mutual understanding. Care is a precept of responsibility and authority while understanding stems from knowledge and wisdom (Anders, et.al, 2016).
Attraction between people has one key aspect to it; beauty. What anyone would find attractive is often the aspect of life that they feel is appealing to them. Beauty and attraction may have a lot in common but they are not common to all (Anders, de Jong, Beck, Haynes& Ethofer, 2016). This is why it is important to analyze social factors that generate stereotypes about beauty and attraction.
Beauty is defined as the experience of pleasure or satisfaction based on perception. That is why beauty can only be seen and not felt (Anders, et.al, 2016). What people see as beautiful is often a creation of their social setting. For instance, people who hardly encounter persons of a different race may deem them to be more beautiful or less beautiful depending on their socialization (Weidenfeld& Leask, 2013). In many social setups, beauty is displayed by models on newspapers, article magazines and websites.
It is a form of influence that ends up making the person to feel that what they see as beautiful is not as beautiful or appealing as they suppose. Beauty is thus a form of influence that is borne out of what the society considers to be appealing or not. Beauty is however the greatest contributor to perceptions about attraction (Launay& Dunbar, 2015). Where there is attraction, beauty is often a factor that is critical and central to the theme.
Beauty is a concept that makes up most of the arguments and concepts about attraction. Attraction is vital to any relationship between people because it obscures the feeling of human weakness and inequity. Man is known to be imperfect and very unsymmetrical in many ways. Beauty however is the concept of perfection without prejudice and need to approve other concepts within the person observed.
Beauty makes it possible for people to overlook human inequities that are ever existent and often profoundly the cause for the use of derogative words on people (Sprecher, Treger, Fisher, Hilaire & Grzybowski, 2015). What is not attractive is often despised and chastised. It is vital to remember that perception is simply an illusion that may not be similarly felt by another person (Anders, et.al, 2016). More often than not, the feeling that one is able to achieve a particular attraction or not is all about what they perceive to appeal to them. This is what beauty is all about.
The concept of beauty or appeal in attraction is very complicated because attraction between people can be out of many reasons as well. However, the urge to go beyond the necessary to please the other person is borne out of a need for appreciation or the desire to do right. This can be considered as beauty of purpose or the innocence of decision and motivation. Beauty is about purity and sanctity. There is often a significant appeal from society to get things done but hardly a similar motivation in attraction.
As explained by Talamas, Mavor& Perrett (2016) Attraction is about the traits that make one seem to have a beautiful character and to some extent, beautiful build and look. It applies to both persons of the male and those of the female gender (Talamas, Mavor& Perrett, 2016). Other traits that accompany beauty include; hard work, diligence and determination. They often seem to be of an enlightenment that sparks influence among people. Although affluence is more influential than these traits, it follows that one would find another person with such traits likely to be attractive.
However much there may be aspects that one looks for in an attractive partner beside their physical appeal, the appeal of the self is the most important (McGinley, et.al, 2015). Attraction is about having a similar feeling towards a person at all times without altering the feel of the person based on the circumstance. Beauty is thus best explained by the features one possesses. These features make it possible for the person to ultimately influence a feeling of desire in another person.
It is about the makeup women put on or the expensive suits men wear. It is about making the other person like what one already likes (Ioerger, Henry, Chen, Cigularov& Tomazic, 2015). Attraction can thus be predetermined and premeditated. It is a factor that can easily be manipulated in people’s minds and an issue that is hardly the cause for divisive argument.
According to Englis, Solomon, & Ashmore, (2014), various cultures perceive beauty differently. This is because beauty often defines how attractive one is and since there is a difference between values from one culture to another, there is also a difference in factors making up beauty. However, as per Vacker & Key (2013), despite the variations in perception across various cultures, beauty remains to be one of the most influential factors in establishing attraction between people.
The current generation of the 21st century regards beauty as an outward appearance of an individual that is desired. Therefore, they support the definition that beauty refers to what can be seen by the eye to be appealing. However, before the current perception and definition of beauty, various cultures had unique features which if present in an individual, he or she is regarded as being attractive (Englis, Solomon & Ashmore, 2014.
The character of a person was a big determinant in whether the person is seen as beautiful or not. This is because there were people who could be attractive, win other people’s hearts, and influence others by just interacting with them. In such a case, beauty becomes defined by the intrinsic features that a person possess and not their outward appearances. Societies which belief in both intrinsic and extrinsic beauty believe that the existing inequality in appearance between people should not be a major cause for regarding someone as not being beautiful.
There are various stereotypes that are related to attraction. As explained by Vacker & Key (2013), most people tend to think that people naturally get attracted to those individuals whom they have certain common features with. This stereotyping concept involves both men and female, and in this example, the proponents of this belief argue that the existing high number of integration, interaction, marriage, and business establishments between people of the same ethnicity proves that people get attracted to others whom they share certain common features. Perceptions that people with same characteristics or origin easily see each other as beautiful is also based on culture.
In this regard, it is easier for a person to recognize\e another person as being beautiful if both of them share a common culture or origin. Another stereotyping about beauty is that it is more pronounced in women as compared to men (Englis, Solomon & Ashmore, 2014). Therefore, it is easier for men to regard women as being beautiful as compared to seeing other men as a beautiful. As a result, it is expected that attraction will flourish easily between men and women as compared to between men and men. (Vacker and Key, 2013).
There has been a misconception about love and beauty especially when it comes to how these two feelings ate expressed by people. As explained by Diessner, et.al (2012), most people find it difficult to distinguish love from beauty. This is because both of the two feelings give one the desire to be or like another person so much. However, it should be noted that love and beauty are different in the sense that love develops between individuals irrespective of whether they are beautiful or not.
In other words, one does not need to be beautiful or to possess certain features for them to be loved by another individual. Moreover, love takes a long time to appear, and in most cases, it comes involuntarily and gives little consideration to both outward and inward appearance of a person. On the other hand, attraction is mostly felt as a result of existing beauty between the attracting individuals. Moreover, it considers features that are present in an individual and may end if a person changes in certain ways. Also, attraction can be felt only after a short time whereas love mostly lasts forever (Vacker & Key, 2013).
There are various theories of beauty. However, Denis Dutton’s and Andrew Park provocative theory offers the best insight into the current beauty trends surrounding attraction (Diessner, et.al, 2012). They do believe that beauty is specific to an individual. However, it is also a part of human nature that has very deep evolutionary origins.
Other existing theories such as the typical beauty theory of Ruskin and the vital beauty theory try to explain the essential characteristics of an individual that constitute their beauty status. Therefore, they help propagate the notion that a person can improve his or her beauty through effort
There are two major forms of beauty that are inexistent at the moment. These are; augmented beauty and natural beauty. Whereas naturally beauty is acquired naturally and one may possess it from the time they are born, augmented beauty is acquired artificially (Diessner, et.al, 2012). To acquire augmented beauty, a person uses various artificial beauty products and solutions to enhance their appearance by becoming more beautiful than they were previously.
Even though both these two types of beauty makes one attractive, there are various concerns about the longevity of augmented beauty. It is argued that it may cause attraction just for a short period and in the long term, the attraction may cease to exist as some of the beauty features will fail to reciprocate themselves positively. On the other hand, natural beauty is always desired as it creates the true picture of an individual on others thereby aiding in establishing trust.
The importance of being beautiful has caused some individuals to become beautiful. This is because, without beauty, a person may not be attractive to others. As a result, they may end up feeling dejected and living a lonely life. Since human beings are social species, it is wise to put in effort to enhance beauty so as to live a comfortable and soothing life with many admirers as compared to living unfulfilling life as a result of low beauty levels.
Therefore, as Englis, Solomon and Ashmore (2014) argues, it is more sensible to put in effort so as to improve a person’s beauty as compared to leaving it the way it is and undergoing a tough social life (as Englis, Solomon and Ashmore, 2014).
Many people consider the feeling of attraction to be related to the symmetrical shape of the person, shape or thing. Many people are attracted to beauty and not value. There is thus the general feeling that most human beings will often proverbially ‘read a book by its cover.’ This is a concern among persons who mask their attractive qualities by not being very outgoing and expressive about their characters.
It is thus important to ensure that one is always able to express their ‘inner beauty’ where the outer beauty does not appeal to many people in order for the rest of society to find them attractive (McGinley, Zhang,Mattila& O’Neill, 2015). This is critical in the world where perception is often the main reason for attention on certain details. This means that beauty is a form of influence that is borne out of what the society considers to be appealing or no.
Even though this is contextual, it has led to development of various techniques of acquiring beauty through artificial techniques. These means have often been sought by individuals who feel that they are not appealing in terms of beauty.
References
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