How physically attractive someone is plays a major role in determining your ideas about the desirability of developing an acquaintance or a friendship with that person. Attractiveness seems to influence our perception of others’ traits. Attractive people are judged to be more poised, sociable, independent, interesting, exciting, and to have greater ual warmth.
In one study concerned with the importance of physical attractiveness, Karen Dion and her colleagues asked university students to rate a series of photographs of both males and females as high, average, or low in physical attractiveness. The photos were then passed onto another group of students, who were asked to rate those pictures on a number of personality traits and to predict future s in their lives. The results showed that, regardless of whether the rater(评判人) was the same or the opposite as the subject, attractive people of both es were rated as having more socially desirable personality traits than less attractive people. In addition, attractive people were predicted to have greater personal happiness and more prestigious future occupations than less attractive people.
These impressions of beautiful people do not suddenly appear during adolescence. As early as age 4 or 5, attractive children are more popular with their peers than their unattractive counter parts. s also form more favorable impressions of attractive children. In one study, women read a description of an aggressive act performed by a 7-year-old child. The description was ac companied by a photograph of either an attractive child or an unattractive one.. When the women were asked to describe the child whose picture they had seen, they characterized the unattractive child as bratty(讨厌的), selfish, and antisocial. The attractive child was likely to be excused for aggressive acts because these were assumed to be deviations(偏离) from the youngster’s usual behavior.
Attractive people are apparently not unaware of their effect on other people. Being attractive may help determine the way that people actually behave as well a show they are perceived. Attractive males are more assertive(武断的) than less attractive males. They also have less fear of rejection and have more of their social interactions with females than with males. Attractive females are not as assertive as females who are less attractive, but both groups of women have an equal number of social interactions.
Why did the women characterize the unattractive child as bratty, selfish and antisocial