Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
Speaker 1: you are in the world, it is so great to
Speaker 1: have you here. Back for another episode as we break
Speaker 1: down the Psychology of our twenties. Today, we're going to
Speaker 1: discuss something a little bit different.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk.
Speaker 1: About what it means to be an attractive person, our fascination,
Speaker 1: our obsession with beauty, and why it is that we
Speaker 1: find some people more good looking than others, alongside the
Speaker 1: impact of phenomena like pretty privilege and the impact act
Speaker 1: of beauty standards. This is an episode that I've wanted
Speaker 1: to do for a while because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us in our twenties, myself included, spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time thinking, worrying, judging ourselves based on whether or
Speaker 1: not we match up with a version of what is
Speaker 1: conventionally beautiful. It's something that we cannot deny caring about.
Speaker 1: We are constantly aware, I guess of some invisible standard
Speaker 1: of attractiveness, of beauty, of looks, of features that are
Speaker 1: going to make us more socially appealing. And I think
Speaker 1: at times we are too aware to the point that
Speaker 1: it really influences our behavior. We change certain things about ourselves,
Speaker 1: the clothes we wear, the hairstyles that we have, our makeup,
Speaker 1: even our weight, our physical form, our facial features through
Speaker 1: things like cosmetic surgery as a way to not only
Speaker 1: feel more confident, but I also think to conform to
Speaker 1: a lot of societal expectations and norms around beauty. I
Speaker 1: think at times that this comes at a really huge
Speaker 1: personal consequence where we are unable to see our worth
Speaker 1: beyond our physical appearance. We begin to see our bodies
Speaker 1: in very unrealistic ways or kind of refuse to feel
Speaker 1: good about ourselves unless we look a certain way on
Speaker 1: the day, and unless we conform to what the beauty
Speaker 1: standard is of the day or the month or the year.
Speaker 1: You know, are we trying to look like a Kardashian
Speaker 1: today or like Belaha did or some other model or
Speaker 1: famous image of what beauty is and should be. And
Speaker 1: I think that can be harmful, and it's obviously on
Speaker 1: our minds a lot. A study published in Australia literally
Speaker 1: just a few months ago, suggested that nearly a third
Speaker 1: of women in their twenties have considered or are considering
Speaker 1: cosmetic surgery. I won't lie, I'm in that boat. I've
Speaker 1: spoken to my friends about baby botox or filler or
Speaker 1: chin reduction surgery so much this past year, more than
Speaker 1: I ever thought that I would. And I used to
Speaker 1: feel really ashamed that I didn't love my body enough
Speaker 1: to keep it the way that it was. But I've
Speaker 1: realized and I've come to recognize that our obsession with
Speaker 1: attractiveness is also highly universal, and, as psychology will show us,
Speaker 1: very instinctual to our human nature. Part of human nature
Speaker 1: is a desire to be attractive, because attractiveness symbolizes so
Speaker 1: much more than just surface value looks. Attractiveness has this
Speaker 1: unspoken and implied association with things like status and wealth,
Speaker 1: but also of course health, reproductive value, the quote unquote
Speaker 1: quality of our genetics. These are all characteristics that we
Speaker 1: are hardwired to value because they are associated with better
Speaker 1: life outcomes and a higher kind of place in the
Speaker 1: social hierarch. If you want to think about it in
Speaker 1: a very rudimentary way psychologists who kind of examine the
Speaker 1: social and the psychological impacts of beauty, They often explain
Speaker 1: why we find certain things attractive, why we are concerned
Speaker 1: with our looks, based on our ability to reproduce, based
Speaker 1: on what they call our mating instinct. So some of
Speaker 1: these theories are of course a little bit outdated in
Speaker 1: the modern world, but it's been suggested that one of
Speaker 1: our primary drives as humans is to basically just have
Speaker 1: children and to have the healthiest offspring possible so that
Speaker 1: they are more likely to survive and.
Speaker 2: Carry on our genetics.
Speaker 1: Part of having healthy children comes down to picking a
Speaker 1: mate whose own DNA background genetics is going to best
Speaker 1: match ours and create the kind of children offspring kids
Speaker 1: that are going to have a fighting chance. This is
Speaker 1: very very evolutionary. Obviously, nowadays we have so many different
Speaker 1: medical innovations and techniques and methods that it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter if you know your child has certain little quirks
Speaker 1: about them or certain things where they're not as healthy
Speaker 1: as they should be, like, they're still going to survive
Speaker 1: potentially to old age. But back in the day when
Speaker 1: we didn't have medical care because we were like roaming
Speaker 1: the jungle roaming the Sahara. Picking the right partner who
Speaker 1: was going to give your kids the best chance of
Speaker 1: survival was really important. Obviously, when we are making that decision,
Speaker 1: we cannot peer into someone's genetic blueprint and find out
Speaker 1: if they are healthy or not. We can't peer into
Speaker 1: their DNA and find out what kind of medical preconditions
Speaker 1: or predispositions they have, but we can look at their
Speaker 1: physical traits and kind of identify whether or not A
Speaker 1: these characteristics are indicative of better health and b would
Speaker 1: that make for healthier offspring who are more likely to survive.
Speaker 1: So the things that we typically see is beautiful things
Speaker 1: like youthfulness, good skin, nice hair, tall muscular, large eyes.
Speaker 1: They are actually all indicative of someone's almost capacity to
Speaker 1: survive and also.
Speaker 2: Of their health.
Speaker 1: That is why we find certain things attractive, not because
Speaker 1: they are more attractive in a really arbitrary sense, but
Speaker 1: because of how they help with our sense of security,
Speaker 1: our sense of survival, our ability to pass on our genetics.
Speaker 1: So the one I always think of is like why
Speaker 1: we find tall men more attractive? Like there really isn't
Speaker 1: any reason other than a very biological evolutionary reason to
Speaker 1: have a preference for taller men, if that is your preference.
Speaker 1: But previously, prehistorically, someone who is taller may have been
Speaker 1: more athletic, may have been stronger, may have been more
Speaker 1: able to reach the fruit high up on the tree.
Speaker 1: Those were all big perks, big kind of pros when
Speaker 1: it comes to producing healthy, surviving children. Those factors are now,
Speaker 1: as I said before, not as important, but they are
Speaker 1: still part of our genetic blueprint. They are still part
Speaker 1: of our DNA. And it's interesting because the standard of
Speaker 1: what we find attractive is actually pretty consistent across populations, ages, genders, ethnicity,
Speaker 1: with only a few deviations, suggesting that really, deep down
Speaker 1: there is this kind of profile or image of the
Speaker 1: perfect person. So in one meta analysis, they looked at
Speaker 1: over nine hundred studies on this, and they found that
Speaker 1: if they gave people a big group of different individuals
Speaker 1: from different backgrounds, different ages, different genders, all of those things,
Speaker 1: most people in these large groups would come to an
Speaker 1: agreement on who was the most attractive amongst this group,
Speaker 1: even if they themselves had different backgrounds. This strongly suggests
Speaker 1: that judgments of physical attractiveness are really hardwired into human genetics.
Speaker 1: They're also likely to be fixed at a really early
Speaker 1: stage in kind of our upbringing and development, we actually
Speaker 1: devote entire portions of our brain to evaluating characteristics of attractiveness.
Speaker 1: They did studies on six month old infants, and what
Speaker 1: they found was that these kids, although they are only
Speaker 1: six months out of the room they can't even speak yet,
Speaker 1: they look longer at the faces of adults who we
Speaker 1: would call objectively attractive, and they spend less time looking
Speaker 1: at faces of those who we would judge as not attractive. Because,
Speaker 1: as we've concluded, it's not just about beauty, the social
Speaker 1: idea of beauty. It's about something very primal, an animal
Speaker 1: in our brain that has been programmed to pay attention
Speaker 1: to looks. The brain is actually such a good detector
Speaker 1: of beauty that it can actually judge the appeal of
Speaker 1: a face before we are even aware that you've seen it.
Speaker 1: So when participants in a recent study were presented with
Speaker 1: an attractive and an unattractive face, they had only thirteen
Speaker 1: milliseconds to look at them both, and from that just
Speaker 1: very very brief vision, they were able to judge which
Speaker 1: of these faces the average person would call more attractive.
Speaker 1: So they're not even consciously aware of the stimuli, and
Speaker 1: yet we are almost on an unconscious level able to
Speaker 1: pick up the certain features that make a person healthier,
Speaker 1: make a person more attractive, make a person more desirable
Speaker 1: when it comes to mating. So what are the summer
Speaker 1: the features that we're kind of we universally accept as
Speaker 1: being attractive that we're looking out for. Key elements that
Speaker 1: go into our appraisal of beauty on a very very rudimentary,
Speaker 1: primal level are age and health, as well as facial symmetry,
Speaker 1: body proportions, facial color, and texture, mainly to do with
Speaker 1: things like skin. Youth is obviously a major component when
Speaker 1: it comes to attractiveness. Older faces are judged as less attractive,
Speaker 1: less energetic, once again because of reproductive viability. So we
Speaker 1: do have this obsession with wanting to look younger because
Speaker 1: we understand that looking younger means that we are more
Speaker 1: attractive for the average person, because it indicates that our
Speaker 1: time to have children has not yet come to an end.
Speaker 1: This really explains like our obsession with botox and youthful
Speaker 1: beauty routines and retinal and whatever else there is that
Speaker 1: is meant to keep us looking younger for as long
Speaker 1: as possible. Facial and body symmetry are also a big
Speaker 1: thing that we instinctually look for. And I found this
Speaker 1: really interesting when I discovered this, because the reason why
Speaker 1: we like symmetrical faces is really fascinating. There are really
Speaker 1: small variables that can make it so that we do
Speaker 1: not have a symmetrical face. You could have a slightly
Speaker 1: wider jaw on one side, or one of your eyes
Speaker 1: could be like a tiny fraction lower than the other one.
Speaker 1: One of your cheekbones might stick out just a wee
Speaker 1: bit more, a little dimple on one cheek. These are
Speaker 1: just small quirks that we may love in someone else
Speaker 1: and that we might find attractive. But what this science
Speaker 1: in the psychology is suggesting is that when we look
Speaker 1: at someone who has a symmetrical face versus an asymmetrical face,
Speaker 1: our preference is always going to be for symmetry. Firstly,
Speaker 1: symmetry is good is valued because it's easier to interpret
Speaker 1: the emotions of those who have this kind of bilateral symmetry.
Speaker 1: So basically it means that if you have someone whose
Speaker 1: face is kind of exactly the same on either side,
Speaker 1: you know exactly how emotions are going to be displayed
Speaker 1: compared to someone who might have small, little differences that
Speaker 1: might warp how you would traditionally or are used to
Speaker 1: seeing emotions. It's also the fact that asymmetry, having a
Speaker 1: little bit of a difference is kind of a sign
Speaker 1: of congenital or developmental defects. Not so much anymore, but
Speaker 1: in the past they might be a sign of malnutrition
Speaker 1: or infection, or indicative of a deeper genetic mutation. You know,
Speaker 1: those minor variations like having a dimple, having like a
Speaker 1: slightly higher cheekbone that is not going to have any
Speaker 1: functional consequences. They do not have a dramatic impact on
Speaker 1: our lives. But what we are finding again and again
Speaker 1: is that symmetry is much more attractive. It is more
Speaker 1: highly rated as being associated with dominance and health and
Speaker 1: sexiness once again, because it comes back to the genetic
Speaker 1: desirability of a mate. Beauty perceptions obviously differ for men
Speaker 1: and women, particularly when we're talking about cisgender heteronormative men
Speaker 1: and women, and that's really where most of the research
Speaker 1: is being done. Because I don't know about the rest
Speaker 1: of the scientific community, but the psychology community is a
Speaker 1: little bit behind in recognizing kind of the diversity of
Speaker 1: genders and sex. But from what they've shown, when we
Speaker 1: look at things like facial hair, for example, that is
Speaker 1: indicative of higher testosterone levels, it's also associated with greater
Speaker 1: fertility and strength. So women are more likely to prefer
Speaker 1: men who have those features or who have a muscular
Speaker 1: build or high cheekbones, not just because they're more sexually attractive,
Speaker 1: but because they might be a better long term mate.
Speaker 1: And then when it comes to women and male preferences,
Speaker 1: for women, often it's things like having large hips, having
Speaker 1: large breasts, having nice skin, having long hair, because it
Speaker 1: indicates that you are going to be able to give
Speaker 1: birth to healthy children, and also that you have like
Speaker 1: you're getting good nutrition, that you are healthy, that you
Speaker 1: are taking care of yourselves. These are just some of
Speaker 1: the features that we're looking for that a lot of
Speaker 1: people find attractive, right and once again, it's mainly linked
Speaker 1: to reproductive capacity viability. And I feel like we spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time here discussing that fact, what we
Speaker 1: find attractive and why, but I also want to investigate
Speaker 1: what are the consequences of meeting that profile of attractiveness
Speaker 1: or not. You know, it's not all about mating and
Speaker 1: having kids. I think we are a bit more evolved
Speaker 1: nowadays to realize that not everyone wants to have children,
Speaker 1: but based on our conclusions, beauty standards are only important
Speaker 1: because of how they relate to reproducing. If that's the case,
Speaker 1: you have this whole group of people who don't want kids,
Speaker 1: and yet they still really care about their looks. So
Speaker 1: we're kind of missing a part of the equation here.
Speaker 1: I think that is that we as a society implicitly
Speaker 1: understand and acknowledge that how we look, our beauty levels,
Speaker 1: our attractiveness levels, they are important for our social relationships
Speaker 1: and for how we are treated. A lot of that
Speaker 1: comes down to the concept of pretty privilege, our acknowledgment
Speaker 1: that people who are perceived as more beautiful or as
Speaker 1: meeting beauty norms are going to get better or preferential treatment.
Speaker 1: So there was a study conducted back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nineteen published in the Behavioral Science Journal. It found
Speaker 1: that throughout the world, attractive people show greater acquisition of
Speaker 1: resources and better treatment than others. And it's often those
Speaker 1: people that we celebrate and promote and see as beautiful.
Speaker 2: They follow a.
Speaker 1: Very similar formula. They are thin, they are white, they
Speaker 1: are young, they are cisgendered, they are tall, they have
Speaker 1: good skin, they have long hair. Not necessarily the everyday person,
Speaker 1: and definitely not the only version of beauty. And you
Speaker 1: know what, let's point out the obvious before going any further.
Speaker 1: That is super unfair. It's unfair. It is an unfair
Speaker 1: world to live in, especially when the way that you
Speaker 1: look really has nothing to do with how good of
Speaker 1: a person you are. It is genetic luck. It has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with your value as a person, how
Speaker 1: kind you are, how intelligent you are, how caring you
Speaker 1: we are, and yet we cannot implicitly escape this privilege
Speaker 1: that exists all around us, whereby if you happen to
Speaker 1: match this profile of what is attractiveness, life just might
Speaker 1: be a little bit easier for you. So they've done
Speaker 1: studies on this, and they have found that people who
Speaker 1: are appraised as objectively beautiful, they are paid more, they
Speaker 1: get considered for more jobs, they are seen as nicer,
Speaker 1: as more intelligent, more trustworthy. They even did this one
Speaker 1: quite recently and it was around employment, and they found
Speaker 1: that if you are someone who is good looking, you
Speaker 1: make about twelve percent more than people who are deemed
Speaker 1: less appealing. It's the same thing with real estate brokers.
Speaker 1: If you're more attractive as someone who works in real estate,
Speaker 1: you make a lot more money. Psychologists call it the
Speaker 1: beauty premium. Essentially, it is the income gap between attractive
Speaker 1: and unattractive people, and one study has suggested One group
Speaker 1: researchers suggested that this beauty premium, this income gap is
Speaker 1: comparable to the gap between genders or ethnicities. We have
Speaker 1: some idea of why that is, but just because we
Speaker 1: understand that it comes from this, like weird genetic blueprint preferences, offspring, whatever,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily make us feel good. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: us feel better to understand that even though it's biology
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have much to do with us, it's
Speaker 1: not in our control.
Speaker 2: It's still pretty unfair.
Speaker 1: It's also really interesting to me because although we do
Speaker 1: have some really universal ideas of beauty, the standards around
Speaker 1: us are constantly shifting and impossible to me. One week
Speaker 1: we need to look stick thin. The next week we're
Speaker 1: expected to look lean and muscular. After that, we're meant
Speaker 1: to have really big boobs and big butts. That is
Speaker 1: because beauty standards are social norms, meaning that they are
Speaker 1: socially constructed. A social construct is not only very likely
Speaker 1: to shift and change quite quickly, often with no reason,
Speaker 1: but it actually has no real meaning beyond the group
Speaker 1: in which it is enforced. Social constructs only have power
Speaker 1: if the group chooses to enforce them. They are literally
Speaker 1: not real, but they do feel real because they are
Speaker 1: enforced in very implicit ways, for example, limited clothing sizes
Speaker 1: at stores, limited shades of makeup, identical models in every advertisement.
Speaker 1: But the fact that they are a social construct means
Speaker 1: that they can be changed almost overnight or dramatically, because
Speaker 1: they are derived from really the minds of millions of people,
Speaker 1: but then backed up by and reflected by industries who
Speaker 1: make money from your insecurity, who make money from selling
Speaker 1: a a new standard and new product, a new version
Speaker 1: of how you should be. How is it that we
Speaker 1: are meant to keep up with those changing beauty standards
Speaker 1: that make it so your looks have to be the
Speaker 1: center of your universe, kind of a constant source of attention.
Speaker 1: I think that that is really, really impossible, especially when
Speaker 1: we understand that we will be validated by society if
Speaker 1: we are conventionally attractive. All of us want to be accepted.
Speaker 1: All of us want preferential treatment, all of us want
Speaker 1: to be treated well. And what beauty standards and pretty
Speaker 1: privilege is really telling us is that you can have
Speaker 1: that life. This can all be unlocked for you if
Speaker 1: you just conform to how we would like you to look.
Speaker 1: That has a lot of consequences for our mental health,
Speaker 1: our social health, our emotional health. So how do we
Speaker 1: kind of break free from these expectations and this pressure
Speaker 1: and just be happy with who we are beyond our
Speaker 1: physical appearance.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk.
Speaker 1: About all of that and more after this shortbreak. The
Speaker 1: problem with beauty standards and the pretty privilege that comes
Speaker 1: along with it is twofold. Firstly, it teaches us that
Speaker 1: our value is entirely derived from our physical appearance rather
Speaker 1: than the contents of our character and our soul and
Speaker 1: our personality. Secondly, it says, and it shows us, and
Speaker 1: it ingrains in us, that we need to change in.
Speaker 2: Order to be accepted.
Speaker 1: That leads to a lot of very deeply rooted dissatisfaction
Speaker 1: with our bodies, with how we look, and this misconception
Speaker 1: that our lives would be better if we just looked
Speaker 1: a certain way or fixed something about ourselves. I see
Speaker 1: this all the time in my own behavior, in the
Speaker 1: behavior of those around me, and it's so upsetting to
Speaker 1: think how many of us believe that if we just
Speaker 1: lost some weight be able to find love, or if
Speaker 1: we fixed our skin, we would be liked more by
Speaker 1: people that we work with, or people around us, or
Speaker 1: people on the street. If we just touched something up there,
Speaker 1: altered something here, we would be more successful. It is
Speaker 1: never ending, because I think when you start believing this
Speaker 1: myth sold to you by a society obsessed with beauty,
Speaker 1: that changing your appearance will somehow change the quality of
Speaker 1: your life, you will always find something else to be
Speaker 1: unhappy about or to not like about yourself. It's why
Speaker 1: we now see these terms for people who are addicted
Speaker 1: to plastic surgery or body modifications. It's why we're seeing
Speaker 1: rising numbers of body dysmorphic disorders and eating disorders. Harvard
Speaker 1: University even published a paper on this recently, suggesting that
Speaker 1: when we see our value as being determined by beauty,
Speaker 1: this translates into self objectification and that negatively impacts the
Speaker 1: treatment we feel we deserve, especially for women, where when
Speaker 1: we begin to see ourselves as an object that can
Speaker 1: be admired, that looks beautiful. We kind of start to
Speaker 1: minimize these other aspects of our identity and ourselves that
Speaker 1: are more important. Self objectification is associated with decreased political activism,
Speaker 1: less assertiveness, poorer workplace performance, because when we conform to
Speaker 1: an idea that beauty is our only value in the world,
Speaker 1: that we need to look a certain way, what that
Speaker 1: basically means is that your accompanying idea of personhood and
Speaker 1: personality is restricted. It becomes less multi dimensional. You don't
Speaker 1: need to be intelligent, you don't need to be creative
Speaker 1: or assertive. You are merely something that is nice to
Speaker 1: look at, which we know is entirely incorrect. We are
Speaker 1: incredibly nuanced, rounded, deep individuals. But when we form an
Speaker 1: obsession with our looks and needing to fit a certain
Speaker 1: standard in order to be accepted, that really just becomes
Speaker 1: the highlight. It becomes the only thing we can focus on.
Speaker 1: So I want to offer a few reminders here for
Speaker 1: those moments when you're buying into the beauty standards, the
Speaker 1: pretty privilege.
Speaker 2: Of the world.
Speaker 1: Number One, there might be one standard of beauty that
Speaker 1: is most common, but that doesn't mean that beauty is
Speaker 1: a singularly defined thing, as the saying always goes, Beauty
Speaker 1: is in the high of the beholder, and the things
Speaker 1: that we might see as flaws, others might see as
Speaker 1: kind of really beautiful parts of our tapestry as a
Speaker 1: human or a really attractive quirk. I think sometimes with
Speaker 1: phrases like that, we think that they've just been developed
Speaker 1: to make us feel better. But I'm always surprised by
Speaker 1: how much truth there are in these like everyday meta
Speaker 1: or idioms. So research has actually suggested that beauty is
Speaker 1: in fact in the high of the beholder. There is
Speaker 1: a preference for certain physical traits, but also it is
Speaker 1: our individual life experiences that leads us to find certain
Speaker 1: people more attractive than others, not just our genetics, not
Speaker 1: just our DNA. It's why your best friend might be
Speaker 1: like absolutely smitten with someone and you think they are
Speaker 1: like a solid three. It's why we have different types.
Speaker 1: It's why we find some celebrities unattractive, because life experiences
Speaker 1: are equally important.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: It is about environment, It's about how much we value
Speaker 1: things like uniqueness, who our friends are dating, who we
Speaker 1: have dated in the past, what our culture is promoting
Speaker 1: as attractive even what our parents look like, and that
Speaker 1: is a whole other chapter of psychology that I don't
Speaker 1: think we have time to get into. But essentially, some
Speaker 1: people theorize that we actually prefer partners who resemble our parents,
Speaker 1: and that is super weird. Some people say it's true,
Speaker 1: a lot more people say it's false and a little
Speaker 1: bit delusional. But I think it's evidence to show that
Speaker 1: it's not all about biology in these moments.
Speaker 2: It also is.
Speaker 1: About how we have been raised, how we have been
Speaker 1: conditioned to see beauty, and also the kind of deviations
Speaker 1: in that as well, such that even if you don't
Speaker 1: feel conventionally attractive, there is someone out there who's looking
Speaker 1: at you being like I think that they are the
Speaker 1: most beautiful person in the world.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I used to have this like real deep hatred for
Speaker 1: this mole I had on my face. I used to
Speaker 1: google like skin removal places like once a day at least.
Speaker 1: And it's so interesting because my current boyfriend loves it.
Speaker 1: He's like, that is so cute. You can just never
Speaker 1: tell what someone is going to find beautiful about you
Speaker 1: that you might actually find really unattractive, because once again,
Speaker 1: you can choose to conform and try and fit in
Speaker 1: to someone else's version of a perfect body and a
Speaker 1: perfect face and whatnot. But when you do that, you
Speaker 1: also reduce your individuality in the process, and I think
Speaker 1: that individuality is what people ultimately love the most about you.
Speaker 1: My second reminder, and I think it goes without saying,
Speaker 1: but your appearance really is the least important thing about you.
Speaker 1: Your body is going to change as you age, as
Speaker 1: you go through certain life events, but what will hopefully
Speaker 1: not change is the contents of who you are and
Speaker 1: how authentic and true to yourself you really choose to be.
Speaker 1: I'm always reminded of this role Dyal quote. He did
Speaker 1: this book children's book called The Twits, and in it
Speaker 1: he says, a person who has good thoughts cannot be ugly.
Speaker 1: You can be the most hideous person out there, but
Speaker 1: if you have good thoughts, if you are kind to
Speaker 1: other people, these will shine out of your face like sunbeams,
Speaker 1: and you will always look lovely. I truly believe this
Speaker 1: kind people can never be unattractive because they have shifted
Speaker 1: beyond thinking about themselves only on the singular dimension of
Speaker 1: appearance and have a holistic view of their character, what
Speaker 1: they bring to the world, how they treat others, how
Speaker 1: they treat themselves, that is so.
Speaker 2: Much more important.
Speaker 1: Additionally, something I like to remind myself when I start
Speaker 1: to kind of think too much about my looks and
Speaker 1: start picking at things, start googling random surgeries in Turkey,
Speaker 1: is that some of the greatest, smartest, most valuable people
Speaker 1: in this world do not meet the profile of what
Speaker 1: is attractive. People like Einstein, Steve Jobs, mother Teresa. I
Speaker 1: don't think they could have done what they'd done if
Speaker 1: they spend all that time worrying about their physical appearance
Speaker 1: more than their vision for the future. And I think
Speaker 1: it goes to show that in a world that really
Speaker 1: wants to teach you and really wants to enforce this
Speaker 1: philosophy that your looks are really, really valuable and really
Speaker 1: important and should be a big focus, there are thousands
Speaker 1: millions of people who aren't thinking about that, and who
Speaker 1: are thinking about how they can actually contribute to the
Speaker 1: world in a really meaningful way. And if they decided
Speaker 1: that they would rather focus on beauty and attractiveness, we
Speaker 1: would miss out on a lot of amazing inventions, a
Speaker 1: lot of amazing changes.
Speaker 2: In this world.
Speaker 1: Number three, my final reminder. We can say all that
Speaker 1: we want about beauty standards and what makes someone attractive
Speaker 1: from kind of an evolutionary biological standpoint, but time and
Speaker 1: time again, what Trump's attractiveness is confidence. Much like kindness.
Speaker 1: I think confidence has this ability to always make you
Speaker 1: the most attractive person in the room. And there's a
Speaker 1: science behind this. When you believe in yourself, when you
Speaker 1: are self assured, when you know who you are, that
Speaker 1: kind of radiates outwards. It makes you appear more attractive
Speaker 1: to others. And it's this energy that a lot of
Speaker 1: people often call the glow right, this like magnetic golden aura.
Speaker 1: And in one study conducted by the Society for Personality
Speaker 1: and Social Psychology, they recruited a bunch of people and
Speaker 1: they had half of them fake confidence in these make
Speaker 1: believe dating situations, and they found that these individuals who
Speaker 1: kind of faked it till they maked it were rated
Speaker 1: higher in romantic, romantic attractiveness and just overall desirability again
Speaker 1: and again and again. Additionally, a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that we inherently kind of genetically desire in a partner
Speaker 1: are really difficult to observe directly unless you actually take
Speaker 1: time to get to know someone. Things like intelligence, drive,
Speaker 1: social status, physical ability, personality. They are kind of things
Speaker 1: that we understand about ourselves but other people don't understand
Speaker 1: about us. However, when you are confident, a lot of
Speaker 1: people around you will assume that there is a reason
Speaker 1: to that confidence, because you do have an actual sense
Speaker 1: of value. I think, I hope that makes sense, but
Speaker 1: I guess what it says is you don't have to
Speaker 1: These people don't have to question whether you have value,
Speaker 1: whether you're worth knowing, whether you're worth dating, whether you're
Speaker 1: worth investing in, because you already know it, and so
Speaker 1: they're more likely to believe you if you believe in yourself.
Speaker 1: I think that just goes to show that beauty is
Speaker 1: obviously not just skin deep. It's so much more nuanced
Speaker 1: and psychological and emotional, and our preoccupation with it is
Speaker 1: also probably going to be causing us more harm than good. Whereby,
Speaker 1: the more we become fixated on changing things, the less
Speaker 1: confidence we have, so the less attractive we kind of become.
Speaker 1: When we reframe our perspective and take physical appearance off
Speaker 1: a pedestal, we feel so much more free to not
Speaker 1: have to perform, and we can worry about pretty privilege
Speaker 1: and beauty standards as much as we like. We can
Speaker 1: acknowledge that the world is really designed for a small
Speaker 1: group of people. But each day you also get to
Speaker 1: make a choice about whether you want to spend your
Speaker 1: time thinking about this and trying to conform and spending
Speaker 1: money to look a certain way, or whether there's something
Speaker 1: else that is going to be more valuable that you
Speaker 1: can do with that time. How many hours are you
Speaker 1: wasting fixating on something that really isn't a true marker
Speaker 1: of who you are? How many minutes do you spend
Speaker 1: thinking like, my makeup doesn't look great, it looks a
Speaker 1: bit kicky. No one is really noticing that, And if
Speaker 1: they're making a snap judgment based on that small aspect
Speaker 1: of who you are, that is highly superficial and it
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with you. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a bit of a like a balancing act here.
Speaker 1: What are you giving up by spending time thinking about this,
Speaker 1: and what could you gain by spending that time thinking
Speaker 1: about something else, Thinking about how you can give back,
Speaker 1: thinking about your goals, thinking about your dreams, thinking about
Speaker 1: other people and how you can make them happy, how
Speaker 1: you can make them feel loved. There's one more exercise
Speaker 1: that I really want to share when it comes to
Speaker 1: feeling a little bit weighed down by beauty standards, pretty privilege,
Speaker 1: all of that, and that is a self love, self
Speaker 1: gratitude checklist. This involves writing down ten things that you
Speaker 1: love about yourself that have nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: you look like, whether that is your creativity, how thoughtful
Speaker 1: you are, that you're strong, kind, a good cook, a
Speaker 1: loving daughter, a loving sister. I think we have been
Speaker 1: conditioned into seeing ourselves only as other people see us,
Speaker 1: which is through the lens of obviously physical appearance. But
Speaker 1: when we actually break down that facade and really examine
Speaker 1: who we truly are, if all of those things were
Speaker 1: taken away, we are able to get more in touch
Speaker 1: with the core of our true self and actually do
Speaker 1: something with that, do something valuable with all that time.
Speaker 1: I would also say, what you consume is what you believe.
Speaker 1: So if you are constantly being exposed to only one
Speaker 1: type of individual on social media on TikTok on Instagram,
Speaker 1: you of course are going to have a very limited
Speaker 1: sample of what the average person truly looks like. It
Speaker 1: is one of the mechanisms by which beauty standards become
Speaker 1: indoctrinated and continue to control and influence us. Social media
Speaker 1: is very, very powerful. It is almost a way of
Speaker 1: learning what society wants from you through the kind of
Speaker 1: content that you're exposed to. So I would really encourage
Speaker 1: you to diversify who you follow, really question why these
Speaker 1: models and people look the way they do. How attainable
Speaker 1: that really is? What would you be giving up to
Speaker 1: be that person to look a certain way? And is
Speaker 1: it really worth it to just conform just so that
Speaker 1: people like you more? Maybe I'm starting to believe that
Speaker 1: it really isn't worth it, especially since when you try
Speaker 1: and fake being another person someone that you're not, when
Speaker 1: you give up your very much individual, unique beauty, you
Speaker 1: actually miss out on meeting people who would really have
Speaker 1: just loved the real you, And I think that's such
Speaker 1: a shame. So one final disclaimer, I don't want this
Speaker 1: to come off as like an admonishment of beauty or
Speaker 1: seeing the need to take care of ourselves is a
Speaker 1: bad thing, or you know, not sometimes benefiting from the
Speaker 1: confidence boost of looking really good and wearing makeup and
Speaker 1: having your nails done and your hair done, This is
Speaker 1: kind of by no means permission to quit as people
Speaker 1: who do experience pretty privilege or who are conventionally attractive.
Speaker 1: I think, obviously empowerment comes in so many forms, and
Speaker 1: some of that might come from changing our physical appearance.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's important to examine the societal
Speaker 1: influence that sometimes leaves us feeling obligated that we need
Speaker 1: to meet conventional beauty standards in order to achieve some
Speaker 1: level of happiness or to be accepted or to be
Speaker 1: treated well. When we feel shame in that sense, shame
Speaker 1: for just being who we truly are, nothing good really
Speaker 1: comes from that. So you can still accept that beauty
Speaker 1: standards have a role in our lives and that there
Speaker 1: are certain things that maybe do align with the implementation
Speaker 1: of beauty standards that you enjoy. Like I said, getting
Speaker 1: your nails done or investing in a really nice outfit
Speaker 1: or following trends that is still totally fine as long
Speaker 1: as it doesn't feel like necessary, as long as it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel enforced, as long as it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: if I don't do these things, my life will not
Speaker 1: be as good as I want it to be. So
Speaker 1: I really hope that you've enjoyed this kind of more
Speaker 1: rambly episode. Honestly, it's just been something on my mind.
Speaker 1: I've just been really considering attractiveness recently, really been like
Speaker 1: looking at people on the street and being like, you're attractive.
Speaker 1: I can tell why is that?
Speaker 2: Why do I want to keep looking at you?
Speaker 1: Why do I keep looking at myself in the mirror?
Speaker 1: Why do I keep picking at my skin, picking at
Speaker 1: little things on my face or my body that I
Speaker 1: just don't quite like? Where does that come from?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: I hope that this has been interesting, fascinating and lightning,
Speaker 1: that you have at least learned something, And if you
Speaker 1: haven't learned something, I hope that it's just left you
Speaker 1: feeling a little bit better, a little bit more encouraged
Speaker 1: by the fact that you are not the only one
Speaker 1: who was thinking about beauty in maybe a dangerous toxic way.
Speaker 1: I think it is very universal in our twenties, something
Speaker 1: that we should discuss more, something that we should be
Speaker 1: more open and about that this is not an isolated issue.
Speaker 1: All of us are consuming very similar content, feeling very
Speaker 1: similar things about what society expects from us in terms
Speaker 1: of looks. So thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 1: today's episode. As always, if there is a friend who
Speaker 1: needs to hear this, please feel free to share it
Speaker 1: with them or leave a five star review wherever you
Speaker 1: are listening. Make sure you are following us so that
Speaker 1: you know when new episodes come out and we are
Speaker 1: still taking episodes suggestions. We're always taking episode suggestions, So
Speaker 1: if there's something that you want us to speak on,
Speaker 1: want us to look into, want us to understand the
Speaker 1: psychology of for you, please follow me at that Psychology
Speaker 1: podcast and shoot me a message and I'll chat to
Speaker 1: you over there. As always, have a lovely week. We
Speaker 1: will be back next week with another episode.