Is beauty really in the proportions?

Many scientific studies promote that the "secret" to what we consider beautiful is simply possessing a symmetrical face. The evolutionary reasoning for this may be two-fold: 1. Mating with someone physically attractive will increase the chances of my off-spring finding a mate since he/she will be perceived as desirable and will ensure the passing of my own genes. 2. Physical symmetry suggests health and freedom from disease.

 Elder, a British Orthodontist supported the idea that bilateral symmetry represents "high-worth" when looking for a mate. Symmetry represents freedom from disease, since many diseases leave one's face and body in non-proportional states. Elder's claims have been further supported by the suggestion that the ability to cope with such pressures is represented in greater symmetrical features - that is, if someone is able to maintain symmetrical features despite fluctuating environmental factors, then that individual must be fit! This may seem like a stretch, but even the most subtle differences, such as wrinkles, a slightly off-centered eye or lips are unconsciously registered in our minds when evaluating attractiveness. However, having a slight lack of symmetry may actually be beneficial: Nigel Parry, a Vogue portrait photographer for over 20 years deviates from this belief, supporting the view that "what makes a classic pretty face is generally something a little unusual -- there shouldn't be perfection on both sides,".

So who is correct?



Lets take a further look: Julian Wolkenstein believed that individuals with more symmetrical faces are viewed as more attractive and tested this belief by photographing individuals and comparing these individuals with photoshoped images of their right and left sides. The portraits were split into a "left" and "right" and each of these were flipped horizontally to create two new, but symmetrical photos-left centered (center), right centered (right)of the subject. Here are a few images from her study:

after viewing a few photos like this one, it became obvious that the most "beautiful" faces were actually the original photos, not the perfectly symmetrical ones! (if you're interested in seeing how you would look with perfect bilateral symmetry, check out http://echoism.org/)


Despite our lack of attraction to these technologically altered images, another facial surgeon, Dr. Stephen Marquardt, conducted cross-cultural surveys on attraction and beauty, and discovered that all groups - independent of culture - had the same judgements regarding facial beauty. Throughout this study, he noted the evolution of beauty by analyzing faces from ancient civilizations to modern day society remained relatively constant, and all related to phi (the Golden Ratio 1:1.618). He incorporated this ratio in his famous Marquardt Phi/Golden ratio mask below.

The mask was created using psi proportions that matched the universal standards of facial beauty, which include: big eyes, a small nose, a symmetrical face and body, slender body, muscular (men) or hourglass figure (women), thick hair, large hands, full lips, glowing skin. The evolutionary basis of maintaining these stable traits (ie they have not changed over time) may be that symmetry represents the quality of one's genes, such genotype leads to the observed phenotype, and thus "good" genes would be expected to be expressed with a nicer phenotype; thus, those individuals with better phenotype were selected over those with less symmetrical faces since they were perceived to have better fitness than their non-symmetrical counterparts. A few studies have tried to examine this theory further by increasing the symmetry of a face over a period of time while asking subjects to rank the attractiveness of the face. For both males and females, increased symmetry led to striking increase in attractiveness ratings, lending further evidence towards the positive association between bilateral symmetry and mate selection. Although common sense tells us that one's facial appearance has nothing to do with whether that individual would make a compatible partner, we still can't seem to logically forgo the attraction to symmetrical faces...good thing we have make-up and hairstyling!

- Effie

Sources:
Edler, R. J. (2001). "Background Considerations to Facial Aesthetics". Journal of Orthodontics 28 (2): 159 Zaidel, D.
Aarde, S.; Baig, K. (2005). "Appearance of symmetry, beauty, and health in human faces". Brain and Cognition 57 (3): 261.
Perrett, D. (1999). "Symmetry and Human Facial Attractiveness". Evolution and Human Behavior 20: 295.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3395422&page=1#.TyVqQfmrqKw http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1367633/Perfect-symmetry-How-look-sides-face-identical.html http://echoism.org/ http://www.femininebeauty.info/aesthetics/marquardt http://theperfecthumanface.blogspot.com/