Evolutionary Advantage of Being Attractive

[mikeymike99]

When choosing a partner, how good-looking they are is usually fairly/very important. I can see the evolutionary advantage to being attracted to - for example - a muscular man (as he will be able to provide, fight off dangers etc). As being handsome/beautiful makes it a lot easier to find a mate surely it has some evolutionary advantage - but what?

[mibn2cweus]

You�ve probably heard it said that, �Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.� What one finds handsome/beautiful is based on ones values. Ones fundamental values elicit an emotive response summed up automatically by the brain based on the content of ones mind. Following a carefully reasoned analysis, a rational intelligent person will find that beauty is equivalent to that which conforms to the ideal of and/or promotes the existence of a healthy intelligent being able to make such a distinction.

In the most fundamental terms, life is beautiful.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Whilst Mib makes the point that beauty is subjective, to some degree it isn't. When tests have been done on attractiveness, they find that people tend to rate symmetry as a key feature, and this probably relates to the fact that illness and injury may show themseleves in a lack of symmetry. A clear skin would similarly tend to indicate a lack of illness etc.

I found this, which may help, though it's a little too technical for this time of morning for me!

http://sirl.stanford.edu/~bob/teaching/pdf/art h202/Rhodes_AnnRevPsychol06.pdf

[WaldoMcFroog]

I should add that that pdf has a much more widely ranging discussion that I'd put in my own answer!

[mikeymike99]

Thank you Waldo, the reference was exactly the kind of thing I spent ages looking through google for but couldn't find!

[Bob A Job]

well your theory goes completly out of the window in California, Two beautiful people get together and the result is an ugly baby.

Plastic surgery has alot to answer for...

[jno]

it's health our genes are looking for rather than beauty as such, I think. If you have a baby to perpetuate your genes you want to have it with someone who's healthy and likely to be able to live long enough to raise it.

[miles488]

the symmetry = health idea is nearly right but symmetry actually denotes a person's left/right rna symmetry - symmetrical face means a person has nice error free dna and is more likely to sire a good viable life-form . but really all that's about sexual basic stuff - attraction at the level of the heart...at the level of the soul even - now that'll last for more than a coupla shags!