Psychologists have found that people respond intuitively to faces so rapidly that our reasoning minds may not have time to influence the reaction. It’s almost like an involuntary shiver.
Don't be fooled by yourself or kind hearted friends. Looks matter in the dating game and never more so that in the media-savvy world we live in today.
The very first facet of our self-image is our presentation to others and this is initially portrayed through the way we look.
The basis of any courtship, date or relationship is basic physical attraction. If you are not attracted to someone and they are not attracted to you, you have just become friends. Whatever happens afterwards, it is likely to stay that way. You both must be physically attracted on some level to make things work. Yes, spiritual attraction, deep respect and friendship all do play a part in the longer term but in the first few minutes of meeting we instantly recognize whether there is an attraction and chemistry present between us.
These basic signals dilate pupils, redden the skin, wet the lips and arouse base human instincts. That desire is to lead to the wish to have sex. The issue is that these signals are being eroded by well-meaning campaigners who say that looks should not matter. I am not really very good looking in my own opinion but I do know what I look like. And I do know who and what I am attracted to. I am sometimes called shallow because I go for a certain look for my dates. But the point is that these looks are what I find attractive and I tend to go for people who go for my kind of looks, thus increasing the chance of dating success.
Initial dates are all about looks, about who and what we find attractive and we are foolish if we try and suppress these desires. If you like someone's hair, eyes, lips, the way they play with their fingers, the way they hold a glass or the way they walk then this is all on purpose. It is all part of the grander plan of matching like with like. By matching couples who are physically attracted, it is nature's way of pairing off. And for the most part it works well. The issue arises where we have trouble finding people who find us attractive.
The first thing that springs to mind is that where physically appealing looks are lacking, so people tend to make up with personality. Some of the sexiest people I have ever met are not physically attractive but they are immensely funny. Comedians are often not the best looking people you have met but are very attractive. This in some way comes from their inner confidence and stage presence. It is often said that men who are not too tall exude character and personality to make up for it. Again this may be true
Good Looks Vs. Personality
In evo-psych circles, a lot is made out of one’s “mating value” : that is, the aspects of attraction which are intrinsically based on certain favorable traits. Some, like financial success or social status, help ensure that any child will be raised successfully to adulthood. Others, like physical attractiveness and athleticism, are inheritable traits that help assure the child’s own reproductive success.
Except science has shown that this isn’t strictly true. In fact, UT Austin researchers Paul Eastwick and Lucy Hunt have found that it’s uniqueness that defines attractiveness over time rather than just looks or charisma. In their paper, Relational Mate Value: Consensus and Uniqueness in Romantic Evaluations, Eastwick and Hunt found that over time, who we consider attractive changes – people we may have seen as “alright” at first become far more appealing to us while people who are hot as a four alarm fire at first actually find that their advantages decline in importance.
In their paper, Eastwick and Hunt point out that in general, people tend to form a relatively uniform consensus1 about somebody’s appeal fairly quickly. For example: people would generally agree that Channing Tatum is a good-looking, charming guy for a potato. Jonah Hill is somewhat less so while Steve Buscemi is considerably less.
What happened? Well, as many people will tell you: getting to know somebody over time makes them more attractive to you. Yes, there will always be people who are able to leverage looks for a short-term advantage, but in the long run, it’s getting to know someone that ultimately makes them more attractive.
Now, let’s talk about why that is, and how playing up what makes you is important when it comes to building attraction.
How Personality Wins Out When Building Attraction
So why is it that people who may not necessarily push our buttons right off the bat become much more attractive to us? It’s something simple, actually. This is because of a psychological quirk that marketers have long exploited: the Exposure Effect. When you’re exposed to something repeatedly, you tend to develop a taste for it. It becomes preferable to you because it’s familiar. This is why that annoying earworm you heard on the radio goes from being a mind-numbing “GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD” terror to a guilty pleasure to something you find yourself grooving to… sometimes within the span of days.
The Exposure Effect
The Exposure Effect works on humans too; increased familiarity with somebody can make them seem more likable and pleasing. In fact, studies have shown that the more two people interact in a face-to-face setting, the more attracted they feel to one another… as many a person who’s found themselves interested in their best friend (or their best friend’s sibling, for that matter) can tell you. Attraction, after all, is about more than looks. It’s about how someone makes you feel. This is known as the Reward Theory of Attraction: the more somebody’s presence makes us feel good, the more we prioritize that relationship. We associate those feelings with that person and develop a new appreciation for them, a fondness for the things that make them uniquely them. This is why the way the way somebody wrinkles their nose when they laugh can make your heart race, even if they’re not objectively beautiful, while a gorgeous woman can leave us feeling cold.
Objective beauty doesn’t necessarily win out in the long run: because the way we feel about people changes how we perceive them
If you want to level the playing field when it comes to attraction, you don’t want to just hang around in hopes of breaking someone’s resistance down. You want to let people – whether friends in your social circle, classmates, coworkers or fellow regulars at your favorite bar – get to know the awesome person you are.
Nail The First Impression
There really can be no underestimating the power of a first impression. Getting off on the wrong foot with somebody – say, being rude and dismissive to someone – can affect how somebody will see you for years to come. This is why you want to make as strong and as positive a first impression on somebody as possible. This is why to start with, you want to dress well. Clothes do make the man after all; wearing flattering, well-fitting clothes goes a very long way to creating a positive impression of you. It tells other people that you put the effort in to take care of yourself and that you have confidence.
The link between facial features and character may not exist in reality. Seriously, someone who looks bad doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad person, do they? But this fact doesn’t stop our minds from sizing other people in the first glance. It may not be all about beauty and appearances, but we tend to decide very quickly whether a person has many of the requirements we feel are rather important to the instinctive side of us, such as likeability and warmth, even though we may not have exchanged a single word with them
The study of faces and the first look
A study was conducted by researchers, and the observers were asked to look at different faces for different durations of time, one tenth of a second, half a second or a full second.
After each face flashed on the screen and vanished, the observers marked whether they found the face to be trustworthy or not, and also how confident they were in their analysis. Other experiments conducted in similar fashion tested for different specific traits, such as like ability and competence.
It was also found in the test that, when more time was given to the observers, the judgment did not change. The observers only became more confident of their answers as the duration lengthened. The reason behind these quick judgments is not clear, but researchers say that there may be a part of the undiscovered brain that may be directly linked to judgments of trustworthiness.
Our minds experience a rapid cognition when making decisions quickly, especially when it comes to first impressions.
But the researchers also say that the first impression may help attract a few people, but the rational mind comes into the picture eventually and overcomes the intuitive decision. As times goes by, you would get to know these people a lot better and you would develop a better conception of them based on real life experiences.
The studies could not pinpoint the actual part of the face that lead to a particular trait inference, but the most probable aspect could be the symmetry or the proportions of its features.
So the next time you bump into someone and like them instantly, or detest the person, don’t worry. It’s just your mind trying to take over your parents’ job of choosing the best friends or mate for you.
So the next time you fall for someone at the first look, or like someone at the very first glance, don’t think twice. Big chances are, you’re going to like this person for a long time!
Confidence
Confidence, after all, is sexy, and being able to show it (even if you don’t feel it) makes you more intriguing and appealing to others. Making strong (but not too strong) eye contact, standing upright with your shoulders back and demonstrating relaxed body language all show that you’re confident in yourself and in the value that you have to offer other people. Shrinking away from somebody or folding in on yourself tells the other person that you don’t believe you have anything about yourself of value or interest.
The key thing though is that we must not underplay the reality that looks are important when dating. We should try to understand what kind of looks we really are attracted to and what kind of people we appeal to. We should understand how we look to others. If we are unhappy with the way we look then we should take necessary steps to look the best we can. That is not for others but purely for ourselves. In turn this will increase confidence levels and help make us more attractive. People will often say that one should not care about what is outside but what is inside that matters. Its true. That is the way the world should be. But it isn't. That kind of comment comes from those who are secretly worried about the way they look.
Conversely people often say that for them, looks don't matter. That is not true either. Looks never matter when you already the like the look of someone and find them acceptably attractive. Looks only matter when you are not attracted to someone physically. When you are seriously not attracted, then the looks of the other party become an issue even if you won't admit it. By generally meeting people who are attractive to you, you will eventually believe that on a conscious level you don't acknowledge looks. It is true that your view on physical attractiveness changes as you get older and as you mature in outlook. A man of 50 may not be attractive to a girl of 20 but may be very attractive to a woman of 40. Then again a woman of 45 can be very attractive to a man of 30. It all depends.
Our lives and the way we have developed in connection with life-experiences governs to some degree what and who attracts us. Personally, I like long straight blonde hair, but it is as much related to my teenage likings for the blonde singer of Fleetwood Mac or Agnetha from Abba as it is for any other reason. So there may be a link to what we find attractive on an emotional as well as physical level due to to the early connections we make.
In modern society, we can all look good and we can look healthy. It is possible to buy image from the local store and we are sophisticated presenters of image through our exposure to the media. But in the end we are in danger of losing a connection to the most basic of instincts, physical match. We can pretend that men and women who seek physical perfection are shallow and outdated, but they are only following their basic instincts. We can disguise and we can pretend and we can plead for others to look at our inner selves first and we can spend months chatting on an Internet dating site to show how nice we are. However in a two minute meeting face to face, we both know whether it will work or not.
Physical matching is not about physical perfection, it is about compatibility. If you are not feeling truly good about yourself when you are about to begin dating then take some time out to take an inventory of yourself and then set about changing a few things. Remember that everything you do in life affecting your appearance should primarily be for yourself but at the same time if you are serious about dating successfully you really should think very seriously about how you look to others. As I have said previously, you may be searching for your perfect partner, but to find them you may well have to try and present yourself as their ideal mate too.
Finally consider this. A survey recently asked what attribute people most associated with being poor and unsuccessful. The top answer was being overweight and the second was smoking.
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