‘Face-Blind’ are Poor at Judging Facial Attractiveness
As a social species we rely on being able to recognise other people by looking at their faces. This is a skill most of us take for granted. So imagine if you couldn't recognise the faces of people close to you: your parents, your partner, your children. This condition is called prosopagnosia or face-blindness and about 2% of people are affected at some level. A new study shows that people with face-blindness have difficulties judging other people's attractiveness.
Eight face-blind participants were shown a series of anonymous male and female faces and asked to judge their attractiveness. Their ratings were compared to a control group who were not face-blind. The results showed that those with face-blindness only rated the more attractive slightly higher than average faces.
One of the researchers, Professor Jason Barton explains:
"While the beauty of a face might seem a more fitting topic for an artist, this work helps settle a debate by showing that areas that code the identity of a face also play a key role in the perception of beauty."
Face blindness has a variety of causes: some people have the condition from birth, others develop it after conditions such as strokes or brain.
Is beauty a curse?
However the condition is caused, its very existence prompts some interesting thoughts. If many more of us were face-blind and consequently had difficulty judging the attractivity of others, our culture would undergo some subtle shifts. Here's a few speculations I came up with:
- We would be exposed to more talented actors, singers and other performers. Let's face it, the less attractive have a harder time getting their faces in front of our faces.
- We would feel less pressure to be attractive. Upward comparisons are bad for our self-esteem. If Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie didn't look so super-hot in comparison, you'd feel better about yourself.
- Plastic surgeons would go out of business.
- Less attractive people would earn more money. We tend to infer a variety of positive qualities into those who are more attractive. This is bound to affect the hiring process. In the brave new world there'd be a level playing field.
- People would be happier with their partners - upward comparisons with more attractive potential parters creates dissatisfaction. One study has found teachers who are surrounded by young fresh-faced students all day are less happy with their partners than others.
- World peace resulting from more interracial/inter-cultural marriage. Obviously I'm pushing it but perhaps one of the barriers to world peace is simply that we don't like to partner up with people who don't conform to our particular cultural stereotype of attractivity. Take that away and BOOM! we all intermarry and so...world peace!
Strangely, only positive effects came to mind off the top of my head. Hence beauty might not be a curse for an individual, but it might well be a curse for our society. I'm sure you can come up with many more both positive and negative...
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Conversely, I tend to find people that I know better more attractive.
You assume that marriage creates peace?!
Anon, perhaps people are so busy fighting with their partner they forget to go to war? I'm clutching at straws here!
prosopagnosia is a very challenging disorder, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about the positive aspects it could invite. Waite's research from Barton's lab has yet to be replicated and there are serious considerations regarding the objectivity of the control. Check out some of the other (perhaps less sexy) research from the HVAC lab. It would be nice to see some real solid research make it on to a site for the public.
Hi Me, not conclusions, these are just a few 'creative' speculations. If you'd like to recommend some particular studies for me to cover here, please do comment below or email them to me. Thanks.
Does anyone propose creating a pill to make sure the "face-blind" do not accidentally marry someone ugly? Here is a more interesting question - who is doing the study, and why are they doing the study.
Also, what is beautiful? There is a general belief that beauty is balance. There is also a belief that human beings tend to be drawn to the un-common (rare) - hence in a community were everyone is starving to death the fat women is desired. In our society were fat is pretty common, we look up at toothpicks. Also, one should make the distinction between current societal fetish and beauty. We used to think Marylin was the tops, now we might consider her fat.
Joe, good points about the relative nature of beauty. Still, for my thought experiment I wanted to imagine people were completely blind to attractivity.
Thinking about it again, though, perhaps it would be completely impossible because people would always find a way to differentiate between each other. People would begin to fetishize the tiniest differences between people. For example slight differences in the tone of their voice, behaviour such as dominance or aggressivity. Maybe there's no meaningful way to talk about people without some variability in attractivity built in?
Jeremy,
I am assuming this study was for a class you are taking?! What year are you in? Graduate or undergrad?
Hi Joe, no not for a class - for you dear reader(s)! More about me on my about page.
Ive noticed that I think everyone looks familiar to me if if met them or not.