Ce qui est beau est bien... Psycho-socio-biologie de la beauté

Abstract : Facial attractiveness is an important element of social life. A large body of research in social psychology has shown that attractive persons enjoy many advantages that unattractive persons do not have (see Eagly et al., 1991). This well-known stereotype, described by social psychologists as the “What is beautiful is good prototype” (Dion et al., 1972), mainly applies to the formation of first impressions, but it can also extend into less superficial interactions. Until recently, beauty was considered to lie “in the eyes of the beholder”. In that sense, a person’s physical appearance is not the main aspect of his/her attractiveness. However, many studies have reported substantial agreement, not only within the sexes but also across sexes, ethnic groups, and ages. Moreover, some facial characteristics have been shown to be factors of attractiveness, including closeness to the average, symmetry, and the physical characteristics of individual facial features, notably sex-related features (see Baudouin & Tiberghien, 2004). Thus, a multidimensional model of facial attractiveness is the best way to account for attractiveness. Each dimension is more or less associated with biological and/or social values that “inform” the observer about the physiological and psychological health of a perspective mate. The values given to the dimension depend on both (i) true relations between a specific biological state and their facial consequences (e.g., female, adult, down syndrome, happiness), and (ii) social and cultural stereotypes about this biological state (e.g., children never lies).