Principle of Design

I think that our textbook, “Universal Principles of Design” is a very good book. The writing style is clear and engaging and enjoyable to read. Its discussions of concepts extend beyond design in the art world, and can apply to many different fields and areas of thought.

Just today in my Political Science class on Social Movements, the concept of Common Fate was mentioned as it relates to why groups of people behave in certain ways within social movements. I had never heard this term before, and our book helped me to better understand the concept.

However, that is not my assigned topic. My topic is #10, “Attractiveness Bias”

While I really like the book in general, I am not a fan of the way this topic has been handled. It seems to mix apples with oranges. It does this by calling the oranges apples. 

On the one hand we have the book calling physical beauty attractiveness, and on the other hand we have the book calling job and monetary status attractiveness. The topic is the bias towards attractiveness, but the book says women prefer financially well endowed men who are unattractive over attractive men.  At this point it has stopped talking about Attractiveness Bias.

While beauty is part of attractiveness, and social standing and financial status can also be part of attractiveness, the principle of Attractiveness Bias that is described here as “A tendency to see attractive people as more intelligent, competent, moral and sociable than unattractive people” can only be referring to an outward physical beauty. It cannot be referring to various other qualities that are societal in nature. It would be fair to extend this principle of Attractiveness Bias, seen in this way, to inanimate objects as well as to people or other living things.

The book referenced in the sidebar, “What is Beautiful is Good” by Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972)  states this principle clearly. Only physical beauty, physical attractiveness, is referred to in this article that paraphrases the content of that book.

Beauty relates to line, form, symmetry and like qualities of a visual nature. Also of consideration is the fact that Life is Good, Death is Bad (and frequently ugly). Therefore health and relative youth relate to Beauty. Sounds can be called beautiful if they are harmonic and regular, as opposed to jarring and harsh. I believe we can equate beauty with good design in general, and good design is attractive.

Yes, attractiveness can also be somewhat subjective, and our perceptions can change, but overall I think it fair to say that Beauty is favored over Non-beauty. This is the Attractiveness Bias. 

The girl in this video is attractive/beautiful no matter what they do or don't do to her.