Anthony Cerrato  wrote in
news:c00fpn$26rt$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 
>>  But there is  not in fact a
>> "wide" variety of perceptions of beauty. Faces
considered attractive
>> in one culture are also considered attractive in other cultures, and
>> very young infants will preferentially look at faces that are
>> considered attractive by adults.  So culture is not  an
"exclusive" 
>> explanation, although it certainly plays a role. Now there have been
>> explanations put forward for cross-cultural facial attractiveness
>> based on built-in bias in our perceptual system, and this may be the
>> correct explanation. 

 
> I agree that there is a strong global cultural factor in the
> establishment of a standard of "beauty," but there is also a
> "personal" standard developed as an infant or in early
> childhood, namely faces and bodies which resemble parents,
> close family and such who a child was close to early on.
> This factor of course would would be confounded with global
> cultural ones since all those in the culture would tend
> somewhat to the cultural mean; the personal though would be
> more specific and selective. For ex., my absolute standard
> of beauty was generally set by a young girl I was attracted
> to in the 2nd grade! :)

Very true. In fact, one of the interesting research results I came
across when looking into this subject is that children of older parents,
when they reach adulthood,  find older faces more attractive than
children of younger parents. And there is also an attraction to faces
that are more like ones close relatives - although I did not see any
research results on faces that are like ones girlfriends in the second
grade :-). Actually that might be a good topic for a research paper,
assuming you could get people to reliably report such preferences! 

As I said, I do see a role for culture, possibly even a strong role -
but I don't want to admit that to Larry Moran, because it would destroy
my standing as an adaptationist. 

Yours,

Bill Morse
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