Physical attractiveness from psychological perspective

Abstract

Try to explore the motivation of human beings pursuing attractiveness of appearance from psychological perspective, and how the social psychological factors influence on the aethetic standard. Firstly, from the perspectives of social cognition, evolutionary psychology and mate choice psychology, the paper analyzes the individual′s motivation of pursuing the attractiveness of appearance, and proposes that the halo effect affects people′s cognition of beauty, and then makes people have a beautiful expectation effect. This expectation forms a Self-fulfilling prophecy, thus achieving people′s aspirations for the pursuit of the attractiveness of appearance. However, what is the standard of appearance attractiveness, and through the analysis of psychology research result such as appearance attractiveness, synthetic photograph and intercultural face, we come to several criteria of appearance attractiveness and put forward the social psychological factors such as exposure effect, familiarity and so on Affect people′s judgment on appearance attractiveness, and further explain that the social psychological needs affect the individual′s subjective experience of beauty. Key words: Psychology; Attractiveness; Halo effect; Self-fulfilling prophecy; Exposure effect