We’ve all heard the notion that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This is generally 
taken to mean that everyone has their own internal standards of beauty and what you consider beautiful might be considered ugly by someone else. And vice versa.
But did you know that there’s scientific evidence that suggests that people’s perceptions of beauty may in fact have a universal standard based on the geometric features of the human face?
Beauty research
The International Journal of Cosmetic Science published an article entitled “The Biology of Facial Beauty” (2005, 27. 317-325 – sorry there’s no online reference for this one!) in which the authors describe “culture-independent psychological adaptations reflecting mate choice characteristics.” In other words, they showed that across different ethnic and cultural groups, people strongly agree about who is and is not attractive. The study employed facial images like the ones above which were digitally generated to demonstrate the universality of beauty without ethnic boundaries (image courtesy: Karl Grammer, LBI for Urban Ethology.)
The article goes on to cite evidence that at least some aspects of our ability to recognize beauty has a genetic basis – it’s hard-wired into us!
So although “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” has a certain romantic appeal, it appears that “beauty is in the eye of the biology” might be more scientifically accurate!
We’ve all heard the notion that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This is generally
taken to mean that everyone has their own internal standards of beauty and what you consider beautiful might be considered ugly by someone else. And vice versa.
But did you know that there’s scientific evidence that suggests that people’s perceptions of beauty may in fact have a universal standard based on the geometric features of the human face?
Beauty research
The International Journal of Cosmetic Science published an article entitled “The Biology of Facial Beauty” (2005, 27. 317-325 – sorry there’s no online reference for this one!) in which the authors describe “culture-independent psychological adaptations reflecting mate choice characteristics.” In other words, they showed that across different ethnic and cultural groups, people strongly agree about who is and is not attractive. The study employed facial images like the ones above which were digitally generated to demonstrate the universality of beauty without ethnic boundaries (image courtesy: Karl Grammer, LBI for Urban Ethology.)
The article goes on to cite evidence that at least some aspects of our ability to recognize beauty has a genetic basis – it’s hard-wired into us!
So although “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” has a certain romantic appeal, it appears that “beauty is in the eye of the biology” might be more scientifically accurate!