D-kriptik Blog

We have all sorts of random discussions around here. Most often, it starts as rambling, someone just blabbing about things they have been interested in, without much of a point. However, this can lead to lively discussions, and discussions often quickly begin to revolve around topics with which we are most familiar. In the end, sometimes points are made and conclusions are reached.

The consensus here is that this type of rambling does not translate well to a blog, but lets give it a shot. This ramble ended up being quite long, so I divided into three posts. The first post has little to do with the other two, but it is the beginning nonetheless and it certainly fits today.

-

I have a bit of a fascination with beauty. Human physical beauty, that is. We probably all do to some extent.

Beauty pulls at some of our core strings. Perhaps its strength derives from our drive to reproduce. The sex drive is one of our strongest drives, as it is how our blueprints are transferred on from generation to generation. And, we are coming to realize that base physical beauty can be recognized by us innately and that recognition is universal across peoples. This makes sense, as we are also coming to understand that, at its root, beauty appears to map to indicators of health, vitality, and reproductive viability.

Whatever the reasons, beauty hits us hard, as we can all probably attest to. I mean, who hasn’t felt the effect of beauty on them? We seem to be designed to feel it. Some of those effects lead us to associate all sorts of positive attributes to beautiful strangers, such as being likable, social, trustworthy, and born leaders. And, we often make such associations without even knowing we are doing so. Regardless of attribute association, we treat beautiful people better. We try to help them, we are more accommodating of them, and we even give them more personal space. And, again, we often do so without even being aware of it.

For example, I think many of us can remember a time when we have been in a conversation only to have a ridiculously beautiful person walk by, completing destroying our train of thought, and sometimes even stopping us mid-sentence. And, I can still remember when a girlfriend dragged me to some formal event a number of years ago. As we walked in the doors, everyone in the immediate vicinity took note of her, as conversations paused and eyes shifted to her. I felt a mixture of awe at her effect and fear at being caught up in the spotlight just by virtue of being with her. IIRC, I immediately ran off to get us drinks, which was really an excuse to get me out of that spotlight. (Ok, you can stop laughing now. I have grown to appreciate this “attention by association” beauty effect. )

That is not to say there are no disadvantages to beauty. Beauty does not blend in with most crowds, and it is hard to hide being beautiful. Beauty gets attention, whether desired or not. For example, I have at least one friend that is not always happy with the amount of attention they can draw just by how they look, so they often “hide out” in VIP rooms and private parties until the afterhours scene kicks in. (I know what you are thinking, world’s smallest violin. ) Also, I sometimes think Marc Jacobs’ empire was built on beautiful people wanting to hide.

Now, James Bond might seem cool and Seinfeld made us laugh, but there are plenty of real stories about beauty being used to seduce information. It hits us where we are most vulnerable, where we are programmed to respond. I know the last conference I attended, marketers were throwing beauty at me in an attempt to gather, at a minimum, contact information. And, I still remember my friend patiently listening to some person’s pyramid scheme sales speech all the while holding this person’s drink from them (and listening to me laugh in the background) just because the person giving the speech was a bit attractive.

We can play with features here too. Take height, which can both play a role in being judged beautiful and has strong ties to being perceived as a leader. Perhaps this is because physical size played an important role in being a leader way back when and helped with survival. Whatever the cause, there are some interesting statistics about height and power. Just look at the heights of US presidents in general (and even as compared to their opponents – probably one of the besta simple looks based ways to pick which candidate will win an election). And, how tall are the CEOs of major corporations on average?

Moving on from just beauty, marketing and sales are about trying to influence people to spend their limited resources (e.g., time, money) on certain products (e.g., goods, services) over other products. This done is through many means, both overt and covert. It preys upon our base programming and our learned experience – things like social value, liking someone, or even just wanting to seem consistent – to get us to do things the marketing and sales people want. (Remember this?) Beauty helps with things like being liked and social value. It also helps make objects and other people more desirable. Think of that attractive model sitting on that car for sale – regardless of how blatant the use of the model is, your brain makes associations between that model and that car. And, as noted above, I can think of the increased attention I get when I am out with beautiful people – my social value is increased just by association.

Of note, I find research in the marketing and sales fields is excellent for application to the security arena, and this has been capturing my attention of late. Psychology, as it were, often distilled down to social engineering techniques. Beauty is just one element used here.

(As you may have guessed, it’s Valentine’s Day yet again, and we still love you.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 1:45 am and is filed under Off-topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.