It has been a long time since I wrote a weekend post, as some people have pointed out. Being busy on weekdays looks to have gradually shifted more of my out and about time to weekends, which might be the culprit. And, I guess while the quickies posts might be similar to a weekend post, they just aren’t the same enough for some of you. So, let’s do this.
-
Ok, let me first get the disappointment out of the way – I don’t have any nightlife or other stories I want to write up this time.
That said, Pacha NYC does seem to be a topic of interest to many, as my thoughts on customer service there have attracted some attention. So, why not comment on the crowd?
As I stated before, Pacha is big and well-known, which means that lots of people go there and almost every one of them gets in. The result of this often seems to be that there are very positive, very negative, and a whole bunch of neutral people running around inside during peak time, which is to say, you may run into someone that makes you smile but you may also run into someone that makes you frown.
I guess I should qualify my terms a bit. My thoughts on positive, negative, and neutral in this context are something like follows.
- Positive – there to have fun; respectful; happy; enjoys the music; can handle a crowd.
- Negative – rude; angry; beligerent; incoherent; upset by a crowd.
- Neutral – just sort of there; meat market.
Now, there are three DJs that get me into Pacha routinely, Boris, Victor Calderone (VC), and Danny Tenaglia (dt), and so I will comment on the crowds for these three.
While the neutral people are hard to notice, the positive and negative people do make an impact and their concentrations tend to vary quite a bit across these three DJs when at Pacha. So, here is a breakdown of the crowd for each.
- Boris – Boris generally has a balanced mix of negative and positive people during peak. As after hours comes in, most negative people head out, leaving a much higher concentration of positive people to negative people, which means a good crowd for after hours.
- dt – During peak, the crowd at Tenaglia always seems to be at the extremes, having both the highest concentration of negative people and the highest concentration of positive people. However, once the party rolls over fully to after hours, the dt regulars tend to take over the place. Tenaglia has a “be yourself” and let others be themselves motto, which is something the dt regulars have adopted fully, meaning the crowd when after hours kicks into high gear is completely positive and absolutely perfect.
- VC – The crowd for Calderone from peak to finish always seems to have the lowest concentration of negative people and a high concentration of positive people. Once after hours kicks in, the few negative people tend to depart, leaving a great crowd.
Based solely on crowd, that makes the best bet to go to Pacha when VC is there; however, if you are a late-nighter (like me), then dt pulls ahead.
My recommendation though, forget the crowd, go for the music and fun, and focus on the after hours. All three of these guys play marathon sets (at least 8 hours long), and none of them really kick into high gear until at least 6AM.
-
So, I briefly mentioned height and the results of USA presidential elections in part of a ramble.
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 best ways to pick which candidate will win an election). And, how tall are the CEOs of major corporations on average?
Now, I did not qualify “best” in that comment at all and intended it to be a bit humorous, but the end result may be an incorrect statement. Of course, the general point was to show the influence of physical attributes on our perceptions of people, not to actually mean the most effective way to predict the results of a USA presidential election is answering the question “which candidate is taller?” Nevertheless, I have since changed that statement to avoid additional headaches. 
Looking at Wikipedia, there is a discussion of the topic here, which gives the heights of the USA presidents and is summed up as follows.
In reality, for the 46 elections in which the height of which both candidates is known, the taller candidate won 25 times (approximately 54 percent of the time), the shorter candidate won 18 times (approximately 39 percent of the time) and the candidates were the same height three times (about 7 percent of the time).[original research?] Therefore, the taller candidate has won the majority of elections, but the tall-short margin of victory is by no means overwhelming.
It should be noted however that in three of the cases where the shorter candidate won, the taller candidate actually received more popular votes but lost in the Electoral College; this happened in 1824, 1888, and 2000 (the other time that the electoral vote winner was not the popular vote winner was in 1876, for which we do not know the height of the loser).[original research?] So of the 46 cases we have data, the taller candidate has won the popular vote 28 times (61 percent), and the shorter candidate only about 15 times (33 percent of them).
I have no idea if the height information is accurate, but, if it is, this boils down to the following… In USA presidential elections where we know height was different, 58% of the time the taller candidates won the election, and 65% of the time they won the popular vote. Since 1900, in USA presidential elections where we know height was different, 65% of the time the taller candidates won the election, and 69% of the time they won the popular vote.
Clearly, those odds favor the taller candidate, so height is a simple, physical appearance based metric to pick the winner of a USA presidential election with greater than coin flip odds. This seems to make sense, as height is an aspect of physical appearance that effects peoples’ judgments of leadership capabilities. But, let’s look at another aspect of physical appearance that probably shines through better than height in many media used today – faces.
So, we have this paper.
Human groups are unusual among primates in that our leaders are often democratically selected. Faces affect hiring decisions and could influence voting behavior. Here, we show that facial appearance has important effects on choice of leader. We show that differences in facial shape alone between candidates can predict who wins or loses in an election (Study 1) and that changing context from war time to peace time can affect which face receives the most votes (Study 2). Our studies highlight the role of face shape in voting behavior and the role of personal attributions in face perception. We also show that there may be no general characteristics of faces that can win votes, demonstrating that face traits and information about the environment interact in choice of leader.
With the results…
Feeding this percentage into the regression models, we found that the models predicted a win for Blair in terms of both popular vote (53.17%) and seats won (56.6%).
Our predictions were relatively accurate, as Blair won 52.13% of the actual two-way share of the popular vote and 64.3% of the split in seats won[...]
The final polling revealed, from a 99% return for the two candidates, that Bush had 51% and Kerry had 48% of votes, very similar to the 56%/44% split here when judges were asked which face they would vote for as the leader of their country.
And this paper.
Here we show that rapid judgments of competence based solely on the facial appearance of candidates predicted the outcomes of gubernatorial elections, the most important elections in the United States next to the presidential elections. In all experiments, participants were presented with the faces of the winner and the runner-up and asked to decide who is more competent. To ensure that competence judgments were based solely on facial appearance and not on prior person knowledge, judgments for races in which the participant recognized any of the faces were excluded from all analyses. Predictions were as accurate after a 100-ms exposure to the faces of the winner and the runner-up as exposure after 250 ms and unlimited time exposure (Experiment 1). Asking participants to deliberate and make a good judgment dramatically increased the response times and reduced the predictive accuracy of judgments relative to both judgments made after 250 ms of exposure to the faces and judgments made within a response deadline of 2 s (Experiment 2). Finally, competence judgments collected before the elections in 2006 predicted 68.6% of the gubernatorial races and 72.4% of the Senate races (Experiment 3). These effects were independent of the incumbency status of the candidates. The findings suggest that rapid, unreflective judgments of competence from faces can affect voting decisions.
Great, so now we have evidence that facial appearance impacts how we rate someone as a leader too, and this can be used to predict election results. (All of which is right in line with the original ramble.)
So, lets reduce all of this height and face stuff down to the level of picking candidates by answering a simple question, such as our “who is taller?” question.
Perhaps a just as simple and maybe better way to pick who will be elected president than answering “who is taller?” is to answer this more general question – who best looks the part? (A little lamination goes a long way. ) And, of course, a consensus answer gives better results than each individual answer here.
Which might also be in line with this other paper.
The current study examined whether desired personality influences face preference. Pairs of composite faces were made based on the faces that individuals differing in desired partner personality found most attractive. One composite represented a face most attractive to those desiring a particular trait and the other a face most attractive to those not desiring the same trait. Pairs were presented to different participants to ascertain whether the composites reflected the desired personality of the original raters. For several traits the composites did differ in perceived personality indicating that the personality desired in a partner is reflected in face preference: if a trait is desired then faces perceived to possess that trait are found more attractive than faces which do not possess that trait. These findings cast new light on the ‘‘what is beautiful is good’’ stereotype. What an individual desires in partner reflects what they consider ‘‘good’’, and they find faces reflecting these desired traits as attractive – ‘‘what is good is beautiful’’. Possessing personality traits that are attractive may be causal in making a face attractive.
What is good is beautiful, or what is beautiful is good? However you look at it then beauty is good.
But, when do we start to recognize beauty and judge people as attractive or not?
Like adults, young infants prefer attractive to unattractive faces (e.g. Langlois, Roggman, Casey, Ritter, Rieser-Danner & Jenkins, 1987; Slater, von der Schulenburg, Brown, Badenoch, Butterworth, Parsons & Samuels, 1998). Older children and adults stereotype based on facial attractiveness (Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani & Longo, 1991; Langlois, Kalakanis, Rubenstein, Larson, Hallam & Smooth, 2000). How do preferences for attractive faces develop into stereotypes? Several theories of stereotyping posit that categorization of groups is necessary before positive and negative traits can become linked to the groups (e.g. Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971; Zebrowitz-McArthur, 1982). We investigated whether or not 6-month-old infants can categorize faces as attractive or unattractive. In Experiment 1, we familiarized infants to unattractive female faces; in Experiment 2, we familiarized infants to attractive female faces and tested both groups of infants on novel faces from the familiar or novel attractiveness category. Results showed that 6-month-olds categorized attractive and unattractive female faces into two different groups of faces. Experiments 3 and 4 confirmed that infants could discriminate among the faces used in Experiments 1 and 2, and therefore categorized the faces based on their similarities in attractiveness rather than because they could not differentiate among the faces. These findings suggest that categorization of facial attractiveness may underlie the development of the ‘beauty is good’ stereotype.
Which brings us to this major work that pulls together of a wealth of studies.
Common maxims about beauty suggest that attractiveness is not important in life. In contrast, both fitness-related evolutionary theory and socialization theory suggest that attractiveness influences development and interaction. In 11 meta-analyses, the authors evaluate these contradictory claims, demonstrating that (a) raters agree about who is and is not attractive, both within and across cultures; (b) attractive children and adults are judged more positively than unattractive children and adults, even by those who know them; (c) attractive children and adults are treated more positively than unattractive children and adults, even by those who know them; and (d) attractive children and adults exhibit more positive behaviors and traits than unattractive children and adults. Results are used to evaluate social and fitness-related evolutionary theories and the veracity of maxims about beauty.
In which we finds things like this.
Surprisingly, in addition to being judged differently as a function of their attractiveness, attractive individuals on average were treated significantly better than unattractive individuals. These findings are powerful evidence that, contrary to popular belief, attractiveness effects extend beyond mere “opinions” of others and permeate actual actions towards others, even though people may not be aware of it.
And, the concluding paragraph of that paper, which follows, reminded me of my previous post on this blog (i.e., this one).
An alternative viewpoint concludes the opposite about the maxims. Perhaps they have been too successful. Perhaps, because children and adults have listened carefully to and assimilated these maxims, they are confident that they have unique standards of beauty, that they do not judge or treat people differently based on their appearance, and that beauty has nothing to do with a person’s behaviors and traits. If people believe that they behave in accord with these principles of decency, they have no reason to recognize or change their behavior. Thus, the very research that identifies the powerful way in which people react to physical attractiveness might ameliorate these apparent unconscious and automatic processes. Being cognitive, humans have the behavioral plasticity and foresightedness to learn to oppose these influences, and the maxims can again remind people to behave more consciously and humanely.
Finally, when it comes to being physically attractive, being the “hottest” is not necessarily the way to be considered the most trustworthy.
If humans are sensitive to the costs and benefits of favouring kin in different circumstances, a strong prediction is that cues of relatedness will have a positive effect on prosocial feelings, but a negative effect on sexual attraction. Indeed, positive effects of facial resemblance (a potential cue of kinship) have been demonstrated in prosocial contexts. Alternatively, such effects may be owing to a general preference for familiar stimuli. Here, I show that subtly manipulated images of other-sex faces were judged as more trustworthy by the participants they were made to resemble than by control participants. In contrast, the effects of resemblance on attractiveness were significantly lower. In the context of a long-term relationship, where both prosocial regard and sexual appeal are important criteria, facial resemblance had no effect. In the context of a short-term relationship, where sexual appeal is the dominant criterion, facial resemblance decreased attractiveness. The results provide evidence against explanations implicating a general preference for familiar-looking stimuli and suggest instead that facial resemblance is a kinship cue to which humans modulate responses in a context-sensitive manner.
Not that one necessarily cares whether they are considered the MOST trustworthy or not, especially when many people do what they can to get and keep that “hot” person looking their way with interest and a smile. Which might be related to this.
ABSTRACT—Few studies have investigated how physical and social facial cues are integrated in the formation of face preferences. Here we show that expression differentially qualifies the strength of attractiveness preferences for faces with direct and averted gaze. For judgments of faces with direct gaze, attractiveness preferences were stronger for smiling faces than for faces with neutral expressions. By contrast, for judgments of faces with averted gaze, attractiveness preferences were stronger for faces with neutral expressions than for smiling faces. Because expressions can differ in meaning depending on whether they are directed toward or away from oneself, it is only by integrating gaze direction, facial expression, and physical attractiveness that one can unambiguously identify the most attractive individuals who are likely to reciprocate one’s own social interest.
-
Finally, in keeping with the spirit of a weekend post, here is the ever popular look at some interesting search terms that popped up in the logs.
what+is+the+use+of+physical+beauty%3F
As referenced in this current post itself, this paper is one exploration of that topic.
photos+hotornot.com+without+permission+angry
In this CCD age, I find that for almost everything people do, someone is right there taking a picture. And, those digital pcitures almost always seem to somehow find their way onto the public interwebs. And, once out there, people tend to do all sorts of things with the pictures that may not have been intended or desired by the people captured in those pictures.
Perhaps we are entering an age of utter transparency with no privacy. Then again, maybe a major backlash will happen here (a cypherpunk opportunity? ).
+Bartenders,+fustration+with+music+they+like+compared+to+what+their+customers+enjoy
One of my positive comments about some of the bartenders in Pacha was that they seemed to like the music. I don’t think liking the music is really what matters though, it is the positive attitude implied by liking the music that has an effect. Which is to say, whether or not you like the music, create a positive atmosphere for the patrons and give them a good customer service experience. If you can’t do that because the music makes you negative, then it may be time to move on.
what+is+a+humint
A humint? Is that like a hummus, only with a taste? This post might be of interest.
diner+%2B+mid-town+manhattan%2C+ny
Cheyenne, as noted in this post.
start+a+home+based+catering+business
The closest I come to cooking is screen printing tees – i.e., curing plastisol ink – and you definitely don’t want to eat the results of that.
And, in our grand tradition, we wrap up here…
middle+age+panty
panty%2Bthrowing%2Bascii%2Bart
Now that’s quality.