What makes something attractive and appealing?

[TimbaLanD]

Why do we find certain things appealing to look at and not others? What makes something look good?

 

[Blade]

Why do we find certain things appealing to look at and not others? What makes something look good?

 

 

It's a matther of taste. and taste can not be defined.

[Royston]

It's a matther of taste. and taste can not be defined.

 

Well 'taste' in this context, is the subjective preference of an external stimulus.

 

With the OP, it's far too broad a question i.e I find a woman attractive for clearly different reasons, as to why I find a sunset attractive.

[Pre4edgc]

From what I've heard on Discovery Channel specials about this, and from what I've read, they say that your personal preference is dependent on what you found pleasing during your childhood. I guess it'd be like if you liked your mom a lot, who was a brunette, then later on in life, you'd find people who were brunettes more attractive.

 

I'm not entirely sure of the legitimacy, since studies on this might be extremely varied, but it's what I've read and heard.

[MrSandman]

Pheremon, read about it to understand.

[CDarwin]

Why do we find certain things appealing to look at and not others? What makes something look good?

 

 

Someone with a more sociobiological bent might say a lot of it has to do with things that were healthy and things that should be avoided during your evolutionary past. A greened vista reflects abundance and makes you think "I want to go there" because your ancestors could have gotten food there. A rotting pile of garbage reflects disease and unhealthiness, so it makes you think "Ew, stay away from that." I don't think that's a terrible explanation.

[Royston]

Someone with a more sociobiological bent might say a lot of it has to do with things that were healthy and things that should be avoided during your evolutionary past.

 

That's certainly applicable to some objects...but how do you apply that to conceptual art, or consider fetishes...some people are sexually aroused by looking at a pair of socks. I don't think you can pin down 'people are attracted to certain objects, because...' in one sweeping statement, so I still think it's too broad a question.

[YT2095]

for Me, I like simplicity and functionality above all.

 

for example: I don`t want blue tooth, camera, text, WAP, phone, MP3 player, radio, games machine and TV on a mobile phone!

 

I want something that can make and take phone calls with a great battery life!

[Royston]

for Me, I like simplicity and functionality above all.

 

Socks ?

[YT2095]

Socks ?

 

certainly! as long as they fit nicely and have a good battery life

[Phi for All]

for Me, I like simplicity and functionality above all.

 

for example: I don`t want blue tooth, camera, text, WAP, phone, MP3 player, radio, games machine and TV on a mobile phone!

 

I want something that can make and take phone calls with a great battery life!

Oh totally. I had to shop for a month to find a blow dryer that just blows hot air at my hair. I didn't need 15 settings of heat and speed, with or without ions, brush and diverter attachments, all that crap. When I finally found it it was cheap too. And it's lasted already twice as long as any of it's more expensive predecessors.

 

I'm not a fan of multi-use devices since they tend to do several things badly. I'm like YT, give me a phone that lets me talk to people with a battery that lasts all day. If I need to open a can or iron my socks I'll find the appropriate device and it won't be my phone.

[Martin]

Why do we find certain things appealing to look at and not others? What makes something look good?

 

Someone with a more sociobiological bent might say a lot of it has to do with things that were healthy and things that should be avoided during your evolutionary past. A greened vista reflects abundance and makes you think "I want to go there" because your ancestors could have gotten food there. A rotting pile of garbage reflects disease and unhealthiness, so it makes you think "Ew, stay away from that." I don't think that's a terrible explanation.

 

The evolution and co-evolution of aethetic sense is a fascinating problem in evolutionary biology (and maybe brain science as well).

 

CDarwin, compliments on pointing this out---yours is the only post on thread that does.

 

Co-evolution helps: decay bacteria don't HAVE to create such a bad smell. They found out what we didn't like and they make that smell to establish their territory so that mammalian scavengers stay away and don't compete. If you were a decay bacterium you would see why it is a good idea (otherwise you will end up in some mammal's stomach along with the dead meat that you were dining on.)

 

Sexual selection feedback loops can get quite complicated. Peacock tail---in female's genetic interest to mate with male that attracts other females because then her SON will have a lot of offspring---feedback loop creates wiring in peahen's brain which favors big tails. The peahens evolve an aesthetic reaction to big beautiful peacock tails.

 

May be analogous to breasts and programmed reaction to breast beauty. Breasts don't merely serve as a rational sign that the woman can be a good mother. It is to the male genetic advantage to have DAUGHTERS that acquire high status and pass on his genes---feedback loop creates wiring in males brain to like looking at breasts, also it is a good synonym for buttocks to get the male around in front rather than in back.

 

You suggest a reason why people like looking at productive land, climax ecology, fertility in nature----possibly a good place for a HUNTERGATHERER. Or even a nomad herdsman? Have we been farmers and herders long enough to have evolved an innate feeling for good pasture? Or is that purely learned (cultural rather than biological evolution.)

 

Why is a beautiful fish beautiful? Why is a beautiful gazelle beautiful?

 

Why are human athletes and dancers beautiful?

 

So many questions.

 

The hardwired reaction to beauty is a kind of alertness that happens before you think.

 

I feel that this has instinctive roots---there was already something that had evolved in the brain before it was overlayed by cultural determined learned stuff.

 

Why are clouds beautiful? Why are the stars beautiful?

[Royston]

I feel that this has instinctive roots---there was already something that had evolved in the brain before it was overlayed by cultural determined learned stuff.

 

I agree to an extent, but as you said earlier 'brain science' certainly comes into it, and hence I stated too broad a question, I'll give you an example.

 

This is hypothetical, and obviously I can't prove that early man could inherit the modern psychological problems we know today...but I can't see any reason why not, unless somebody corrects me.

 

We have a tribe, one of the tribe suffers from OCD, (sounds odd, but bear with me) they could happily sit for days placing stones into neat, precise arrangements, never content that it looks perfect, they find beauty in straight lines, and as perfect arrangements as they can muster.

 

Another member of the tribe, is fascinated by fire, they attribute the chaotic nature of fire as beautiful, it's synonymous with warmth, and power. They'd quite happily kick the stones of the former member of the tribe, because it doesn't agree with their version of attractive.

 

The above has no 'cultural' influence, and it has no evolutionary advantage...male peacocks with an impressive plume will obviously be favoured, and so their lineage continues, but what of the tribal member who finds chaos attractive due to the association with fire, or the other member because they have a slight psychological disorder.

 

Being attracted to certain things, that have an evolutionary advantage e.g healthy skin, athletic build that could provide healthy offspring, can only go so far. The range, and varying levels of psychological abnormalities (although normal doesn't exist) that could influence the preference of one thing over another, must be an influence on what people find attractive as well.

 

OCD was just off the top of my head, but I'm you sure could ascribe the situation to other conditions.

[ParanoiA]

Damn fine post Snail. And could the golden ratio have anything to do with this?

[Fred56]

Attractiveness seems to me to be something we recognise, somehow. There's a concept of ideal beauty, or ideal form, something Renaissance artists tried hard to model or create (Michelangelo, for example). Music has this quality, also, and poetry, and food, and Einstein's equations. It's a phenomenon that can “affect” all of our senses. But why or how do we recognise it? Humans must not be the only animals with this “brain function”, unless we really are special.

[dichotomy]

 

Why are clouds beautiful? Why are the stars beautiful?

 

I'm not sure these are actually beautiful. I'd say more spectacular, amazing, fascinating more than beautiful. IMO, beauty relates back to the desirable qualities of the opposite sex, as a rule.

 

Maybe white, fluffy, smooth and rounded clouds are beautiful, for obvious reasons.

[Fred56]

Hmm. Funny how I seem to keep finding places to post various bits I've collected from here and there. Check this out:

 

“No one of us can stand and stare for long at a brilliant night sky, and not begin to wonder by what mighty hand it was wrought, and to what purpose. This amazing light show that parades across the heavens we know to be distant stars, rather than holes in some celestial curtain, and the iridescent river, studded with more jewels than a thousand tiaras, a section of one of the arms of our galaxy, in fact, a river of stars. This knowledge doesn't seem to detract from the view in the least.

We have front row seats in the Amphitheatre of the Cosmic Dance, a contemplative view of the creation all around us.”

 

What is it about being in a forest, or standing on a shore, or on a mountain, or seeing the heavens, that elicits some deep, almost transcendental feeling of “something” within us? Some primeval emotion that compels us to consume the scene before us, to drink it in, to savour its experience. What is the “experience”? What is it about seeing the ocean, its vastness, the power and crescendo of its waves, the “presence”, of something that we recognise, but cannot identify?

 

Anyone?