5 ms·

Is Kindness Physically Attractive?

57 points by pmcpinto 12y ago

AznHisoka 12y ago
No, but seeing someone over and over in the same place, who acts kind to you can make you "fall" for them. IE the 5-6 receptionist who always smiles at you everyday can become a 7-8.
- wwweston 12y ago
  > the 5-6 receptionist who always smiles at you everyday can become a 7-8. Becomes? Or is revealed?
  - delecti 12y ago
    I would definitely say "becomes". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
- hawkice 12y ago
  I'm going to say this whole line of thinking (maybe this entire story/link) should be marked with the dual "has potential to very easily become offensive for little purpose" and "probably not actually interesting to hackers" asterisks. This comment seems like it will inevitably spark conversation of low value.
  - twirlip 12y ago
    Oh, I don't know that at all. Hacking humans -- our perceptions, our behaviors -- is interesting. While pretending to be kind to increase one's attractiveness is deplorable, there is a silver lining in that the world could use more kindness, motives aside. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, I believe one who repeatedly acts kindly will find himself or herself transformed to a kind person.
    - hawkice 12y ago
      My more specific concerns were twofold: (1) Discussions of numeric ranking systems for attractiveness, which are (I hope) strictly out of scope for HN, to say the least. (2) Insinuations of intra-workplace attractions being directed -- not towards coworkers per se -- but towards receptionists. So, I don't want to discuss the actual merits of this, but suffice it to say, I predicted that people would comment along both these lines: "That comment reflects actual gender bias (and possibly sexism) in the field" AND "That comment may encourage workplace frustrations of professional women by implying they cannot escape the sexual interest of their male coworkers". I find those thoughts to be not particularly interesting, at the very least because they are not related to the article that was linked to.
ericschmidt 12y ago
LOL
- verbin217 12y ago
  I'm really surprised that username was available. Also, I'm curious, why did you choose it for that comment?
wwweston 12y ago
When we're talking about "attractiveness", what we're ultimately getting at is the entire experience of being with/relating to another person. How much we like the way they look is one dimension of it -- possibly pretty hardwired and important, but only one dimension. Seen that way, the idea that attractiveness goes beyond appearance is more or less tautological. Nice to have some experiments that seem to support that to talk about, of course.
twirlip 12y ago
It is very simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye. ("Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.") The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry.
narfquat 12y ago
I think it might be more reasonable to say that unkindness is repulsive.
- taskstrike 12y ago
  I don't think it's that simple. I actually think a lot of women are also attracted to unkindness, it's the "bad boy" effect. In pickup culture, the well known "neg" is also a manifestation of this. I think it has a lot to do with a women's personal goals, whether they want to casually date for fun or settle down. I would really like to see a study of the unkindness and it's effect on women in terms of attraction.
RV86 12y ago
Per the read, I didn't find that Kindness had been isolated as a variable. From an anthropological standpoint, one could argue that someone kind or charitable would be attractive -- not necessarily because we prize virtue -- but because we assume that person has resources to spare.
- taskstrike 12y ago
  I totally agree that kindness has not been isolated. It seems that if anything, social status and respect has been isolated. Two cases they mentioned, a slacker on a team that's a guy, and a girl who is hardworking, are both worthy of respect and disrespect but no kindness was demonstrated.
- flocial 12y ago
  I totally agree. This title is misleading. All the examples indicate people who "contribute social value" such as hard work, harmony with others, etc. None of these are dependent on kindness. I think the submitter is confounding it with the popular "nice guys finish last" conception.
a3voices 12y ago
No, and the real issue is that people can't accurately answer simple questions.
- kazinator 12y ago
  Bingo! Attractiveness can't be determined from what people say they are attracted to. People say what they are expected to say or socially conditioned to say.
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    It is almost as though people tell a social scientist what they think the social scientist wants to hear. It is a good thing this is not true or else social science would just be pseudo-science pushing a political agenda.
christoph 12y ago
Seriously, i'm kind of surprised at the article and the comments. It all seems so intrinsically obvious to me. Ever met a seriously hot girl, who then opens her mouth and suddenly you lose interest? Who wants to listen to a girl witter on about herself and her problems within the first two minutes of meeting? Then you meet a girl, who's not quite so attractive but suddenly sparks creativity in you, inspires you, makes you laugh, makes you feel young again... Obviously there is more to attraction than "looks". This isn't a sexist comment. It goes both ways, and it is gender/race/age/religion unrelated. The fact it even needs to be debated is scary and highlights how deeply most people have got hung up on physical beauty while ignoring the fundamental things that actually matter. Looks fade, personality, generally does not.
- davmre 12y ago
  For what it's worth, I'm sure you didn't mean this to be sexist, since the phenomenon does exist in both directions. But your comment nonetheless reads unpleasantly, because the question "ever met a seriously hot girl?" assumes that the reader is a (straight) male, or, conceivably, a lesbian. That's the sort of wording that makes women feel unwelcome in communities like HN; it's essentially equivalent to having a discussion with a male and female colleague in which you address all of your comments to the man and ignore the woman. In general, you'll likely get a better response, and be able to avoid the "not sexist" disclaimers, if you write as if you were speaking to a mixed-gender audience (which you are!). In this case that could be as simple as s/girl/person/.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >But your comment nonetheless reads unpleasantly, because the question "ever met a seriously hot girl?" assumes that the reader is a (straight) male, or, conceivably, a lesbian. Yeah, and so? He perhaps wanted to address this part of HN, which is the most populous anyway.
    - PeterWhittaker 12y ago
      And this comment is at the heart of the issue. It would have taken minimal extra effort with negligible effect on the intent of the OP to simply say: Have you ever met someone seriously hot? I mean, so seriously hot? Then they open their mouths and go to hell... etc. Your comment, to whit address this part of HN, IS the problem. The OP could have addressed everyone - but failed to even bother wanting to try. Take the extra effort to include all of us, regardless of our genes. Be kind - we'll think all the more of you.
hmsimha 12y ago
> This woman’s perception of this man’s physical attractiveness remained this intense, even after 30 years since last she had seen him! This just came out of nowhere, without any previous or later mention of the period the study was conducted over in the article. Was it a typo? It seems like a lot can change in 30 years and I'm doubtful the subjects would even retain an association they formed with a person they rated 30 years previously.
- yzzxy 12y ago
  This article, like a lot of science writing, seems to just pull together a lot of studies with a common thread and write an alternative version of the abstract for each one. It is in many ways a less useful version of an academic review that is easier to read. As a side note, that paragraph reminded me immediately of 1Q84.
- christoph 12y ago
  There is a body of controversial evidence that suggests a persons personality is formed within their first three years of life and doesn't generally significantly change. [1] - http://www.rc.usf.edu/~jdorio/Personality/PERSONALITY%20CONTINUITY%20AND%20CHANGE%20ACROSS%20THE%20LIFE%20COURSE.pdf http://www.rc.usf.edu/~jdorio/Personality/PERSONALITY%20CONT... [2] - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_development http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_development
  - hmsimha 12y ago
    Did you read the article? This is regarding an association formed by experiment subjects towards people shown to them in photographs. My quote from the article seems to be the only reference to a 30-year-later follow-up wherein subjects were again asked to rate the same people (and supposedly retained the same negative/positive association)
swayvil 12y ago
A kind person is more attractive than an unkind person the way a living person is more attractive than a corpse. Ya, I can say that. It's definitely like a next level of aliveness, or awareness or consciousness or something like that. The whole crass cold cerebral thing may be cute on tv but in real life is is not attractive
mareofnight 12y ago
Probably halo effects have something to do with it? I do think that personality and behavior can influence attraction really, really strongly. And I suspect that how much each factor matters, and what kind of personalities and behavior are attractive, would vary a lot from person to person (given the variety of reasons why friends have said they're attracted to people). But I also think intense attraction to personality is something that wouldn't show up on a test like this. Personality doesn't really come to life just from a description, and for most people who've told me about being really strongly attracted to a personality, it was something kinda unusual, or that would require really getting to know the person before it was visible. Then again, I also wouldn't be surprised if my friends' ways of being attracted to people aren't a representative sample.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

57 points by pmcpinto 12y ago

No, but seeing someone over and over in the same place, who acts kind to you can make you "fall" for them. IE the 5-6 receptionist who always smiles at you everyday can become a 7-8.

wwweston 12y ago
> the 5-6 receptionist who always smiles at you everyday can become a 7-8. Becomes? Or is revealed?
- delecti 12y ago
  I would definitely say "becomes". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
hawkice 12y ago
I'm going to say this whole line of thinking (maybe this entire story/link) should be marked with the dual "has potential to very easily become offensive for little purpose" and "probably not actually interesting to hackers" asterisks. This comment seems like it will inevitably spark conversation of low value.
- twirlip 12y ago
  Oh, I don't know that at all. Hacking humans -- our perceptions, our behaviors -- is interesting. While pretending to be kind to increase one's attractiveness is deplorable, there is a silver lining in that the world could use more kindness, motives aside. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, I believe one who repeatedly acts kindly will find himself or herself transformed to a kind person.
  - hawkice 12y ago
    My more specific concerns were twofold: (1) Discussions of numeric ranking systems for attractiveness, which are (I hope) strictly out of scope for HN, to say the least. (2) Insinuations of intra-workplace attractions being directed -- not towards coworkers per se -- but towards receptionists. So, I don't want to discuss the actual merits of this, but suffice it to say, I predicted that people would comment along both these lines: "That comment reflects actual gender bias (and possibly sexism) in the field" AND "That comment may encourage workplace frustrations of professional women by implying they cannot escape the sexual interest of their male coworkers". I find those thoughts to be not particularly interesting, at the very least because they are not related to the article that was linked to.

ericschmidt 12y ago

LOL

verbin217 12y ago
I'm really surprised that username was available. Also, I'm curious, why did you choose it for that comment?

wwweston 12y ago

When we're talking about "attractiveness", what we're ultimately getting at is the entire experience of being with/relating to another person. How much we like the way they look is one dimension of it -- possibly pretty hardwired and important, but only one dimension. Seen that way, the idea that attractiveness goes beyond appearance is more or less tautological. Nice to have some experiments that seem to support that to talk about, of course.

twirlip 12y ago

It is very simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye. ("Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.") The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

narfquat 12y ago

I think it might be more reasonable to say that unkindness is repulsive.

taskstrike 12y ago
I don't think it's that simple. I actually think a lot of women are also attracted to unkindness, it's the "bad boy" effect. In pickup culture, the well known "neg" is also a manifestation of this. I think it has a lot to do with a women's personal goals, whether they want to casually date for fun or settle down. I would really like to see a study of the unkindness and it's effect on women in terms of attraction.

RV86 12y ago

Per the read, I didn't find that Kindness had been isolated as a variable. From an anthropological standpoint, one could argue that someone kind or charitable would be attractive -- not necessarily because we prize virtue -- but because we assume that person has resources to spare.

taskstrike 12y ago
I totally agree that kindness has not been isolated. It seems that if anything, social status and respect has been isolated. Two cases they mentioned, a slacker on a team that's a guy, and a girl who is hardworking, are both worthy of respect and disrespect but no kindness was demonstrated.
flocial 12y ago
I totally agree. This title is misleading. All the examples indicate people who "contribute social value" such as hard work, harmony with others, etc. None of these are dependent on kindness. I think the submitter is confounding it with the popular "nice guys finish last" conception.

a3voices 12y ago

No, and the real issue is that people can't accurately answer simple questions.

kazinator 12y ago
Bingo! Attractiveness can't be determined from what people say they are attracted to. People say what they are expected to say or socially conditioned to say.
- danieltillett 12y ago
  It is almost as though people tell a social scientist what they think the social scientist wants to hear. It is a good thing this is not true or else social science would just be pseudo-science pushing a political agenda.

christoph 12y ago

Seriously, i'm kind of surprised at the article and the comments. It all seems so intrinsically obvious to me. Ever met a seriously hot girl, who then opens her mouth and suddenly you lose interest? Who wants to listen to a girl witter on about herself and her problems within the first two minutes of meeting? Then you meet a girl, who's not quite so attractive but suddenly sparks creativity in you, inspires you, makes you laugh, makes you feel young again... Obviously there is more to attraction than "looks". This isn't a sexist comment. It goes both ways, and it is gender/race/age/religion unrelated. The fact it even needs to be debated is scary and highlights how deeply most people have got hung up on physical beauty while ignoring the fundamental things that actually matter. Looks fade, personality, generally does not.

davmre 12y ago
For what it's worth, I'm sure you didn't mean this to be sexist, since the phenomenon does exist in both directions. But your comment nonetheless reads unpleasantly, because the question "ever met a seriously hot girl?" assumes that the reader is a (straight) male, or, conceivably, a lesbian. That's the sort of wording that makes women feel unwelcome in communities like HN; it's essentially equivalent to having a discussion with a male and female colleague in which you address all of your comments to the man and ignore the woman. In general, you'll likely get a better response, and be able to avoid the "not sexist" disclaimers, if you write as if you were speaking to a mixed-gender audience (which you are!). In this case that could be as simple as s/girl/person/.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >But your comment nonetheless reads unpleasantly, because the question "ever met a seriously hot girl?" assumes that the reader is a (straight) male, or, conceivably, a lesbian. Yeah, and so? He perhaps wanted to address this part of HN, which is the most populous anyway.
  - PeterWhittaker 12y ago
    And this comment is at the heart of the issue. It would have taken minimal extra effort with negligible effect on the intent of the OP to simply say: Have you ever met someone seriously hot? I mean, so seriously hot? Then they open their mouths and go to hell... etc. Your comment, to whit address this part of HN, IS the problem. The OP could have addressed everyone - but failed to even bother wanting to try. Take the extra effort to include all of us, regardless of our genes. Be kind - we'll think all the more of you.

hmsimha 12y ago

> This woman’s perception of this man’s physical attractiveness remained this intense, even after 30 years since last she had seen him! This just came out of nowhere, without any previous or later mention of the period the study was conducted over in the article. Was it a typo? It seems like a lot can change in 30 years and I'm doubtful the subjects would even retain an association they formed with a person they rated 30 years previously.

yzzxy 12y ago
This article, like a lot of science writing, seems to just pull together a lot of studies with a common thread and write an alternative version of the abstract for each one. It is in many ways a less useful version of an academic review that is easier to read. As a side note, that paragraph reminded me immediately of 1Q84.
christoph 12y ago
There is a body of controversial evidence that suggests a persons personality is formed within their first three years of life and doesn't generally significantly change. [1] - http://www.rc.usf.edu/~jdorio/Personality/PERSONALITY%20CONTINUITY%20AND%20CHANGE%20ACROSS%20THE%20LIFE%20COURSE.pdf http://www.rc.usf.edu/~jdorio/Personality/PERSONALITY%20CONT... [2] - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_development http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_development
- hmsimha 12y ago
  Did you read the article? This is regarding an association formed by experiment subjects towards people shown to them in photographs. My quote from the article seems to be the only reference to a 30-year-later follow-up wherein subjects were again asked to rate the same people (and supposedly retained the same negative/positive association)

swayvil 12y ago

A kind person is more attractive than an unkind person the way a living person is more attractive than a corpse. Ya, I can say that. It's definitely like a next level of aliveness, or awareness or consciousness or something like that. The whole crass cold cerebral thing may be cute on tv but in real life is is not attractive

mareofnight 12y ago

Probably halo effects have something to do with it? I do think that personality and behavior can influence attraction really, really strongly. And I suspect that how much each factor matters, and what kind of personalities and behavior are attractive, would vary a lot from person to person (given the variety of reasons why friends have said they're attracted to people). But I also think intense attraction to personality is something that wouldn't show up on a test like this. Personality doesn't really come to life just from a description, and for most people who've told me about being really strongly attracted to a personality, it was something kinda unusual, or that would require really getting to know the person before it was visible. Then again, I also wouldn't be surprised if my friends' ways of being attracted to people aren't a representative sample.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]