The Power of Appearances

Let me tell you something about you! You can cut the crap! Directly, brutally! And for those getting annoyed by it, let's read a bit ... the lines, between the lines!

What makes you a good non-judgemental person? Are your life choices the right ones, the accurate ones? Are you truly yourself, manifesting freely into a non judgmental environment? Think for a second!

We all judge by facial appearances, and this is one thing that has a certain power, for a few, but that can turn into real crap for the majority. Reading the facial appearance in an authentic way is not for everyone. The majority is mislead by it in all the life areas. So, whom do we trust, who do we date, whom de we hire, whom do we vote?

Voting based on appearances

Let's take the politics, for example, as this is one of the most prolific zones in the matter! How many times did you give your vote to a non-good looking candidate regardless of his skills? Well, let's think again!

 Studies have shown that candidate's appearance can have a significant role into winning. In a series of studies organized at Princeton by the psychologists Alexander Todorov and Charles C. Ballew II, the participants were shown photos of political candidates in the United States. They were asked to judge which candidate was more competent and skilled. No need to say that the most good-looking candidate won in a proportion of 70. What mattered was a certain line of competitive looks in the photos that preserved elements like short hair on the side or slightly widow's peak, eyes with the curvature on the top, a round face and, of course, a big smile. So, we have already in our minds a certain pattern to define this competitivity! Where this all comes from?

Definitely from our culture and society habits! We have been taught patterns since birth. We have grown into adults with stereotypes and judgmental attitude. We were delegated gender roles since the beginning. The mythological stories we heard in childhood taught us about certain traits that we should have or we attribute to others. So, who's to blame for the crap we are all in? How can we get read of these subliminal messages that lead our life, our choices, our behaviour?

Relationship Stereotypes

Let's think love relationships, for example! Stereotypes will kill your authentic choice and relationship! How do you choose the person to be with? First, you judge by the looks! And, here, oh yes, we have plenty of stereotypes! Women have to be thin, to look in a certain way, behave in a certain way. Remaining strictly at appearances, women are not given the chance of expressing themselves just the way they feel and are because they are put into stereotype boxes from which they will never get out. Unless, there is one man out there that succeeds in seeing outside the box. Cordelia Fine in her book, Delusion of Gender, speaks about the wrong cultural influence about genders. She says that there is no such thing as men brain or women brain, there is only a brain that disconsiders gender differences and values the other as a human being.

Society and media have created such a wrong impact on women's appearances, nowadays, that the pressure about a certain "beauty" standard has turned women into "mutilated" persons. Media has created a certain concept of "beauty" that women follow as sheep and respect as a religion. For some, there is nothing to talk about rather that the looks. It's chaotic! It's good to preserve a good looking appearance, but I think it's wrong to have it as a goal or a reference point in your life. Living is expansion and beyond appearances!  

What about the hair color, what about the redheads?

One of the major assumptions is made about the hair color! And one great example is that about redheads related to witches. Libba Bray's young adult novel A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003) exemplifies the connection between red hair and witchcraft and it demonstrates that there is a strong connection between the hair color and the identification of certain traits into a character. Druann Heckert and Amy Best declared in their research that "Hair is an important aspect of how people define themselves and how other people define them". In literature, red hair was associated to witchcraft or mystical world. A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first novel in a series about a young, redheaded girl named Gemma Doyle who is sent off to a boarding school, Spence Academy, after the sudden murder of her mother. While at this boarding school, Gemma finds a diary that leads to her discovery of her mystical powers and her connection to a group of witches called the Order. And from here, the adventures start!

A strong connection of the redheads is made with the sexuality and here stands the examples from the Greek literature such as Cassandra from The Illiad and Persephone, the wife of Hades. The beautiful Cassandra is desired by Apollo, Ajax the Lesser and Agamemnon, turning, finally, into a sex slave. Persephone becomes the Queen of the Underworld and the symbol of fertility. While red is more related to primary energies, blonde hair is considered the opposite, representing the innocence and virginity. In his book, Hair, Wendy Copper speaks about the purity of blonde hair as dissociation to the pubic hair which is more sexual. "It is possible to argue that purity implies innocence, innocence may mean ignorance, and ignorance denotes stupidity" and here we have the "dumb blonde" origin idea. In time, blonde hair conquered the world. Researchers like Best and Hecker believe that blondes are seen by men as "beautiful, rich, and extremely feminine". Also, brunettes are perceived as most feminine by researchers such as Beddow, Hymes, and McAuslan.

Facial elements related to character and moods

Appearance means, also, a series of facial elements that can relate to your character or to transitory manifestations. Related to facial expression of emotion, we make judgments not only about their affective state, but also about their behavioural traits. For example, when people show happy faces we perceive them as having traits associated with high dominance. When they show angry faces we perceive them as having traits associated with high dominance, too. Facial expressions of sadness and fear are related to low dominance, too. The impact of people's emotional expressions towards their traits is also related to the similarity of their permanent facial structure to an emotional expression, so everything is connected.

Besides everything, what can be freely measured is that a beautiful soul can enlighten your whole appearance while negative emotions can lower your sparkle.

A good proverb says "Don't judge a book by its cover!". I think we should all take this deeply into consideration!

Author Andra Oprea