“We are very curious about others’ faces; we read stories in them and evaluate their aesthetic value.” This quote is from Dr. Olga Chelnokova from the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo. People tend to be very drawn to faces, especially when they are attractive. This is because our brains have a reward system, located in a cluster of regions deep in the brain, that generate the experience of pleasure when we are doing activities that we enjoy, such as eating delicious food or winning a competition. This reward system also creates feelings of pleasure when we look at a pretty face. This research inspired me to do a project that focuses on how we respond to different levels of attractiveness in people. For my project, I am going to take photographs of 2 to 3 participants reacting to different kinds of pictures of people. The pictures will be shown in the order of someone who has normal features, semi-attractive features, attractive features, and extremely attractive features. I will also have bold colors and artwork as the background of the reaction photos. I will also record the participants answers to the question “What does attractiveness mean to you?” These recordings are meant to show that attractiveness is not just composed of someone’s appearance, but also everything else that makes up who they are a person.
Sources
https://www.sv.uio.no/psi/english/research/news-and-events/news/why-we-look-at-pretty-faces.html