A team of scientists from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain) has carried out a study that sought to analyze people’s behavior according to physical attractiveness , both their own and that of others. The conclusions of the work have been published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior .
For their experiment, the researchers had 176 university students who were invited to participate in the “prisoner’s dilemma”, a game that consists of posing a situation in which two people who have allegedly committed a crime can blame each other or say nothing . If both people are silent, the punishment is two years’ sentence; if both blame each other, the punishment is five years and, if one of them accuses the other, but the other is silent, the sentences are one and ten years, respectively. For the experiment they decided to modify the “years of sentence” for points exchangeable for real money at the end of the game.
After comparing the chosen parameters such as the symmetry of the face, the body mass index, the degree of femininity / masculinity of the face, the perception of one’s own attractiveness and the waist / hip index, the result of the game revealed that the symmetry of the face and self-attractiveness led women to be less cooperative in the game, that is, to behave in a more selfish way .
“People who consider themselves and are considered beautiful are less prosocial (altruistic) in the laboratory. And in daily life it is seen that, in general, beautiful people are considered to have better abilities than others and are treated better . The most symmetrical have less need to be prosocial, because, in a way, they need others less to satisfy their material needs, ”says Enrique Turiégano, study leader.
The only result of the study that did not corroborate this statement was the hip index, since hips 1.4 times wider than the waist (a measure considered “sexy” ), increased the tendency of women to cooperate with others , by contrary to the other parameters of the experiment.
