PRETTY PEOPLE

PRETTY PEOPLE It is no secret that very attractive people live in a “bubble.” They get the best tables at restaurants, they flirt their way out of traffic tickets; they just need to smile to get their way and the list goes on and on. The TV show 30 Rock devoted an episode to a handsome doctor (Jon Hamm as Dr. Drew Baird) who did not realize he lived in a “bubble” until show star (Tina Fey as Liz Lemon) made him live for a day hiding his looks. He did not like being a regular person and decided that living the superficial life was better for him. A disturbing Israeli study showed that 70% of abused or abandoned children had at least one apparent flaw in their appearance, which otherwise had no impact on their health or educability. So does bias against unattractive people start as early as the nursery? Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital released a study this week showing that women are more likely than men to reject unattractive babies. The findings are challenging the idea of unconditional maternal love.

“Our study shows how beauty can affect parental attitudes,” said Igor Elman senior author of the research, director of the Clinical Psychopathology Laboratory at McLean Hospital, and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “It shows women are more invested in raising healthy babies and that they are more prone to reject unattractive kids.” The research, published in the journal PLoS ONE, sought to determine whether aesthetic appearance affects how hard that adults are willing to work in order to watch pictures of babies. The subjects were shown photos of 80 infants, including 50 normal children and 30 who had abnormal facial features, including such problems as cleft palates, skin disorders, Down syndrome and others.

According to a report published in Harvard’s science newsletter, “Each photo was set to remain on screen for four seconds, but subjects could extend or shorten the viewing time of each photo by pressing certain computer keys. A second part of the experiment asked the subjects to rate the attractiveness of each infant on a numerical scale.

The study found that men and women expended a similar amount of effort – quantified by the number of key presses made to keep photos up on the screen – to extend the viewing time of the normal babies. At the same time, the attractiveness ratings given by men for these normal babies were significantly lower than those given by the women. However, when it came to the photos of abnormal babies, women made a greater effort to avoid looking at them, compared with men. Still, the women rated abnormal faces as unattractive as did men. The differences between men and women in motivational effort to extend or shorten the viewing time of abnormal-looking babies “may reflect an evolutionary-derived need for diversion of limited resources to the nurturance of healthy offspring,” the paper concludes. “

The findings question the concept of unconditional parental love, at least among women. “What our results suggest is that this is determined by facial attractiveness,” said Rinah Yamamoto, first author and a research fellow in psychiatry. “Women may be more sensitized to aesthetic defects and may be more prone to reject unattractive kids. Men do not appear to be as motivated. They didn’t expend the same effort.”

So what about attractive people in our city? Are women in Chicago pretty? The Tribune had a former talent agent for Ford Models stroll down Michigan Avenue looking for women who have the “it” factor for them to be considered as models. Out of the six women selected to be featured in the pictorial only one lived in Chicago. The rest were from Ireland, Australia, Kansas and New York. Are we an ugly city? Are other cities biased against us because our population is not as pretty as theirs?

That would be a good excuse for Mayor Daley to use if we don’t get the Olympics. Blame our looks. Our population is not as pretty as the people in Tokyo, Madrid or Rio. We just don’t have the “it” factor.