Is Beauty Really In the Eye of the Beholder?
Does absence really make the heart grow fonder, do too many cooks spoil the broth and is the grass really greener on the other side? In a new book, psychologist Geoff Rolls investigates our everyday sayings and explains which ones contain a grain of truth... and which are just taking the proverbial.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
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Mankind has been debating the principles of aesthetics for thousands of years, but beauty still defies objective measurement.
The Ancient Greeks believed that facial beauty had specific characteristics. Plato wrote of the "golden proportion", according to which the width of the face should be two-thirds of its length - preferably accompanied by a nose no longer than the distance between the centre of the eyes.
We also know that symmetry is inherently attractive to the human eye. (It has been shown that babies spend more time looking at symmetrical faces than at asymmetrical ones.) So a face can seem beautiful simply because of the similarity between its left and right sides.
On the other hand, psychologists in Scotland have recently proposed that beauty may in fact be in the eye of the "beer holder" rather than the beholder.
In a study involving students in 2003, they tested whether members of the opposite sex were rated as more attractive after the consumption of alcohol: both men and women who had drunk a moderate amount of alcohol rated members of the opposite sex as 25 per cent more attractive than did a sober group. This is caused by alcohol stimulating the nucleus accumbens, which is the part of the brain used to assess facial attractiveness.
But even without the effect of alcohol, if you look at your partner and you consider him or her staggeringly beautiful (which, of course, you should), you can congratulate yourself with the thought that people generally end up with a partner of a similar level of attractiveness as themselves.
Too many cooks spoil the broth
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There can only be one boss in the kitchen of an autocratic chef like Gordon Ramsay. If too many people add ingredients, comments and expletives, confusion will reign and the quality of the food will suffer.
However, the good sense of this proverb applies not only to the kitchen: when too many people become involved in all sorts of endeavours their individual efforts may be counterproductive.
The problems lie in the way people reach agreement on a course of action. Psychologists believe that it is possible to predict a final group decision based on the initial views held by the members.
There are four social decision-making schemes that determine the group decision.
The first is the "majority wins" rule, which states simply that most people will opt for whatever position is supported initially by the majority.
The second is the "truth wins" rule, which indicates that the correct decision will be made because during the discussion people will come to recognise the strength of one particular argument.
The third is the "two-thirds majority" rule, as often used by juries; it requires a majority, but not a unanimous decision.
Finally, some groups seem to favour a fourth scheme, the "first shift" rule, where many group members will stick to the first shift of opinion shown by group members.
Generally speaking, the "majority wins" rule is most often employed where the task is to make a judgment, whereas the "truth wins" rule is most frequently used with intellectual tasks, where there is only one "correct" answer.
So yes, it's true - too many cooks are likely to spoil the broth unless they can agree on a method for reaching a consensus. With a judgmental task like making soup, the best strategy might be to adopt the "two-thirds" majority rule. Or just ask Gordon.
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Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Research shows that contact by phone, text or email is less effective than face-to-face communication; visual contact is vital and misunderstandings may arise without it.
But on the upside, long-distance communication also enables partners to present themselves to one another in the best possible light.
This idealisation of your partner isn't so easy when you see them daily, sprawled untidily on the settee.
But the proverb is certainly true when it comes to sex. Research shows that the longer a man's absence from his partner, the keener his sexual desire for her, regardless of whether the couple had sex when last they were together.
This is also reflected in his sperm count. The average count for a man who has spent 100 per cent of the time with his partner since last having sex is 350million. This rises to 800million when he has only seen her for 5 per cent of that time, regardless of the length of time since they last had sex.
Absence may also make the heart grow fonder for long-lost loves. Research shows that long-lost and reunited loves have a 72 per cent "stay together" rate. Only 1.5 per cent of the resulting marriages failed.
Mind over matter
There are plenty of examples of mind triumphing over matter - sometimes it's an effort of will, whereby we refuse to let pain bother us, but occasionally the mind automatically shields us from pain with no conscious effort on our part.
For example, there are many reports of World War I pilots returning to base with bullet wounds to their limbs that they hadn't noticed in the heat of the battle. And rugby players often remain unaware of serious injury until the final whistle.
But the sensation of pain is extraordinarily complex and not fully understood. Gross physical injuries may appear to cause little pain, yet minor injuries can cause excruciating pain and people respond to pain in different ways.
Methods of helping the mind to triumph include focusing the attention on an alternative non-painful stimulus (like a child might fixate on a sweet to stop crying); and providing a painful counter-irritation (digging a thumbnail into an index finger during dental treatment).
The Canadian psychologist Ronald Melzack (1973) hypothesised that our sensitivity to pain is determined by a neurological "gate" in the spinal cord. When it is open, we feel more pain, when it's closed, we feel less. It is thought that some of us can, at will, close that gate.
While the workings of internal organs are usually beyond our control, memory expert Solomon-Veniaminovich Shereshevsky managed to control his heart rate or temperature simply by imagining himself asleep or exercising. He also managed to increase the surface temperature of his right hand by imagining it touching a hot plate, and lower it by imagining it in a bucket of ice.
Using similar mind over matter some escapologists, such as Harry Houdini, learn to control the involuntary gag reflex - he used to secrete keys in his throat suspended on a string, to be regurgitated when required.
Birds of a feather flock together
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An overwhelming amount of research confirms this proverb.
One expert in 1986 described a "two-stage process" in the forming of relationships: first we avoid others who are different; then, from the people that remain, we seek those who are most similar to us.
The more similar two individuals are, the better the chances that their relationship will last.
So we tend to marry people from our own social group (this is known as endogamy) and whose personality characteristics are similar (homogamy).
With some people the result is that couples look as if they were brother and sister - (Anthea Turner and Grant Bovey, for example).
Looking outside marriage, at relationships and friendships in general, people are again attracted to those who are similar to themselves.
There are of course instances where opposites attract, but often the differences between the partners may be superficial and the couple are similar in more fundamental ways.
The grass is always greener
We are rarely content with what we have and this proverb signals dissatisfaction and envy - green has long been associated with envy, "the green-eyed monster" (Othello).
Psychologists describe a "greener grass" phenomenon whereby individuals constantly evaluate better alternatives for themselves and as a result are never satisfied with what they do have.
We are often our own sternest critics and may judge too harshly all that we are and all that we have.
Equally, from our distant perspective, everything in someone else's garden is lovely and we cannot see the dusty soil of our neighbours' problems.
The proverb is often used in the study of relationships, and ever-increasing divorce rates may be attributable in part to the "greener grass" illusion - with husbands and wives forever imagining a greater happiness outside their own marriage. (In celebrity terms, this could explain the tangled love lives of many people from Liz Taylor to Ulrika Jonsson).
But there can be a positive side to all this. Although envy can destroy goodness, it can also be a source of motivation, and there's no harm in wanting to be better.
We envy most what we ourselves lack, and envy can help us to identify our needs.
Yet one strategy may be healthier still: to look more closely at the grass that you are standing on now and, if it looks a bit jaded, get some fertiliser and work on it.
While we are constantly on the lookout for something better, we often miss the value of who and where we are now.
First impressions count
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Everyone knows the importance of making a good first impression - and the success of speed dating, where you chat to a prospective partner for three minutes before moving on to the next, is based on the assumption that this proverb is true.
Our first impressions - thought to be formed within the first two seconds of an encounter - result from the evaluation of numerous clues.
Positive factors include maintaining eye contact, smiling, showing appreciation of others and maintaining fluency in conversation.
By contrast, a negative tone of voice, an unpleasant odour, untidy hair, weak handshake, stooped demeanour and creased clothes all contribute to an unfavourable overall impression that is far larger than the sum of its parts.
But how we evaluate these "impressions" can vary. Some psychologists believe that it's neither first nor last impressions but "weighted averaging" that counts: we assimilate all the information we have about a person, and then produce an average.
Negative information is given slightly more weight than positive information, and a negative first impression is slightly more difficult to change than a positive one.
Many other factors may play a part in the relative accuracy of a first impression - mood, rapport and similarities between the appraiser and the appraisee.
However, most of the evidence supports the proverb. The somewhat terrifying exception is the infamous U.S. serial killer Ted Bundy, who, it was claimed, made a favourable first impression on all his victims.
(digging a thumbnail into an index finger during dental treatment).
Tried that once; man, was the dentist angry!
There is a perhaps-related mind-over-matter phenom I have wondered about for years, particularly it's physical basis and how common it is: The body's ability to mask the urge to go potty when "not at home".
In my almost 2 million miles of air travel, I was surprised that, regardless of the length of the flight or the length of the total journey (or the quality/quantity of the airplane food), I never felt the need to go #2, but once I arrived at the destination hotel room, couldnt wait to eliminate! It was almost as if the mind knew that airplanes, airports, train stations, and the back seat of taxi is "not home", but the hotel is.
I notice my kids don't go to the bathroom at school, but do so as soon as they get home.
Have others noticed this effect within themselves?
Used to speculate that it was tied to some atavistic instinct about not marking a territory other than one's own.
