Mirror, Mirror 魔镜魔镜我爱你

By Bob Arnon ■临风 选注

爱美之心，人皆有之。纵横古今中外，不爱照镜子的人寥寥无几。镜子究竟魔力几许？

We are all more obsessed1 with our appearance than we like to admit. But this is not an indication of 'vanity'. Vanity means conceit,2 excessive3 pride in one's appearance. Concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable. Attractive people have distinct advantages in our society. Studies show:

Attractive children are more popular, both with classmates and teachers. Teachers give higher evaluations to the work of attractive children and have higher expectations of them.

Attractive applicants have a better chance of getting jobs, and of receiving higher salaries. (One US study found that taller men earned around $600 per inch more than shorter executives.)

In court, attractive people are found guilty less often. When found guilty, they receive less severe sentences.
The 'bias for beauty' operates in almost all social situations—experiments show we react more favourably to physically attractive people.

We also believe in the 'what is beautiful is good' stereotype —an irrational but deep — seated belief that physically attractive people possess other desirable characteristics such as intelligence, competence, social skills, confidence — even moral virtue.4 (The good fairy/princess is always beautiful; the wicked stepmother is always ugly.)

It is not surprising that physical attractiveness is of overwhelming importance to us.

Concern with appearance is not just an aberration5 of Modern Western culture. Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the ideal physical attributes.6 In the 19th Century being beautiful meant wearing a corset7 — causing breathing and digestive problems. Now we try to diet and exercise ourselves into the fashionable shape—often with even more serious consequences.8

But although we resemble our ancestors and other cultures in our concern about appearance, there is a difference in degree of concern. Advances in technology and in particular the rise of the mass media has caused normal concerns about how we look to become obsessions.

How? There are 3 reasons:

* Thanks to the media, we have become accustomed to extremely rigid and uniform standards of beauty.
* TV, billboards,9 magazines etc. mean that we see 'beautiful people' all the time, more often than members of our own family, making exceptional good looks seem real, normal and attainable.

* Standards of beauty have in fact become harder and harder to attain, particularly for women. The current media ideal of thinness for women is achievable by less than 5% of the female population.

Even very attractive people may not be looking in the mirror out of 'vanity', but out of insecurity. We forget that there are disadvantages to being attractive: attractive people are under much greater pressure to maintain their appearance. Also, studies show that attractive people don't benefit from the 'bias for beauty' in terms of self-esteem. They often don't trust praise of their work or talents, believing positive evaluations to be influenced by their appearance.

1. obsess: 使着迷；使心神不宁。其名词形式是“obsession”。
2. conceit: 自负，自高自大，骄傲自满。
3. excessive: 过多的，过分的；极度的。
4. 我们也笃信‘漂亮的就是好的’这个陈见——不合理但根深蒂固，认为外表有吸引力的人同时拥有其他有利的特质，如智慧、能力、社交技巧、自信——甚至美德。
5. aberration/;*b2#rei12n/: 偏离，犯规。
6. 每个时代的社会都有其对理想的外表特征的独特定义。
7. corset: 紧身衣。
8. 如今我们努力节食和锻炼以获得一个符合时尚的体型，常常导致更严重的后果。
9. billboard:广告牌。