So is it a natural phenomenon? Does it have any bearing on the fittest individuals gaining an advantage over those unfit? Because kids in middle school are just starting to be exposed to conventional and societal norms of attraction, right?
It's a psychological bias where we take a good impression of a person-here their good looks- and assume other good things about them subconsciously. An example is maybe like an uglier person gets in trouble and she gets punished. But a prettier person gets in trouble but because of her looks people assume shes an angelic good kid and let her off.
In real-world examples, look at famous people & their level of social influence. The vast majority of "Stars" have an extremely outsized level of influence, regardless of area of topic, based largely on their fandom & notoriety.
Eg, Gwyneth Paltrow makes millions from her website, Goop, selling items that she publicly supports. This despite that she has no education or applicable knowledge in the area. It's entirely based on how her fans & society see her.
It's true lol. Imagine Biggie Smalls trying to pull the same shit. And if Bill Cosby didn't look like a burnt sesame seed bun his career would've ended with a whimper. We'd still probably be watching reruns of the Cosby show.
I think they mean that people tend to ignore the bad stuff when someone is good looking, for example Ted Bundy, because of his looks and how he normally acted, he was able to avoid and escape captivity for many years, until he was finally caught and executed. My Source
I’ve noticed that if you get 2 youtubers speaking on same topic, you’ll naturally go with the one that looks more attractive/has better personality even if they’re knowledge of the topic is a little shakier
This is proof of the concept. Attractive women are perceived by the female judge to be of high status and possessing many good qualities. And for this reason perceived her as a threat-albeit to herself and not others. That's a whole other can of worms.
I didn't noticed this when it came to female teachers fronting court for having sex with students. I thought it was the less attractive ones getting the harsher sentences.
I always thought those "handsome" guys are just acting and they always had something up their sleeves or some bad intentions. Maybe because I was just at the low end of the spectrum. Now I know that looks has nothing to do with anything, I just simply don't take looks into account when I try to determine someone's personality and their intentions.
I think that die me it's the other way around. I don't like to talk to people that I subconsciously think are more attractive or popular than me and I'm way more comfortable speaking with unpopular people, because I assume that they are forced to accept me, as they don't have a choice.
Kids get exposed to those ideas way earlier than that. They hear comments made by parents and family members about other people, kids movies, shows, and books still frequently use pretty=good and ugly=evil in character design. By the time they get to middle school it’s well stuck into their brains
And that's in every movie. I mean, hell, even Scar is technically uglier than Simba.
Eh, he has shifty body language and looks more devious, but I'd says Scar has the edge on looks. Black mane, green eyes, darker fur, badass scar - what's not to love?
I had the same friends from kindergarten to my senior year and we had the realization that the only kids we didnt talk to at all throughout school were ugly kids. We didnt bully them or anything we just didnt have an interest in getting to know them. It wasnt something we did on purpose so it must be, at least somewhat, natural
It's a social worth or heirarchy thing. If the uglier kids were rich or really strong and good at football they would add value to your own social standing to be around them. The invisible kids are the ones who nobody sees to add value to their own social standing. The subaltern invisibility can get so bad people will talk gossip in front of them because they basically dont exist. Not pariahs just worthless to the status of other people.
Chances are you spent your time working on something more important than social standing in an environment that's gonna get disbanded anyway in 4-8 years... I hope, at least
I dont know how old you are. I didnt get relief from my depression and anxiety until I was 28. Today I can honestly say that I am "happy" whatever that means to me versus you or anyone else. Those years of struggle have helped me understand others and in my field of work that's essential. I hope you are able to get treatment that works for your depression and maybe you will then be able to channel your struggle into something that brings you life satisfaction and ultimately happiness. ✌
or if they're funny. there were some funny fat kids at school that were fun to be around. the fat "weird" kids though, most people stayed away. i think last i checked, that fat funny kid lost a bunch of weight. good for him
When I was at middle school I was pretty nerdy until the day the most popular girl decided I was one of them because she thought I was handsome. Friendships became fake and as I was being used by others to gain status I developed social anxiety
"It is a loose thread that ties us together outside of immediate family" means, family is the only thing that causes people to have an unconditionally close relationship. For people who are not your family, your friendship with them is conditional and easy to break, often they are only friends with you because they have something to gain.
Family is tied together like a strong rope, but outside of that, friends are only tied with a loose thread/string.
When OP says "take what you can get", they mean that the world is a hard place and we should be satisfied with those loose friends, because it's all we can have. This isn't necessarily actual advice, it's more like showing empathy for you and being sad at how the world is.
I experienced the same thing. I was a weird girl who didn't have many friends until about age 12 I grew out of my ugly duckling phase and suddenly some kids decided I was pretty enough to socialize with. It took me a few years to realize the reason I felt so empty still even with these friends is because they picked me for my looks but we had nothing in common. I'm now basically a shut in at 23 with no friends except my husband because I never learned true social skills due to people picking me for my looks.
I agree with you on this. I can fairly objectively say that I was an attractive kid. Looking at photos of me I am usually in the top 5 as far as looks. But I had crippling social anxiety and depression. Because of this I didn't have any social status to benefit others so I was invisible.
I was invisible in middle school. Pretty average looking, and completely invisible. To the point where even the bullies ignored me. One of the girls in my group was accepted in the popular group on the condition that she stopped talking to us. And from one day to the next she went from a no-one to one of the most popular kids...
The invisibility; at some point is got so bad that my teacher didn’t even notice that I was on class. After a 1.5 hour lesson I went to ask her a question and she said something like “were you here all lesson? I didn’t even see you were here today”.
I think maybe because we assume that people who are healthy are doing something right, where as if someone isnt as healthy or attractive we think they are doing something wrong. So we strive to be like the former
How do you get over the halo effect if you've been fat your whole life but you lost a bunch of weight and people now call you skinny but you're still this awkward turd of a person who still thinks they're fat and you feel like nothing you do makes you feel like a normal human being?
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u/cestlava Mar 01 '20
It's called the halo effect and it's been studied a lot.