Beauty is defined as the mental attitude that produces aesthetic appreciation or pleasure in the viewing of things. This definition is also used in economics to refer to the preferences that people have for spending their money. Beauty is a broad term that encompasses many psychological processes and concepts that affect the way we see and feel about the world around us.
Beauty is often defined as a mental attribute of certain objects, which makes those objects pleasant to see. These objects include sunsets, landscapes, humans and other artistic works. In addition, beauty, along with other psychological traits, is an important part of aesthetics, among the most important branches of psychology. There are several theories on beauty that are currently undergoing research, and they are currently being tested as ways of uncovering the hidden potentialities of beauty.
According to theories of aesthetic psychology, beauty is primarily associated with bodily differences. Physical attractiveness is usually defined as how physically attractive people look, but the concept of beauty actually has deeper psychological meanings. It includes not only physical appearance but also aspects such as emotion, status, and behavior. In addition, the concept of beauty also includes our response to beauty in terms of motivation. The term beauty actually refers to the way in which we react to beauty in our environment. We feel beautiful if we can easily imagine ourselves in the place of that object or person.
Theory number two on the list of the many theories of beauty maintains that facial symmetry is an essential component of facial beauty. Facial symmetry suggests that every individual face has exactly the same proportion of features to the size of its eyes. For instance, if the eyes and mouth are both the same size, the nose would also be the same size and the chin would appear symmetrical with the jaw. To support this view, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung identified the influence of facial symmetry on personality.
The most popular theory on the beauty that is often used in the field of psychology is the theory of linearity. Linearity suggests that all qualities that we consider beautiful are found in a single line or direction, i.e., beauty is symmetric and beauty is left in a straight path. Some psychologists subscribe to the theory of parallax, which claims that all beauty in the world is located on a sphere. Parallax also applies to the human body, as we see beautiful faces on a sphere.
One might argue that the concept of beauty actually emerged from our visual senses. Based on research on the faces of newborn babies, some psychologists suggest that the newborn human faces are the most attractive faces, because they are the first to catch the attention of the baby’s mother. Because of this, the newborn baby’s mother uses many of her unique attributes (i.e., skin color, texture, size, movement) to make herself look more attractive to her infant son. Beauty, then, is basically a matter of perception.