Tadinac Meri
Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Acta Clin Croat. 2010 Dec;49(4):501-8.
Within social sciences, the standards of beauty were for a long time considered to be culturally determined, meaning that different people with different life experiences in different cultures acquire different standards of beauty, as captured in the famous sentence "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". However, two groups of findings have challenged this common assumption: first, people in different cultures generally agree on which faces are attractive; second, preferences emerge early in life, before cultural standards of beauty are likely to be assimilated. Evolutionary psychology explores the psychological adaptations (evolved psychological mechanisms constructed by natural selection) that constitute human nature. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, beauty is not a cultural construct and appreciating beauty is not learned but is rather a biological adaptation, a part of universal human nature: the preferences for some physical characteristics reflect adaptations for mate choice because they signal aspects of mate quality. Theory of natural selection explains the adaptations, which help organisms in their tasks of survival. However, an organism can be adapted and survive for many years without passing its qualities to future generations--to pass them it must reproduce. The theory of sexual selection explains the adaptations that have arisen as a consequence of successful mating. In order to gain reproductive success, women and men adopt certain mate selection strategies--integrated sets of adaptations, not necessarily conscious, which organize and guide the individual's reproductive efforts.
在社会科学领域，长期以来人们认为美的标准是由文化决定的，这意味着在不同文化中有着不同生活经历的不同人群会形成不同的美的标准，就像那句名言“情人眼里出西施”所表达的那样。然而，有两组研究结果对这一普遍假设提出了挑战：第一，不同文化中的人们通常对哪些面孔具有吸引力达成共识；第二，审美偏好早在人们有可能接受文化中的美的标准之前就已出现。进化心理学探究构成人性的心理适应机制（由自然选择构建的进化心理机制）。从进化心理学的角度来看，美并非一种文化建构，欣赏美不是后天习得的，而是一种生物适应，是普遍人性的一部分：对某些身体特征的偏好反映了在配偶选择方面的适应，因为这些特征暗示了配偶质量的某些方面。自然选择理论解释了有助于生物体完成生存任务的适应机制。然而，一个生物体即便适应环境并存活多年，却可能不将其特质传递给后代——要传递这些特质它就必须进行繁殖。性选择理论解释了因成功交配而产生的适应机制。为了获得繁殖成功，男性和女性会采取某些配偶选择策略——一套整合的适应机制，不一定是有意识的，这些机制组织并指导个体的繁殖行为。
