How Attractive You Are in the Eyes of the Other is Linked to Your Personality

Well, it seems that being a good girl or boy really makes you more beautiful/handsome, as it has been revealed by a new research, published in "Personal Relationships". Persons displaying positive personality traits (both women and men), like honesty, kindness or helpfulness, are regarded as more physically attractive.

Negative personality traits, such as unfairness, arrogance or rudeness really lower physical attractiveness for the observers. The subjects watched pictures of opposite-sex individuals and assessed their attractiveness before and after, receiving data on their personality. After receiving the data on their personality, subjects assessed the desirability of the persons in the image either as a friend or as a potential dating partner. Personality data drastically impacted desirability and perceived attractiveness.

"Perceiving a person as having a desirable personality makes the person more suitable in general as a close relationship partner of any kind," said author Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr.

It appears that a positive personality means greater desirability as a friend, translated into greater desirability as an affective mate, and in the end, as being more physically attractive. The impact of the personality pattern was strong, no matter how "attractive" the person has been initially rated, or whether the subjects were or were not involved in a committed relationship.

Other researches tended to investigate physical look and personality traits as being independent factors in determining an individual's level of attractiveness. The main issue, pointed by this research, is that in a typical context, the individual's physical aspect is the first aspect we remark, but as we gradually observe his/her personality traits, the perception regarding his/her physical attractiveness varies in time, being connected to his/her positive or negative features.

"This research provides a more positive alternative by reminding people that personality goes a long way toward determining your attractiveness; it can even change people's impressions of how good looking you are," said Lewandowski.