In our world, every person is judged by their looks, but not by their true self. Despite knowing the fact that looks do not matter, we still doubt ourselves and regret upon the way we look. Beauty, after all is only skin deep, but our thinking, personality and our soul are the main factors that make us stand apart. It’s our inner beauty that makes us realize who we really are.
Appearances can be deceptive, therefore, it’s not always right to make a judgement about anything by its exterior appearance. One can’t find the real worth of anyone by just looking at his/her outer appearance. Not all decent- looking people prove themselves to be decent and not all bad-looking people prove themselves to be bad. Sometimes, its just the opposite.
There was a boy in my class in 5th grade, who wasn’t good looking at all, never used talk to anyone, and everyone used to make fun of him, call him names. But one day, that boy proved everyone that he’s no different from others by clearing misunderstandings between two senior students who were having a serious fight and by helping them to solve their problems. That is why there is a famous proverb “All that glitters is not gold.” So, in every walk of life one should remember that we should not judge a book by its cover. Without knowing that person completely, we should not judge him/her.
We enjoy looking at people with physical characteristics that we find aesthetically appealing, as humans are visual creatures. We make our first impressions of people by their physical appearance; physically attractive people are used in advertisements to attract people to use their products. There is a bias towards physical attractiveness that assumes people who possess physically attractive characteristics are perceived to be “better people”. Prejudice, discrimination, racism and judgement have plagued humanity for centuries, such biased judgments do not reflect one’s truth or reality.
A study conducted by Dion, Burscheid, & Walster (1972) was the first to infer that people associated physical attractiveness with positive traits such as being sociable, interesting, competent, and well-adjusted. Other studies have followed and confirmed that attractive people are more likely to be associated with good qualities, whereas unattractive people are more likely to be associated with bad qualities. These assumptions have thus created the physical attractiveness stereotype. This is a powerful stereotype that extends into occupational settings, and assumptions about criminal behavior in legal proceedings (Schneider et al., 2012).
People need to know that their evaluation of someone could be due to a subconscious judgement of someone’s outer appearance. No evidence has been found till date that a person having physically attractive attributes is better than a person having average attractive attributes (Schneider et al., 2012). Positive character attributes were measured between physically attractive people and average people, and there were no indications that one group fared better than the other in those qualities. Looks matter to an extent but be wary of judging someone entirely by their appearance.
By : Paridhi Jay Singh (XI - Gir)