and are active in the workplace. They also constitute a group with a relatively high purchasing power. Awareness of appearance has also increased, and many older people feel that their aged looks don’t at all fit in with their active lives.
Scientific studies have shown that most people, from various cultures, have a relatively similar opinion about what is attractive in an appearance. Most of us will probably agree that certain people around us are beautiful or attractive. There are numerous examples of this, not only in our daily life, but also evident in our obvious admiration for certain actors and models. To discuss appearance and beauty has previously been a taboo, a subject for more informal and impertinent settings. It s only been during the last decades that our appearance and its effects have been subjected to serious scientific study. In the 1960s these phenomena began to be examined within psychiatry.
It is understandable that discussions about appearance are emotionally heated, because they touch upon areas like equality, sexuality, self-esteem and the love of our family and those around us. That’s why it’s previously been difficult for studies concerning attractiveness to be heard in the scientific world. It’s also difficult to accept that appearance should be of such far-reaching importance in our lives as some of these studies “de facto” have shown (see p. 34). In a democracy we usually accept the notion that “you can achieve what you want to if you only work hard enough” and “everybody shall have equal opportunity”. It is highly unequal that an “ugly” person, however hard they may try, cannot become “beautiful”. Obviously most people also think that it therefore is unequal that things lying outside one’s control should be able to affect one’s success and happiness. One may rightly maintain that the studies on attractiveness are disheartening, as they show how important our appearance is all the way from the cradle to the grave.