Plastic Surgery: Are you off your head?

Dear Duana,

I’ve got a good education, solid career, winning personality, and a killer body.  At five-foot-eight, my measurements are 36-24-35.  My breasts are a 36C.  My eyes, lips, hair?  Lovely.   It’s not uncommon for male strangers to pay for the dinner I’m eating out with a friend, and I haven’t paid bus fare or opened a door in years. 

But my nose resembles a clown’s—round, like a rubber ball, and too large for my face.  Your Butterface article made a lot of sense to me, because although men have flocked to me for sex and short-term flings, they’ve rarely been interested in the long-term.    

I’ve consulted with an outstanding plastic surgeon and spent months looking at photos as I will appear post-op, to get used to the idea.  Part of me wishes I’d had the surgery 5 years ago; part of me is scared to do it now. 

I know there is controversy about plastic surgery, but I don’t care about public debates.  I just want an answer:  Do you think the right nose job would help me attract Mr. Right? 

Grace

Dear Grace,

Here’s the short answer, according to science from the 1970’s to now: yes. 

And here’s the much longer answer.  

The beauty bias is hard-wired from birth.  Infants stare longer at a beautiful face than a plain visage, and blind men acknowledge—sometimes with a degree of shame—that they care what other people think about their date’s appearance. 

Unfortunately, the physical attractiveness stereotype is about more than just looks.  Most folks most of the time in most of the world implicitly believe that beautiful people are not only better-looking—they’re better in almost every way.  

The stereotype starts when we’re still kids ourselves and carries on from there.  Attractive preschoolers are more popular among their peers; 5^th-grade teachers think a good-looking child is smarter and likelier to succeed in school than a kid with the same bio but a plainer face.  College students think a good-looking professor is better, clearer, and more helpful.  It even hits the bottom-line:  Better-looking people make more money than the unattractive, short, or obese.    

And men tend to think women look amazing—no, that women *are* amazing—after plastic surgery. 

To wit, in Michael Kalick’s Harvard experiment, undergraduate men rated the physical attractiveness of eight women.  Half the men viewed photos taken before the women had cosmetic surgery.  The other half viewed the same women’s *post-op* photos.  Vitally, the men were kept ignorant as to the study’s purpose and the women’s surgery status. 

Results?  The men in the post-op group rated the women higher for physical attractiveness than did the men who viewed pre-op pix.  Not only that, the post-op group men judged the women as warmer, more sexually responsive, likable, and kinder than the pre-op guys did~even though all these men were from Harvard!  Not one of them said, “Hey, I only have a photo, I can’t rate anything but physicality here.” 

So this isn’t a logic thing.  It’s not an intelligence thing.  It’s a human thing. 

A thing plastic surgery can help you with. 

All that said, here are three words—okay, paragraphs— of warning:

1. The surgery will only get you a nose-in; it won’t close the deal.  

Investing in your face will probably help you to attract a more serious type of man post-op, given what we know from the research on body-focused Butterface-chasers versus the guys who place a premium on a pretty face—and commitment.  And rhinoplasty can probably bias would-be suitors to cast most qualities you possess, and some you might not, in a better light. 

The effect will likely be temporary, though.  Appearance is important mainly for first impressions and getting men to draw nigh; after that, character counts a lot, and you’ll need to deliver the goods on being good.    

2. You might feel a little worse about the world, if better about your marriage prospects, post-op. 

Kudos to you on planning thoroughly for this decision, including carefully selecting a surgeon and spending a lot of time with the computer-generated image of what you’ll look like after the rhinoplasty.  Even a positive change takes some getting used to, and the psychological work you do now will help your adjustment later. 

One of the changes to prepare for is not quite so positive, though:  It can be depressing to notice yourself being pursued more seriously post-op.  It’s one thing to intellectually realize that great looks are a great social asset, but it may be another to experience it.  People who’ve always been beautiful sometimes suspect they’re receiving praise based on their appearance and not their performance or intrinsic worth~but women who’ve had plastic surgery *know* it’s true.  Anecdotally, a lot of women find themselves a bit depressed post-op, when they get the attention they craved not based on who they are but how they look.  It can make some feel more objectified, less known as individuals important in their own right, than ever.    

3. You’ll still need to avoid being easy.

Women with difficult visages and hot bodies are probably more often the targets of short-term intentions.  But once your nose is jobbed, you’ll face this reality: All beautiful women are targets of the short-termers at least some of the time, and giving sex up-front can turn off even the most serious-minded of men.  

Don’t waste your time.  You want marriage, so weed out the players by refusing to have sex with any man until he’s point-blank asked you to be his and his alone, has shown the same commitment to you, and has convinced you in deed, not just word, that he loves you. 

Only The Serious will remain.  Perfect. 

In closing, I wish you peace of mind as and after you make your decision, and total healing in every sense.  Whatever choice you make, may you make it work for you, and embrace the worth that is inherently yours regardless. 

Cheers,

Duana

Do you have a question for Duana?  Email her at Duana@LoveScienceMedia.com. 

All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., and LoveScience Media, 2012

Related LoveScience articles:

Butterface: why some men pick one kind of physical type to have a fling with~another to make a lifetime with  http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/butterface.html

Butterface Q&A: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/qa-from-butterface.html

Why men say they hate makeup, and why women should wear it anyway: http://rachelrabbitwhite.com/do-men-prefer-women-with-make-up/

Women as sex objects: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/women-as-sex-objects-youth-beauty-and-beating-the-odds.html

How long should you wait to have sex? http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/waiting-for-sex-for-how-long.html

Why having sex too soon can turn even serious-minded men off: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/when-men-wait-for-sex-dumb-like-a-fox.html

The author wishes to thank the following scientists and sources:

Judith Langlois and others for research showing 3-month-olds’ increased gaze-time for attractive faces.

David Myers, David Buss, and other social scientists who have collected informal accounts of blind men who are concerned about their dates’/mates’ appearance.

Thanks also to Dr. Myers for the synopsis of Michael Kalick’s Harvard University dissertation, “Plastic surgery, physical appearance, and person perception,” which is unpublished.

Ellen Berscheid and Elaine Hatfield (formerly Walster), for identifying the physical attractiveness stereotype (the stereotype that what is beautiful is good and that beautiful people are over-all better people), and launching research on its extent in the 1970’s.   Thanks also to Dr. Berscheid for research showing that beautiful people sometimes suspect whether the praise they receive is genuine, while the less-gorgeous are more apt to think praise is sincere. 

Alice Eagly and others, for a meta-analysis of Western experiments examining the stereotype that beautiful people are good people. Nutshell?  They found that beautiful people are usually considered better people in every regard, except for two traits where appearance made no difference: integrity and compassion.  

Ladd Wheeler and Youngmee Kim, for research in Korea which also showed the physical attractiveness stereotype—but with opposite results than those found in the USA and Canada.  In Korea, the attractive people were considered more honest and compassionate, but not necessarily better in other regards. 

Karen Dion and Ellen Berscheid, for research showing that attractive preschoolers were more popular with the other children than less-attractive preschoolers. 

Jennifer Bonds-Raacke and others, for research showing that professors who are judged better-looking by college students are also judged better over-all. 

Margaret Clifford and Elaine Hatfield, (Clifford and Walster, 1973) for an experiment showing that 5^th-grade teachers believe an attractive child more intelligent and successful in school than a less-attractive child with an identical biography.  

Comila Shahani-Denning, for a review of experiments showing a bias towards hiring more attractive people, and her own experiments showing that women who are beautiful are particularly well-regarded, compared to attractive men and less-attractive women. 

Kristie Engemann and Michael Owyang, for another review of how height, weight and/or facial attractiveness relate to salaries in every researched job and profession.  

Daniel Hamermesh and Jeff Biddle, for research showing the good-lookers making 5% more an hour than average-lookers, and those below average in facial appearance making 9% less per hour. 

Comments

[Joan N.]

Brilliant article - love it. How surprising even the Harvard dudes didn't object: "Hey, I only have a photo, I can't rate anything but physicality here." I would hope that society is moving away from categorizing folks based on anything but contributions and character, but in the mating realm it seems that evolutionary predispositions still rule.

I'm wondering about the movie actresses who elect not to fix their faces. Barbara Streisand's nose is trademark and legendary. Ditto for Lauren Hutton's gapping front teeth. And Jennifer Grey, from "Dirty Dancing", had a nose job thinking it would lead to more movie roles, but it backfired and she received less.

Maybe being appealing for movie roles is different from being generally appealing for marriage minded men ...?

PS: Thanks for the supporting research. I don't like that thing about 5th grade teachers assuming the cuter kids are brighter kids. I think judges do the same thing. The cuter criminals couldn't have possibly done the crime ... Parallel? Bah.

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Joan, thank you, and that's an interesting idea about Hollywood actors who've elected against cosmetic surgery, or had it without the desired career boost. I think in Streisand's case she was famed and beloved as a singer before her movies, which gave her an in. Not sure about Hutton and Grey. I would point out, though, that Hutton and Grey were both beautiful, both symmetrical--just without being totally conventional about it. 'Butterface' is about a lack of proportion and symmetry rather than the presence of conventional beauty.

Which brings up a point I've been thinking about. It was clear to me that plastic surgery could help Grace. But most of the flaws people consider fixing are noticeable mostly to oneself, and aren't deal-breakers for the world at large. Do those folks really need surgery?

I received a letter recently, for instance, from a woman who wants liposuction because her waist is not exactly 30% smaller than her hips. Yet the .7 WHR (waist-hip ratio) is merely the ideal--it does not follow that a woman with slightly less hourglass proportions is going to have any more trouble attracting a mate than most people do. Similarly, if you're going to appear naked in a magazine, it'll help to have symmetrical, evenly matched breasts and/or a good airbrush artist; otherwise, though, most women have one boob larger than the other, and it's not stopping them from finding true love. (Note: 'Boob' is not clinical jargon.)

Finally, you're right, the beauty bias cuts across all of life, or at least all of life that's been studied so far. These findings aren't just correlational--they're experimental, yielding cause-effect. Beauty *causes* better outcomes.

To wit, your example of justice. There's an entire experimental area in social psychology devoted only to legal matters. Repeated experiments find that when you expose one randomly-assigned jury to a plain defendant, and another to a good-looking defendant, the cuter criminal is:
--less likely to be found guilty
--less likely to receive jail time
--more likely to get the harsher sentence--including the death penalty.

Justice is not blind.

So anytime someone pooh-poohs plastic surgery, or claims that looks don't matter, mine own eyes glaze over. Looks matter. And perhaps only the great-looking could fail to see it.

[Undisclosed]

I hope Grace takes your advice. My roommate in college at UT had a nose job the summer after our Freshman year. Her case was similar to Grace’s – excellent package, except a huge, crooked nose threw the whole equation off. After the nose job, I could tell she felt better about herself and less self-conscious. That one piece of editing transformed her whole appearance. Some months after the nose job (a gift from her mother), my roommate attracted the serious intentions of an one Mr. Greenberg. Eventually, she married into the very wealthy Greenberg family of East Texas. Though I lost contact with her, I hope she lived happily ever after.

[Tom]

One man's perspective - it's important for a woman considering facial plastic surgery to keep some caveats in mind. These are my opinions:

-- every man may be different in what he prefers or finds irresistible. But there are certainly some basics. (I'll get to 'em, I think).

-- If there are a preponderance of good facial features, and the one unusual feature isn't *too* unusual . . . leave it alone. If a man smiles when he gazes into your face and doesn't avert his eyes, you are *fine*, just leave yourself be. Think Jennifer Grey, who was awesomely pretty *and* unique pre-work.

-- Smoother, tighter, puffier is *not* usually better. Sweet Baby Jesus save us from the Meg Ryan lips and the Botox faces.

-- I recently joined Match.com as a means of seeing who's available in my area, and seeing how *my* profile played with women (now that's another story). But I am clearly screening out "un-pretty" women in favor of "pretty" women when I respond automatically to the profiles I see. The only written info that even matters is when they are either un-intelligent or purposely rude.

What makes a woman's face pretty? Her smile. Yes, symmetry. Big bright eyes. Lips that are not too little, not too big. Rounded contours - doesn't have a "mannish" appearance (I've seen some of those and they scare me, sorry). A haircut that is stylish.

And then somehow I always end up looking at her chest ;-)

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Undisclosed, thank you for that story. As it happens, more beautiful people are often a bit more confident in reality. Having been treated better all of their lives may translate into social skills that are a bit smoother, the academic thinking goes.

So looking better and finding that the world is more responsive and desirous of one, post-op, aren't the only outcomes we'd hope for from cosmetic surgery. We'd also want the newly-prettier to develop more self-confidence. I'm happy for your former roommate that she got all these results!

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Tom, thank you for a man's perspective. From my own research and feminine points of view, I'd agree with everything you said.

I particularly like your position that there are some individual differences in what a particular man--or woman-- will prefer. After all, everyone can experience someone who is widely acknowledged to be gorgeous but who is not our personal cup o' chai. I personally could look at Liv Tyler 'til my eyes fell out, while acknowledging that other, similarly-gorgeous faces do little for me.

Moving on with the Liv Tyler thing, that particular actress has some features that are a bit larger than most people's, and in that sense the features aren't perfectly average. Most research shows that most of us, most of the time, find the most beautiful person to be the person with the facial aspects representing the average of what you'd get if you could mathematically calculate typical features.

Which brings us to another of your points I appreciate: Just because a feature is not perfectly 'normal' doesn't mean it requires plastic surgery. Grey's nose was good as-was. Tyler's lips are luscious. Just because their features are unusual doesn’t make them un-lovely. Indeed, those very features can be what makes them distinctive and appealing.

[Duana C. Welch, Ph.D.]

Which brings me to something that has cropped up in my private mail from Wise Readers: ethnicity and the politics of nose jobs.

I've received some notes from black women who've asked me *not* to publish their letters because they feared reprisals from those who might take their desire for rhinoplasty as a condemnation of the wider noses typical among African Americans. They wanted me to know that they wanted a nose-job, not as a means of erasing their racial and ethnic heritage, but because their particular nose was not proportionate to their particular face.

Literally and figuratively, that seems fair enough to me. My personal taste is offended by an ethos that would say we all need to look just alike, or that one race's standard of beauty should be the standard for all. I likewise oppose pressuring people not to have surgery because it might offend members of their own group. Just my two cents~no research I've looked into on that.