I worked with infants and toddlers at a daycare for several years and I could not help but notice that many of the workers there are quite unattractive. This was true to a degree that seemed to go beyond general population variance and so I began to wonder if there was some pull towards the childcare field for those who felt insecure about thier appearence. I got the sense that many of the staff felt like kids are less judgemental, but this article and things I witnessed at the daycare proved otherwise. Just an intersting thought. I guess unattractive people even have bias from babies!

And, of course, not only babies prefer more attractive human faces; one infamous paper showed chickens prefer to look at more attractive human faces as well.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/lelwvygrayvwc5dg/

An experiment which snagged the authors the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize:

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v35/n3/full/ng1103-209.html

Oh yeah, continuing with cross-species ratings, a paper published a few months ago showed human babies also agree in their preferences for more and less attractive tiger faces.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00647.x

So tiger beauty isn't in the eye of the beholder either!

In this article, the word "beauty" needs a more clear definition.

This article seems to only be talking about visual perception of beauty.

I think EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL.

this is so stupid haha im sure that all humans are naturally attracted to certain characteristics more than others. That is innate. However, the "proof" that this article offers is just dumb. Babies staring at things doesnt say absolutley anything about how beautiful things are. When I was a child I stared longer at ugly things because they were interesting and I studied them. Kids stare at interesting things longer, not more beautiful things. They are just analyzing things. Beauty becomes boring. Ugly is actually interesting. Anyways, the studies done are so inaccurate and dont conclude anything real. While I believe beauty standards are similair in different races and cultures, this article does no justice for that idea.

I remember watching a documentary years ago about the innate acceptance of certain "proportions" of the human face among humans. The documentay did call these proportions PART of the data used by out minds to develope our aesthetic or beauty standard. "Part". For example, in my daycare there was an infant with unique proportions to her head and face. I initially did a double-take and wondered if there was something wrong with her. I came to know and love this child as an adorable, affectionate, smart, sweet, and funny child who I wished were my own. I saw other children between the ages of 3 and 6 come into the room and have negative initial reactions to her and say such things as "I don't like that baby." "That baby is bad." and "What is wrong with that baby?" (She(the infant) was between 9 months old and 18 months old at that time) Mind you, all her features were lovely, they were just spaced differently and her head was shaped smaller and rounder than other children. Her skin and hair was lovely. It was all about proportion. I remember in the documentary that I saw years ago, it is just an innate proportion that enables us to instinctively know our own species. I have met "ugly" people (that is, people that do not fall into my standard of visual beauty) and then, once I got to know them, I wondered why I ever thought they were ugly. They actually did not appear to me to visually as "ugly" as I originally thought them to be. Beauty IS more than skin deep I think. Yes, I think we do develope preferences based on many factors over the years, brunettes or blondes, or tough looking or delecate, etc. but I think this infantile initial reaction tends to be more about proportion than anything else.

Maybe babies don't go looking for beauty, but faces that appear kinder, or wider, or even faces that resemble their parents or carers? How can they tell that they're looking at beautiful faces? And yes, define beauty. Open faces with big smiles and kinder faces are more likely to receive reactions than a 'pretty' face with a pouty mouth, angular cheekbones and long lashes. But by today's society the latter would be considered beautiful.

I'm just being silly with the subject title. But I have a serious problem with babies and young children constantly staring and smiling at me. It is so bizarre. I can go somewhere and try to avoid eye contact with them but they will stare until I look and then they smile or laugh. I always figured I look like someone who is silly or friendly, and I love children but it has been to the point of being creepy. My boyfriend notices it too, lol. But maybe I have a face that babies and kids like. They take to me easily. I don't think its necessarily about attractiveness but perhaps about an aurora that a person has that makes children feel comfortable. My two year old son is particularly fond of elderly women.

a good point raised, but the concept of beauty has changed over time as culture has changed.
of course some people are just naturally more attractive than others, but the "ideal" beauty has changed over time.

I have heard that appearance conveys information about the actual health of the person. Maybe we do have some innate ability to judge the overall fitness of a person to bear healthy offspring based on external features. That would be a more plausible explanation then referring to some subjective idea of Beauty

I think we recognize what is healthy and vital, and consider it beautiful. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I definitely think that cultural values condition us to prize some physical attributes over others (the tall thin ideal, for example), and people get crazy trying to live up to an unrealistic standard of beauty. There is undeniable, obvious beauty worth celebrating, but there is other beauty that is worth digging a little deeper for. That's why beauty is in the eye of the beholder: there is beauty all around us, and it is our state of mind that determines whether we actually see it.

Can you handle the truth?

are you trying to talk about face beauty or abstract and easthetic eauty found everywhere?

The Universal Standard of Beauty is Beaulatasha. This multiracial model is the epitome of racial diverseness. She is no myth! But the Most beautiful human being in the world. In Canada they did a study on this woman it will air sometime this year.