What Is Beauty?

What is beauty anyway? Is beauty subjective? What about beauty in nature? Does beauty exist? Is beauty shaped like a diamond in the rough?

Beauty has various definitions according to differing schools of thought. A popular one is the beauty standard value which is expressed in terms of monetary compensation and is the ideal beauty standard. According to the standard beauty concept, an object is beautiful if it satisfies the mental and emotional states that the person deems significant. The major ideas of aesthetic psychology are described in Erikson’s description of human beauty and its relation to the other person and their interpretation as expressed by others. According to the empirical research on beauty, however, different definitions and interpretations of beauty have been proposed, and their interpretation varies greatly from one person to another.

The standard beauty standards are the criteria that beauty standards are established from. For instance, a certain definition of beauty may be that all objects with a flat and smooth surface are beautiful. In this definition, “flat and smooth” would be taken as meaning free of bumps and uneven surfaces, and therefore more pleasing to the eye than those that have uneven surfaces. On the other hand, another definition of beauty may be that all appearances are appealing to the eyes. In this definition, there would be no need for an ideal flat or smooth appearance; the appeal of an object to the eyes could be judged simply by looking at it.

Beauty is also often used in the psychological literature to explain individual differences in personality, motivation, personality, and behavior. Some psychologists believe that attractiveness is a stable personality trait, while others believe that it is a learned or perceptive quality that may vary depending upon a person’s environment and circumstances. In addition to describing beauty as a specific physical trait, some psychologists also refer to beauty as an attitude, or the “undisclosed moral quality.” One psychologist has written, “The most beautiful people are those who, on reflection, feel good about themselves and about life in general.” Others have maintained that beauty is a desire that can be nurtured, while others believe that beauty is something that cannot be improved.

One psychologist has written that beauty is a complex, interrelated concept, because beauty is often used to compare different persons and also because beauty sometimes relies on the cultural beliefs and social practices of a given society. For instance, the word beauty is often used to describe the beauty found in the cultural practices of the United States, such as the beauty norms that hold that taller women are more beautiful than those who are shorter. Similarly, many cultures around the world associate beautiful babies and young children with God or the Other. It is through these cultural practices that we come to see beauty everywhere, and not just within the domain of human physical beauty.

The need to be beautiful is personal, and it is not necessarily dependent on beauty being seen on the external, physical plane. What we are really looking for is the internal, subjective experience of beauty, which are experienced, and expressed in all its dimensions, on all occasions, by all individuals. There is beauty in the eye of the beholder. While everyone sees different beauty, this is true not just of physical beauty but of emotional beauty as well, and of potential beauty even more so. Beauty is the one thing that transcends culture, race, ethnicity, and circumstance, and that allows for the celebration of all these differences, without regard to their particularities. It is the very essence of what is true to be beautiful.