我們?yōu)槭裁磿?huì)以貌取人？

我們?yōu)槭裁磿?huì)以貌取人?

With some regularity we hear about the latest beauty-pageant contestant who has responded to a softball of a question with an epic fail of a mistake, a bizarre opinion or an incoherent ramble. There's the Panamanian contestant who believed that Confucius invented the philosophy of 'Confusion,' the Miss Hawaii who described the U.S. only in terms of the 'rocky shores' and 'sandy beaches' of Hawaii, and the Miss South Carolina Teen USA who explained that Americans don't know enough geography because too many people can't afford maps.

Ridiculous. But what's even more ridiculous is that our brains bias us toward believing such people -- just because they're good-looking.

The German poet Friedrich Schiller wrote, 'Physical beauty is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moral beauty.' His belief seems odd if you've ever seen a portrait of Schiller: His prominent schnozzola would have knocked him out of the 1788 edition of People Magazine's 'Sexiest Man Alive.'

In the years since, research has shown that from an early age -- in both sexes and across numerous cultures -- attractive people are judged to be smarter, kinder, more honest and trustworthy. Obviously, our bias toward thinking that 'what is beautiful is good' makes for some bad mating decisions.

In politics, we are also more likely to believe and vote for people who are attractive. Ditto for hiring them. And when it comes to ostensibly blind justice, numerous studies from the 1970s through '90s found that more-attractive individuals are less likely to be convicted of crimes and, if convicted, receive shorter-than-average sentences for the crime.

Why should this be? Some have suggested that since it is pleasurable to meet someone attractive and someone good and honest, we unconsciously conflate the two. But this convergence of rewarding experiences seems dubious. After all, few of us intermix the pleasure of, say, reading about the triumph of the abolitionist movement with the pleasure of taking a bubble bath and eating a box of Twinkies.

Instead, it seems that the brain confuses the metaphorical and the literal -- a fairly common sort of error, because brain regions often multitask. The same region, for instance, is involved in processing physical and emotional pain and in 'feeling' someone else's pain. Another brain region is central to both gustatory disgust (responding to the taste of rotten food with reflexes that make you feel sick to your stomach) and moral disgust (responding to some appalling act by making you feel sick to your stomach).

Work by Takashi Tsukiura and Roberto Cabeza of Duke University shows something similar with looks: The medial orbitofrontal cortex of the brain is involved in rating both the beauty of a face and the goodness of a behavior, and the level of activity in that region during one of those tasks predicts the level during the other. In other words, the brain does similar things when contemplating beautiful minds, hearts or cheekbones. And it assumes that cheekbones tell you something about minds and hearts.

It's a discouraging finding. But there's also some good news in this story: The brain can get confused in both directions. In other words, the same neural wiring that gives rise to 'What is beautiful is good' also generates 'What is good is beautiful.'

In studies by Sampo Paunonen of the University of Western Ontario, heterosexual subjects of both genders viewed pictures of people of the opposite sex, described as having varying degrees of intelligence, independence and honesty. Degrees of independence and intelligence had no effect on their ratings of attractiveness. But people who were described as being more honest were rated as more likable, and the more likable, the more physically attractive.

It seems that things even out in the end. On the one hand, we're more likely to believe that the earth is flat just because a beauty queen says so. But on the other hand, people are more likely to see that the goodness of Mother Teresa or Gandhi is beautiful.

每隔一段時(shí)間，我們就會(huì)聽到最近有某某選美大賽選手在回答簡(jiǎn)單問題時(shí)錯(cuò)得離譜、觀點(diǎn)離奇或前言不搭后語(yǔ)地閑扯。有位巴拿馬的選美選手認(rèn)為“Confucius”(孔子)開創(chuàng)了“Confusion”(困惑)哲學(xué)，夏威夷小姐只用描述夏威夷的“‘多巖石的海岸”和“多沙的沙灘”之類的詞匯來形容美國(guó)，而南卡羅來納妙齡小姐則解釋說美國(guó)人對(duì)地理了解不夠是因?yàn)楹芏嗳速I不起地圖。

真是可笑。但更荒唐的是，我們的大腦往往會(huì)偏向于相信這些人——只是因?yàn)樗齻冮L(zhǎng)相好看。

德國(guó)詩(shī)人弗里德里希·席勒(Friedrich Schiller)曾寫道：“外表美是內(nèi)在美、精神美和道德美的標(biāo)志。”他的這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)顯得有些奇怪——如果你看過他的肖像的話：如果1788年有《人物雜志》(People Magazine)“在世最性感男人”榜單，他那顯眼的大鼻子應(yīng)該會(huì)讓他落選。

在那之后的這些年中，研究表明從較小年紀(jì)開始——在男性與女性及眾多不同的文化中——長(zhǎng)相迷人者往往被認(rèn)為更聰明、更和善、更誠(chéng)實(shí)及值得信任。顯然，我們認(rèn)為“美即是好”的偏向?qū)е挛覀冏龀隽艘恍┰愀獾幕榕錄Q定。

在政治方面，我們也傾向于相信并投票給長(zhǎng)相迷人者，在工作招聘中同樣如此。至于那些顯然有失理智的法官，上世紀(jì)70年代至90年代期間的眾多研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，長(zhǎng)相較美的人被判有罪的可能性更小，而且即使被判有罪，所判的刑期也短于平均水平。

事情為什么會(huì)這樣呢?有些人提出，由于遇見長(zhǎng)相迷人者和品德優(yōu)良誠(chéng)實(shí)者都令人愉快，我們會(huì)不自覺地把這二者混為一談。但是，這種將美妙經(jīng)歷混為一體的說法似乎并不讓人信服。畢竟，很少有人會(huì)把閱讀廢奴運(yùn)動(dòng)的勝利帶來的快樂與和洗泡泡浴與吃一盒Twinkie奶油夾心蛋糕的愉悅混在一起。

相反，原因似乎是大腦將比喻意義與表面意義混淆了，這是一種相當(dāng)常見的錯(cuò)誤，因?yàn)榇竽X區(qū)域常常要處理多種任務(wù)。比如說，同一個(gè)區(qū)域需處理身體及情感上的痛苦并要“感受”他人的痛苦。還有一個(gè)大腦區(qū)域，它是味覺嫌惡(對(duì)腐爛食物的味道產(chǎn)生惡心反應(yīng))及精神嫌惡(對(duì)某些駭人的行為產(chǎn)生惡心反應(yīng))反應(yīng)的中樞區(qū)域。

美國(guó)杜克大學(xué)(Duke University)的月浦崇(Takashi Tsukiura)與羅伯托·卡韋薩(Roberto Cabeza)對(duì)外貌的研究獲得了類似的發(fā)現(xiàn)：大腦的內(nèi)側(cè)眶額皮層既參與評(píng)判臉蛋的美麗程度，又評(píng)判行為的好與壞，從該區(qū)域處理其中一項(xiàng)任務(wù)時(shí)的活躍程度可預(yù)測(cè)出它處理另一項(xiàng)任務(wù)時(shí)的活躍程度。換句話說，在思考一個(gè)人有沒有出色的頭腦、善良的心靈或好看的臉蛋時(shí)，大腦的運(yùn)作機(jī)制是類似的。它假定臉蛋就能讓你了解一個(gè)人的頭腦與心靈。

這是一個(gè)讓人沮喪的發(fā)現(xiàn)。不過，它也帶來了好消息：大腦可能在兩個(gè)相反的方向上都會(huì)搞糊涂。也就是說，讓你產(chǎn)生“美即是善”想法的那條神經(jīng)線路也會(huì)讓你產(chǎn)生“善即是美”的想法。

在西安大略大學(xué)(University of Western Ontario)桑波·保諾寧(Sampo Paunonen)的研究中，異性戀的男女受試者觀看了一些異性的照片，照片上的人被描述為智力、獨(dú)立性和誠(chéng)實(shí)度各有不同。研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，獨(dú)立性及智力的高低程度未影響他們對(duì)長(zhǎng)相迷人程度的評(píng)判，不過被形容為較誠(chéng)實(shí)的人也會(huì)被認(rèn)為更討人喜歡，而越討人喜歡的人，外貌也就更具吸引力。

如此看來，事情最終都扯平了。一方面，我們可能因?yàn)橐晃幻烂驳呐跽f過地球是平的就相信這句話;另一方面，我們也有可能因?yàn)樘乩咨夼?Mother Teresa)或甘地(Gandhi)的善良而認(rèn)為他們是美的。