(ORDO NEWS) — It is known that children consider beauty to be a symbol of a benefactor. Adults also wear traces of this infantile thinking: “what is beautiful is good.
” The brains of many of us automatically attribute all kinds of virtues to external attractiveness: wisdom, kindness, modesty. It is clear that, in fact, there are no logical grounds for such conclusions. However, archaic thinking for many people is stronger than rational.
Moreover, often a person may not be so attractive in fact, but the “halo” of external beauty makes many more people consider him as such automatically than if this image did not exist.
Someone is simply “accepted” to be considered beautiful, while many at heart may disagree with this point of view. Celebrities are often viewed as such, inviting them to various TV shows as “experts” to express “authoritative” opinions.
It is these phenomena that scientists from the universities of Glasgow and West Scotland (Great Britain) explain the effect they discovered. The results of the work are presented in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
Researchers have found that celebrities who are considered visually attractive are less likely to be trolled on the Internet and cyberattacks of this kind.
The exception was the “stars” who published deliberately negative content on social networks (Twitter was considered as the main platform) – in this case, they received “deserved” accusations against them.
“Our research has shown that celebrities appear to be highly respected and considered more attractive than other social media users, and this protects them from online trolling,” said one of the authors of the article, senior professor of psychology at the University of Glasgow, Dr. Christopher J. Hand.
Attacks on attractive celebrities on the Internet were not as strong as on ordinary users, and they were much more actively defended.
A total of 309 people took part in the study, for whom such indicators as external beauty, narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy (“dark triad” of personality traits) were measured.
It is interesting that participants who watched the trolling and related to the last three qualities, showed less sympathy for the victims and did not consider the brutal attitude towards them something serious and worthy of attention. In addition to visual attractiveness, the status of a person influenced protection from trolling, according to the researchers. And the status itself paradoxically influenced what was considered more attractive.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.