477. The psychology of beauty

Why do certain things stop us in our tracks? A beautiful sunset, a painting, even the way light shines through the window in the morning. Where does this sense of beauty actually come from? Does it exist objectively in the world, or is it something our brains create? In this episode, we explore the psychology behind what makes something beautiful, and how the brain processes aesthetic experiences. Watch on Netflix: HERE https://netflix.com/thepsychologyofyour20s We explore: • The function of the aesthetic triad • Why experiencing beauty can feel rewarding • Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? • Why familiarity, culture and personal experience can change what we find beautiful • How nature generates a sense of awe • Why we see beauty in ugliness • Why we need to look for more beauty in the everyday Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s https://substack.com/@thepsychologyofyour20s For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] Our favourite sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24768244/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3130765/ https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-21454-002 The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Jemma Sbeg?

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• 0:49Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:14Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:59Jemma Sbeg?

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• 3:42Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. I'm Jemma Sbeg and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.

• 4:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode. Today, we are going to talk about a recent research fascination that I have had, which is the psychology of beauty. What makes something beautiful? Why do beautiful things have such a profound impact on our brain and our emotions? Why can art, nature, music make us cry, make us question the meaning of life? As I was looking into this, I just went down such a rabbit hole. Actually, I went down quite a few rabbit holes. You know, things like, why do some people like certain art but others hate it?

• 4:46Jemma Sbeg?

  Why do some people like nature more than others do? And also in the complete opposite direction, why, obviously, do we like beautiful things? But why do we also like ugly things? The psychology of beauty is like such an under-explored research area. And what I discovered was just so fascinating that I was like, well, I have to just make a whole episode about this because beauty is so deeply neurological. It is actually such a deeply human experience to have. And what's really interesting about this research is that we know beauty serves very little practical value, other than that it's nice to look at. But people love it. We feel drawn to it. It is this thing that we need for nothing other than that our soul calls out for beauty.

• 5:31Jemma Sbeg?

  So today, I want to break it down. I want to break down why liking pretty things is not as frivolous as you may think. Why beauty is just a way and an avenue towards feeling a deeper meaning in life. It gets all kinds of deep. Without further ado, let's get into it.

• 5:53Jemma Sbeg?

  So the specific field of research that we're focusing on today and that is quite literally concerned with the experience and the psychology of beauty is called neuroaesthetics. The only thing these researchers do is look at beautiful things and watch us watching beautiful things. In two thousand and fourteen, these two neuroscientists, they published a review in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, and they proposed for the first time ever what they call a model of beauty or an aesthetic triad. What they were essentially saying is that experiencing something beautiful or aesthetic has three layers, and all these layers combined to make the experience really profound.

• 6:36Jemma Sbeg?

  There's the sensory motor system, there's the emotion and valuation system, and then there is our meaning and knowledge systems. And I want to break these down one by one and how they all integrate together. The first part of a beautiful experience is a sensory experience. Before you consciously decide, wow, that is beautiful, your senses are automatically taking in all this information that you're not consciously thinking about. Things like color, shape, contrast, texture, movement, symmetry, depth. Yes, there may be some things that are immediately pleasing to the senses. For example, specific colors or textures may be more naturally calming, certain scents as well, even how something is organized.

• 7:17Jemma Sbeg?

  Like, we know that symmetrical things seem to tickle our brain in a specific way. Some of that might be immediate, but then we get to the second part, which is the valuation. Basically, our senses explore a scene or a beautiful thing. We have that physical reaction. And then our brain has to decide how valuable something is to you personally. And it's going to base this valuation on past experiences and on memories and on context. Essentially, our brain is going to ask, does this beautiful thing mean something to me personally? Is this something I care about? Does it maybe threaten me? Does it bring me closer to something that I want? All these different questions that basically allow us to maybe look a second time or really

• 8:01Jemma Sbeg?

  appreciate this thing. And then the third thing is meaning, which is, I know this is beautiful for everyone. I know this is beautiful for me, but does it connect me to something bigger than just a sensory experience? Does it elicit gratitude in some way? This is why beauty and nature and art in the world can sometimes feel so emotionally calming because it is connecting us with something beyond ourselves that might sometimes feel slightly inaccessible. So when you look at a painting, for example, you're never really just looking at its objective properties. It's not really just an arrangement of paint on canvas. In actual fact, your brain is responding to whether the colors are pleasing to process

• 8:42Jemma Sbeg?

  or whether the piece brings on some emotional response, or whether it reminds you of a fond memory, whether you can connect with it in some way. Beauty is partly about the object, yes, also mainly about us and about how our brains choose to approach it. There's also evidence that when we experience beauty, this overlaps with our brains' reward systems as well, which is what makes it such a holistic experience. In two thousand and eleven, these researchers from UCL and the Lund University, they asked twenty one participants to rate pieces of visual art and music according to how beautiful they found them.

• 9:24Jemma Sbeg?

  The researchers found that when participants experienced both musical and visual beauty, it was associated with more activity in an area called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, which is involved in valuation and reward. Not only this, but the stronger the participants rated the beauty of the music or the object, the greater the activity in this region. So it seems that there is this correlation between this part of our brain and how we're experiencing this scene or sight neurologically. It's, beauty is not just an intellectual judgment, it's a genuinely rewarding experience almost biologically. And that's why we spend time decorating things, why we want to make spaces beautiful, why

• 10:06Jemma Sbeg?

  we love to plant flowers, why we love to wear certain patterns or jewelry, why we design pottery, like why we write music, all these things that we could actually like live without practically and fundamentally. We can't live without, like, I don't know, on a deeper level. Like, all these evolutionary thinkers will often say, like, if a, if a behavior or a practice isn't meaningful, it doesn't serve a meaningful function, it will die out. The enjoyment of beauty doesn't serve a survivor, like it doesn't help us survive. We just really seem to like it, and that's why it's so amazing. So I wanna think about, I wanna talk about this a little bit more, which is why do we find this so comforting and powerful specifically?

• 10:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Not just why do we appreciate it, but why is there this deeper sense of of purpose and meaning that is associated with beauty? In two thousand and four, these researchers from the University of Bergen in Norway proposed that when something is relatively easy for the brain to perceive and organise, the process itself is more aesthetically pleasurable. They noted this effect as something they call processing fluency. And they said that features like symmetry, repetition, clear contrast between the figure and the ground, familiarity, like all these things, how structured something is, how the colours correspond.

• 11:32Jemma Sbeg?

  All increases processing fluency and therefore have the potential to increase aesthetic pleasure. Imagine walking into two rooms. One of the rooms has loads of visual clutter. There's things everywhere. Nothing is really where it should be. Nothing is really organised. It's not just messy, like it's organised, but it doesn't make sense. Like the couch is in the middle of the room. There's these really harsh colours on the walls. There's no clear organisation. And then you walk into another room and in that room there's balance and the space feels aligned and the colours on the wall make sense and they're complementary and things are put away and there's some kind of visual structure to the room, whatever. Maybe there's a beautiful tree outside the window.

• 12:18Jemma Sbeg?

  What these researchers essentially say is that our mind likes that second scene more and has a preference for that scene. Not just like because of taste and personality, but because one of those rooms requires less perceptual work. Our brain is able to make sense of room two way quicker. So we're more likely to then have an emotional attachment to it because we understand what we're looking at and because it makes us feel more secure. This can really help us understand why humans are so attracted to patterns. Patterns reduce uncertainty. Once you identify one, in clothes, in fabrics, anything, our brains can start to predict what comes next.

• 13:02Jemma Sbeg?

  A repetitive pattern, whether it's petals, whether it's tiles, whether it's the symmetry of architecture or of a building, like gives us enough complexity that it's interesting to look at. But then also gives us enough enough regularity for our brains to organise it. There's another really interesting factor involved in our aesthetic perception beyond this, and it's something called ecological valence theory of colour. And it proposes that, much like this thing where we like order, people also like certain colours because certain colours bring up a deeper emotion. So like, some colours just seem to naturally feel more safe. So, blue.

• 13:46Jemma Sbeg?

  Blue is seen as a very calming colour because of what it's associated with. Clear skies, clear water, the ocean, things that humans really like. Browns, yellows, greens, often associated with things that humans often want to avoid, like decay, like bodily waste, like gone off food. And this makes a lot of sense for our adaptation and our survival as humans. We wanna avoid things that may present danger to us, may harm us, like rotten food or waste or death. And we lean towards things that would benefit our survival, like clear weather conditions, clean water. Fishing, this is like fishing as an example.

• 14:31Jemma Sbeg?

  Your brain links the visual colour to a very ancient emotional memory that causes this reaction to this object. This reaction then decides if you find the colour pleasant or unpleasant, pleasing or unpleasant. Our vision, our emotion, they work together to navigate our environment. And one way that they do that is through the emotional experience of beauty. If something's beautiful, I wanna go towards it. If something's ugly, I don't want to. Sometimes this goes beyond just beauty and it reaches into the space of awe as well. Or like this whole other level of aesthetic appreciation. Sometimes we look at a view

• 15:08Jemma Sbeg?

  and our brain like almost stops working. And all the theories about shapes and colours and patterns and all that goes out the window. It's something on another layer. Like I saw the Northern Lights last year when I was in Finland. Like the immediate feeling you get is almost frightening. It is beauty that you like feel in your like your entire body, in your lungs, in your bones, in your heart, not just in your brain. And that is hard to describe. That is hard to give a neurological explanation for. Obviously psychologists have tried. And one of the things they propose is that two things are happening. The first is when you see things like that, it's so vast. It's so conceptually bigger than you that just seeing those

• 15:48Jemma Sbeg?

  environments literally mentally expands your cognitive framework. You have to adjust your mind to fit this stuff in to appreciate it, like the Northern Lights. If you hear about them, you know they're impressive, but the enormity of it is literally, it literally pushes your brain to the point of a new understanding of the world and a new appreciation, like seeing a vast mountainscape or like seeing a huge waterfall, seeing the stars outside of the city. Like, it's just like, wow, this this huge thing that's like bigger than me. And it differs from ordinary everyday beauty because a piece of pottery can be beautiful. But like standing beneath Niagara Falls requires us to recognise our own sense of scale.

• 16:34Jemma Sbeg?

  And it requires us to recognise how truly small we are. And there is something these researchers say is quite freeing about that. There was a series of five studies published in two thousand and fifteen and they were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. And they found that experiencing awe could produce what researchers noted as a phenomenon known as the small self. So it produced the small self effect.

• 17:00Jemma Sbeg?

  This is basically a temporary reduction in how important our problems are.

• 17:06Jemma Sbeg?

  For just a second, we have this diminished sense of self. That means whatever's going on in our life, whatever is bothering us, we are freed from feeling like it's important. And it's not that our problems have like disappeared. But when we experience awe and vastness, our mental frame of reference has widened. And we feel part of something bigger. And we really just have this context of like, so what? My boss is an asshole. So what? This person doesn't like me back. This is beautiful and I'm alive. This is where we get to this interesting point of this episode because there are some experiences like this that are universal. Seeing the Northern Lights, it would be very rare for a human to not be like, whoa.

• 17:48Jemma Sbeg?

  Like it would be very rare for, you put any human in that space, they're going to have a reaction.

• 17:54Jemma Sbeg?

  But smaller things do seem to become more subjective. And I really wanna examine this more. Why do some people find certain things beautiful? Like there's things we can all appreciate, but why are there certain things that some of us can't? And certain aesthetic experiences that some of us really love and really find awe inspiring. And I wanna, I wanna just dive into this a little bit more. We're gonna take a short break and then we'll get into it.

• 18:27Jemma Sbeg?

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• 19:09Jemma Sbeg?

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• 20:35Jemma Sbeg?

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• 20:54Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know, I'm such a data and information driven person. And I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable personalized insights that have made me more intentional

• 21:39Jemma Sbeg?

  and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop. This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise,

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• 22:36Jemma Sbeg?

  It would be so wonderful, I think, to find like the supposed secret formula to beauty that everyone agrees on. It would make you a lot of money, that's for sure. Like, is there a universal piece of art that everyone of every age, every gender, every culture, background, religion, income could love? Probably not. That's probably, it's probably nature. But it's, it's very much true. What the research says is it's true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Especially when we turn our focus to the psychology of human beauty and what people find attractive, not just in terms of nature and inanimate objects, but in terms of other people. For example, there was a 2015 study that found what we find attractive in someone's face

• 23:21Jemma Sbeg?

  is typically based on a mixture of personal experiences and personality. Their study looked into facial attention. So basically, how long do you look at somebody's face? And do you believe that they're attractive or not, just based on you asking them? And they did this study on identical twins. And even identical twins disagreed because what they realized was that the greatest influence on what we perceive as beautiful, especially around other humans, is our own experiences that feel unique to us. The odd chance encounter, the face of your first love, the faces you grew up around. Beauty isn't genetic, it's not evolutionary programming. There are just some things that we all on a personal level seem to find more disarming

• 24:04Jemma Sbeg?

  or beautiful because of our past experiences. There are also features that tend to, on average, increase attractiveness ratings across a large group of people. I'm giving multiple caveats in here. And we do see this in human and animal behavior, just like there's certain patterns that humans, all humans seem to like, there's certain facial features and things around beauty that all people seem to like. Symmetry, facial averageness, skin health, like the color in your skin, like if you've got like a bit of blush. That's like what the researchers try and focus on. I would say, take it with a grain of salt. Cause when you look into this, you really realize there are some things that people are like, well, if you look this way, you look that way, you're going to be more beautiful.

• 24:47Jemma Sbeg?

  And then there is no like unique person who everybody finds attractive. Like even symmetry. We think that every human would find symmetry in a face beautiful because it shows some kind of genetic excellence, right? Symmetry is a sign that somebody's genes were strong, that they were good quality. There's this whole theory that like they really, they, your genes as they split, developed in a symmetrical way, meaning that there was a, that you are healthy. From the beginning, you've been healthy. Again, I always struggle with this because what that assumes is that when you look at somebody and you're like, you're hot, all you're thinking about is genes and all you're thinking about is their reproductive value.

• 25:32Jemma Sbeg?

  And that is just like incredibly limiting. And it's a reason I have such a problem with evolutionary psychology because it's like, well, is that really what everybody cares about these days? Like in a lot of this research on like, what makes somebody beautiful? The thing they always come back to is like, would you want to have kids with this person? But it seems that like there are certain things that like people find beautiful, don't find beautiful, whether they want kids or not, whether they are like past child rearing years, whether the person they are seeing is somebody that like, they're not even attracted to sexually. So I feel like this desire to find like the universal principle of human beauty is, is so kind of futile because there's always going to be somebody who doesn't find somebody beautiful.

• 26:13Jemma Sbeg?

  A similar thing can be said for like the attributes of things like skin and hair. There was a study from 2006 where researchers investigated the perceived health and attractiveness of these computerized images of women. And all these women had different variations in like skin tone and how even their skin was and how lush their hair was. And what they found was that people who had more even skin were seen as more beautiful and were more likely to be, to be rated as attractive, even as younger. Faces with, you know, even skin color distribution were more commonly indicative

• 26:55Jemma Sbeg?

  of somebody being young, they were more highly rated, all those things. People took this study and were like, there we go. Health and youth is all people want. But there is something more to that because you look at that and you're like, I kind of see where they're coming from. And then you look at who did the study. And this is where it begins. I just find this really, really interesting. The people who did the study was Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble Beauty, this is the company that owns Covergirl, Max Factor, Olay, all those ones. And when you hear these things of like, when you have an even skin tone, you're going to be more beautiful, it's science.

• 27:39Jemma Sbeg?

  You don't always go digging behind who funded that science. And it doesn't mean that like they're necessarily wrong. But if they'd found the opposite, would they have published that? Maybe not. Would they have said, well, actually? And then there was 25% of people who just didn't care? Or like, yeah, the study measured attractiveness, but is that the only thing that people wanted in a partner? I think all they're focused on is if they can show like, look, if you make your skin tone more even, like people will want to be with you, it's evidence based. They're looking for a way, they're looking for a marketing fact. They're looking for a way to like get people to buy their product. And I'm not trying to discredit this article, but I think

• 28:25Jemma Sbeg?

  when we talk about the psychology of beauty within humans, we have to be careful. Or any kind of research, you have to be careful about who's doing the research and what kind of purpose it serves, especially when they make claims that have a purchasable fix. Right? If you say people with even skin color, they're hotter. Hey, by the way, this is like, this paper is sitting right next to like a skincare ad. It's obviously going to increase sales. It's obviously going to help you, what convince you more often. And nobody really investigates the other side of it. There's also this flaw in how we measure physical attractiveness as a whole anyways, a major, major flaw. In 2004, researchers from the US published a study in the Journal of Evolution and Human Psychology, or Human Behavior, I should say,

• 29:10Jemma Sbeg?

  that basically said, research that focuses purely on the physical attributes of somebody when they're researching attractiveness level, runs this massive risk of missing some of the most important non-physical factors. This series of studies examined attractiveness ratings for people that the participants actually knew. And what they found was that non-physical factors, like actually liking and respecting that person, being familiar with them, finding them funny, sharing goals, substantially influenced judgment of physical attractiveness. Physical attractiveness and the universality of it seems to matter for about three seconds.

• 29:55Jemma Sbeg?

  And then once you get to know somebody, your entire judgment can change. You meet someone and you initially think they're attractive, but then you get to know them and they're actually this awful person and suddenly you're like, well. You physically like don't see them the same way anymore. And it's the same thing where you're like, you might meet somebody and be like, they might not be my type. And then they make you laugh and they're really kind. Six months in, like they're the most beautiful person in the world. I feel like I got kind of lost in the weeds of like, what do we find attractive in people? I want to go back to like the more enjoyable research, which is what do we find attractive in art, in nature, in things around us? And what makes us want to covet beautiful things?

• 30:34Jemma Sbeg?

  What research has pointed to is that the kind of things we find most beautiful have all those factors we talked about before, but they also seem to balance familiarity and novelty really, really well. We spoke about that research paper that was like, people like the plain room. But also what they liked was when there was something about it that was a little bit different. When there was something about it that had a little bit of like an edge. When they showed them a third room that was just like nothing, people, very few people preferred that one. These psychologists basically proposed that liking something aesthetically can follow two different routes. One route involves pleasure. Something is easy and immediately gratifying. That's like the symmetry idea.

• 31:20Jemma Sbeg?

  The other involves interest. Something may initially be, and this again, we're talking about inanimate objects, maybe harder to process, but it becomes aesthetically rewarding because we feel ourselves gradually making sense of it. And we feel like that feeling of making sense of it is reward for a sense of effort. This is why sometimes your favorite song or your favorite piece of art wasn't your favorite. But you studied it in school, you examined it more closely, somebody gave you an explanation. You've become more familiar with it over time and you start to form a relationship with it, which deepens the sense of beauty that it has because you are gaining a sense of reward by understanding it better.

• 32:02Jemma Sbeg?

  Now, this idea around finding something rewarding, finding specifically more novel art rewarding, because we have to understand it more, may also explain why we covet and collect beautiful things. Like stickers, trinkets, mugs, clothes. If looking at something activates the same systems that are evolved in pleasure and valuation, it makes sense that we start to view aesthetically pleasing objects as having extra value, especially if they feel meaningful to us. And so we want to own them and we want to have them. This is part of the psychology of beauty that starts to intertwine with the psychology of consumer behavior and behavioral economics. And it has a name, it's called the aesthetic usability effect.

• 32:46Jemma Sbeg?

  All these people have done studies on product design and they found that if something is pretty and aesthetically pleasing, even if it's not more functional, they will pay more for it. I always think about the Sbeg fridge as an example of this. Or like, um, when people, it's the same raincoat in pink, blue or black. It costs twenty dollars more for the pink, but because it's pretty and because it matches our preferences, it feels more valuable. We apply meaning. Apple products are another example of this. We buy them because they're sleek and they're beautiful, even though I think we all know that they're really expensive and that after three years they stopped working and we all know that there's probably something better.

• 33:29Jemma Sbeg?

  There is this thing where we see something pretty, it feels important to us and we want it. There was a further study from two thousand and nineteen that demonstrated something called the aesthetic fidelity effect as well. This basically means that not only are people more likely to buy more aesthetically pleasing things, but they're also more likely to continue using that thing if it's beautiful. Because they have an intrinsic sense of reward and confidence from using it. If a product is pretty, it's less likely to get thrown out. And I feel like this demonstrates this final level of this process of wanting beautiful things, obtaining beautiful things.

• 34:10Jemma Sbeg?

  We form a meaningful tie to these objects and they begin to communicate who we are. All these ideas of preferences and like what every single hu- human universally finds beautiful sometimes forgets this underlying thing, which is that what we find beautiful says a lot about how we think of ourselves. And this is why sometimes we like ugly things. We like ugly things, ugly sweaters, ugly dogs, ugly trinkets, ugly toys. Because it feels like we're going against the grain. And it feels like we have been able to find something valuable and something that others haven't been able to. And that says something about our character. And so inevitably, what beauty really becomes is what am I trying to say about myself?

• 34:56Jemma Sbeg?

  Through my appreciation of this, sometimes we naturally experience awe and we naturally experience like a profound feeling towards art or nature or the things around us. And then sometimes we feel a profound sensation towards something because we're like, this speaks to me and this speaks to how I want my character to be portrayed. And I want to explore that specifically through the lens of ugly things and our fascination with ugly things after this short break.

• 35:28Jemma Sbeg?

  There's this moment in your twenties where you realize, oh, no one is double checking my finances for me anymore. It's just me, my bank account and a growing list of, wait, I forgot I subscribed to that. And honestly, that can feel overwhelming. So you could look into Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking. It's perfect for this stage of life where you're figuring things out as you go. There are no overdraft item fees and if you are under twenty five, there's no monthly maintenance fee, which just makes it easier to stay on track. What stands out is that it doesn't try to overcomplicate things. It's not about being perfect with money. It's about having a system that helps you feel a little more in control.

• 36:11Jemma Sbeg?

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• 36:53Jemma Sbeg?

  They sustainably source ingredients, they craft their supplements with one hundred percent solar powered manufacturing and their products are incredible. I don't drink coffee and so Nature's Sunshine Brain Edge gives me that kick I sometimes need with potent ingredients, combining yerba mate with nootropics, adaptogens, botanicals to support mental clarity and focus. And you already know how much I love their marine glow and have for years. It is the only collagen that combines skin supporting marine collagen with the sun and blue light protection of luton to make your skin feel and look glowy and protected. Plus, I just really like that they have nature at the core of everything that they do.

• 37:36Jemma Sbeg?

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• 37:56Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been really trying to prioritize my health in a realistic way this year and something that has kept me really motivated is my Whoop. I am such a data person, which is why I love Whoop, because I can genuinely see why my body feels differently depending on the day, why I'm running differently, why I'm maybe less focused. Whoop effortlessly tracks my sleep, it tracks my strain, my recovery, my stress and most importantly, my overall health. And it just gives me all that data and all those patterns so I can make better decisions, which includes knowing when to go easy and knowing when to go hard. New members can try Whoop with a thirty day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of Whoop.

• 38:40Jemma Sbeg?

  This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over fourteen years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is. Lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark dot com.

• 39:18Jemma Sbeg?

  So yeah, why do we like ugly little things? Ugly little toys, ugly little whatever, when our mind is meant to prioritize beauty? There's all these contradictions in this research space. The Labubu is the obvious example. Labubus were fucking ugly, like, we all knew it, but we still bought them. I haven't seen one in ages, I wonder where they are. But what psychologists say is like, why, why did we buy that? Was of course, there was a trend behind it. But people were more likely to buy those products if it linked to their sense that they accepted things in a different way to other people. Like, we enjoy things that are maybe strange or unattractive because we feel like it's generous to enjoy them.

• 40:02Jemma Sbeg?

  And because we also feel like we see something that other people don't. And because we had this sense of like emotional attachment to it, that then makes us value it more. Precisely because this thing wasn't easy for us to process or understand. This creates like, I don't know how to explain it, but we feel like this, our appreciation for something is tied up in our character. Think about fashion designers that bring out the most ugly clothes and accessories. And people still go crazy for it. What the designers are doing is trying to prompt a kind of reaction that symbolically represents people who feel themselves in that reaction and in the unexpected.

• 40:46Jemma Sbeg?

  So like, I think about the Balenciaga shoes as a great example. They were objectively ugly, but by liking the fact that they were ugly, this said something about who you were. It's like this kind of irony that you have to be a special person to find something so gross, so beautiful. There's like this elitist sense that because you do, you get it, you understand it, and it gives you a little bit of an ego boost. And then the more people accept it, the more people maybe feel converted in this way, the more popular these items become. Like those Balenciaga shoes, like the Labubus, until they become a trend. There's also all this research on like ugly cute and the ugly cute effect.

• 41:31Jemma Sbeg?

  And it says that similar to like wanting to make a statement through our appreciation of ugly things. We also wanna break societal expectations in a safe way. And we like this like mild cognitive friction, right? The ugliness of something challenges us, similar to like the novelty and familiarity effect where it's like, okay. This is challenging enough that I haven't seen this thing before, it feels a bit, makes my brain curious. But then there's something about it like I innately find appealing. I'm kind of like going off the tracks here, but there was this really interesting article by this man, his name is Eric Lee.

• 42:12Jemma Sbeg?

  And he talks about how much like consumer brands manipulate this to like make something ugly to be like, we're making a statement if you like this. A lot of cartoon characters also are ugly cute because they bring people in with the appeal of like, ooh, what's that? This curiosity and then they appeal to them also through this like cute factor that feels unexpected. Basically what he revealed was that a lot of animal cartoon characters, a lot of, just like cartoon characters that we see, like blobfishes or like, just little things, right? Like weird little characters in TV shows, there's always something a little bit ugly about them and there's always something a little bit infantile. They often have like these big eyes, these softer shapes.

• 42:57Jemma Sbeg?

  And what he says is that, yes, humans like beauty, but they also like contradictions and we also like the intrigue. And that's why ugly cute stuff, people might not understand why it appeals to the same part of our brain that likes beauty. But it's again, giving us this aesthetic experience that feels interesting and feels valuable because of what it says about us. And because we're projecting our sense of like protection sometimes over ugly things as well of like, I get it, I like this. And so this says something about me. Okay, I've gone on such a tangent about this, I wanna move on to the next section. So before I wrap up this episode, I wanna talk about two more things.

• 43:39Jemma Sbeg?

  One being why nature is the ultimate source of profound, beautiful experiences. And why we need more beauty or why we need beauty just generally more than ever. Even if people think it's pointless, even if people think it's meaningless. You know, it gets quite spiritual really, even nature, who has no reason being beautiful, shows up and grows in ways that are. Why? Maybe there's no reason, but we need to be doing the same, we need to be creating beauty in our lives, even if it's not functional. Because what all this research says is that the more you encounter beauty, the better it is for your mind and your soul. In research looking at the beauty in our everyday lives, nature is something that shows up time and time again.

• 44:23Jemma Sbeg?

  It is perhaps the biggest fixation point for people who research neuroaesthetics. Because there's just endless examples and endless fascination around what it is that draws us in. There was a series of studies at the University of Vienna. And what they essentially found was that humans crave natural beauty more than most things. More than anything else, they will look for beauty in nature. And the way they kind of found this was that they gave people a phone and they said, at various times in the day, we're gonna ping this phone. And when we do, you need to take a photo of something beautiful.

• 45:00Jemma Sbeg?

  And the researchers noticed that a lot of the time, even when people weren't inside, but even when they weren't in nature or a beautiful scene, they still turned towards it. Why is this? What they theorized was that our brains have evolved to prioritize nature and to prioritize information in our environment. The water, the vegetation, signs of life, sounds, colors. Those used to be much more integral and part, a much bigger part of our life than they are now. And because of that, we are still constantly wanting to find our way back into those spaces.

• 45:39Jemma Sbeg?

  We are wanting, our brain is trying to give us signs and cues to be like, go towards that, go towards these natural environments. Because they have such a huge restorative effect. Because when it's beautiful, it's often safe as well. When the sky is clear, when the water is clear, we feel this innate sense of calm because that's where we used to exist. There's a pretty famous study from nineteen ninety-one that was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. And in it, the researchers asked a hundred and twenty participants to watch a video. I don't even think it was a video, it was just like a really stressful movie about like workplace accidents. And then they were like, let's just see if watching a video of nature does anything.

• 46:22Jemma Sbeg?

  Does it re, does it reset our natural settings? And it did, people who were exposed to natural scenes, they recovered from the emotional stress much faster. They became happier and more relieved much faster. And it's explained primarily by a theory they put forward called the attention restoration theory. It's one of my favorite theories in the whole episode and it basically says, our modern lives require so much from us. So much directed attention specifically. Even in when you look at any environment you're in, have a look around, there are more colors, more things than you would ever see in nature. And then you're sitting in front of a computer and you have to do emails.

• 47:06Jemma Sbeg?

  And you have, and then you're listening to music and you've got to think about your boss and you're doing all these things. And you are heavily relying on your prefrontal cortex. When you are using these regions for a long time, we experience attentional fatigue. Nature doesn't ask that of us, it only requires involuntary attention. It doesn't require as much conscious energy to be active in nature and to simply appreciate it. It allows our fatigued attentional systems to recover because sure, you're gonna be seeing a lot of things, but there's more patterns in nature, there's more order in nature, even if it looks more messy. There is something in nature that literally calls your mind and says like, be calm, this is where you're meant to be. And this is kind of the crux of this episode.

• 47:50Jemma Sbeg?

  Obviously, I've, I've brought you guys in by being like, let's talk about the psychology of beauty, but. Beauty is seen as this very frivolous thing. And especially in times like this, it's like, well, what's the point of having beautiful things? And what's the point of making things aesthetic? Beauty can literally save our sanity right now. Beauty can ground us because especially when it's natural, it taps into these prehistoric functions in our brain that tell us to calm down. Our lives become so much more rich and meaningful when we appreciate something beyond ourselves. And sometimes that is just this, like, the beautiful surrounds and the beautiful, like, like the miracle of color and the miracle of patterns and the miracle of texture.

• 48:33Jemma Sbeg?

  And I think the more you focus on that, the more it expands and the more capacity it has to change your life. There's all these studies that say when people are invited to not think about things that they're grateful for, to not think about, make a list or whatever of things that like make them happy, but to instead just be like, notice something beautiful about your natural environment twice a day, that is your only task. Their positive effect, their connectedness, their sense of hope increased. There's so much value in this, especially these days. It is so easy to see the world as this awful, evil, specifically ugly place, not cute, ugly, just ugly.

• 49:17Jemma Sbeg?

  But there is nothing frivolous about pouring beauty back into that however you can, however silly it is. It may be one of the best things that you can do for your emotional health right now, to make your space more inviting, to make your desk more beautiful, to increase your sense of meaning by being in nature. I think it's a really good reminder to like, get outside more as well. What nature really does for us is not just restore us, but make us really feel appreciative for everything around us and the fact that our senses can deliver such a beautiful experience. And I think that's really what ties beauty altogether is that model again, it's beautiful because it gives us something sensory, but then it's also beautiful because we are able

• 50:01Jemma Sbeg?

  to apply our own meaning to it and we are able to apply our own values to it and reconnect with like, what do I feel like is valuable in life? What do I feel appreciative for? What is, what do I feel grateful for? And it's very easy to be grateful for something that doesn't offend you and just is gorgeous to look at and that exists purely for your enjoyment without you really needing to give it anything. So that is my very convoluted episode on the psychology of beauty. I kind of just wanted to throw as much research into this episode as I possibly could. So thank you for listening to my rants about ugly cute. And thank you to them, listening to my rants about why nature is the ultimate source of

• 50:41Jemma Sbeg?

  awe and beauty and how, how wonderful and like what that says about our brains and how to like literally reprogram our brains by putting it back in the environments that it's kind of begging us to be in. I want to thank our researcher Libby for her help with this episode. As always, you can watch these episodes and many more on Netflix. You can follow us on Instagram, you can follow us on Substack. And if you have made it to the end and you are listening on Spotify, leave a little nature emoji below or leave a little comment. What is the most beautiful thing in the world to you? Is it another person? Is it a tree? Is it a painting? I would love to hear from you and I'd love to, I'd love to know what it is.

• 51:25Jemma Sbeg?

  I feel like it's very interesting to see what other people perceive to be beautiful because it said, again, it says a lot about what you value as a person and who you are as an individual. That's all I have time for today. Until next time, thank you for listening and be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon.

• 51:49Jemma Sbeg?

  Your twenties are full of firsts. First job, first rent payment, first time checking your balance. Wow, that's a lot. Having the right setup helps. Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking has no monthly maintenance fee if you are under 25. It's simple, which is honestly exactly what most people need right now. Plus, when you open a new safe balance banking account, you can explore what B of A Rewards has to offer, like cash back deals plus fraud and identity monitoring. Learn more at B of A dot com slash simple banking. Member FDIC.

• 52:27Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been really trying to prioritize my health in a realistic way this year and something that has kept me really motivated is my Whoop. I am such a data person, which is why I love Whoop, because I can genuinely see why my body feels differently depending on the day, why I'm running differently, why I'm maybe less focused. Whoop effortlessly tracks my sleep, it tracks my strain, my recovery, my stress, and most importantly, my overall health. And it just gives me all that data and all those patterns so I can make better decisions, which includes knowing when to go easy and knowing when to go hard. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of Whoop.

• 53:11Jemma Sbeg?

  This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is, lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 53:48Jemma Sbeg?

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