Love just takes a glance

A Penn psychologist recently co-authored a terrifying study. Sorry to break the news to you on Valentine's Day, but biology has more control over how you are perceived than your beautification routine.

Psychology professor Ingrid Olson recently authored a study that finds that it takes the average human only about a hundredth of a second to decide the attractiveness level of a face.

This means that in the split-second that you encounter someone on Locust Walk, they are already able to decide whether or not you are attractive -- and, by extension, whether you are a potential mate.

Beneath our Ivy League educations we are still nothing but a bunch of mammals instilled with survival instincts. Damn.

This tendency toward beautiful people has its roots in animal survival, and is often called "mate value" -- also known as the likelihood that a total stranger would want to have sex with you. We know it on the street as how hot someone is.

Of course we all want to have sex with attractive people, but according to Olson, attractiveness has more advantages than sex alone.

Attractiveness can be subjective, Olson said. But she claims that the studies use faces that are considered attractive across the board.

Olson's recent study focused on first impressions. It concluded that we subconsciously judge attractiveness in the blink of an eye.

So in a split second, nobody can tell whether or not you remembered to pluck your eyebrows, shave your face or apply makeup.

If first impressions are this quick and accurate, the joke is on all of us. Our efforts might make us all feel better about ourselves as we tromp around campus, but they are pointless in the grand scheme of things.

And, even worse, our raw attractiveness decides a lot more than just our chances of getting lucky on a Saturday night.

"Studying attractiveness has a long history," Olson said. "Since the 1970s, psychologists have shown that attractive people get better jobs. Attractive people are preferentially hired and promoted."

The list of preferential treatment for attractive people over unattractive people goes on to include mothers who prefer attractive babies and even college students who give better evaluations to attractive professors.

There's a reason for that last one -- it's called the beauty premium, the idea that attractive people are often seen as more intelligent or capable than their unattractive counterparts.

Maybe this is why the Penn application requests a photo.

Too bad the concept doesn't work in reverse -- if intelligence made people seem hot, we would all be a bunch of Greek gods (at least according our SAT scores).

In fact, there are numerous daily -- and nightly -- biologically driven influences on our judgments of who is attractive.

Barry Jones, a psychology professor at the University of Glasgow, conducted a study on the influence on perception of a popular pastime that spans the ocean between us -- drinking.

Jones gave subjects up to 4.25 shots of alcohol and then had them rate the attractiveness of a series of faces.

"The [attractiveness] increase was about 15 to 20 percent," Jones said. "Both sexes performed the same. There was no change for same-sex faces."

Scientifically speaking, this has to do with the area in our brain that lights up when we are attracted to someone and when we are drunk. Even scientists will tell you not to trust those drunk goggles.

So, on Valentine's Day --when love is in the air -- remember that the perception of beauty goes back to our monkey days.

Evolution is tricky. As sophisticated as we have become, we still haven't shaken our roots. And despite our best efforts, nobody can influence a first impression.

At least we can blame biology for being overly selective about our boyfriends or girlfriends.

And for that one night stand.

Anna Hartley is a sophomore comparative literature and French major from Palo Alto, Calif. Penn's Annatomy appears on Tuesdays.

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