We’re in that time of our civilizational development where apparently immaterial attributes such as bravery, courage and our judgement of what is beautiful can now be tracked back to specific elements of cognition, powered by the remorseless evolutionary need to conserve energy.
When you think about it for a while this makes perfect sense. While almost everything we think and feel is multi-factorial and its emergence relies on the synthesis of the contribution of both internal and external factors, part of it, owes its very existence in a past rooted in survival dynamics. In that past, energy conservation and energy expenditure are at the very heart of every survival tactic we employ.
Fast-forward to our world and those survival tactics are still in play but usually obscured by the complexity of our man-made culture. Our sense of beauty is apparently one of these survival tactics. From paintings to faces to landscapes; what we find visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing is apparently based on the amount of energy our brain needs to spend to process it.
The Energy Budget Conundrum
The numbers don’t lie. The brain, all three pounds of it, accounts for 20% of the body’s daily energy needs. And processing visual information is almost half that (44% to be precise). Scenes such as a ‘messy’ or a ‘busy’ website or an apparently ‘chaotic’ scene or a face that taxes our first impression, demand a higher energy toll. Because the brain can neither control how many of these we can be exposed to or diminish the energetic cost of processing them, it has learnt to avoid them through snap-judgements that label them as unappealing to us.
That way it allows us to immediately go into avoidance mode or a state of heightened alertness without taxing our finite resources. Nick Fury’s face (and eye-patch) would instantly put us on alert if we didn’t know he was the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and even then we could hardly ignore him.
Too many choices in our buying options paralyze us in the well-known “choice paradox”. Similarly, as a recent study by the University of Toronto shows, any energetically-demanding process in our daily life is immediately labelled as something to avoid and we learn to avoid by the brain tagging it as something we dislike.
The ‘Hate Circuit’
When a situation, object or a person are labelled by the brain as being disliked (or even hated) the brain perceives it as a threat. Depending on the strength of the perception of the threat and its accompanying, underlying emotions, researchers in England “found three areas where activation correlated linearly with the declared level of hatred, the right insula, right premotor cortex and the right fronto-medial gyrus.”
This takes us from the complexity of modern societies and nuanced interactions to a fundamentally primitive “fight or flight” response where we’re prepared to allocate resources to avoid something or to tackle it head-on.
“Easy On The Eyes” Makes Sense
“Easy On The Eyes” originated, as a phrase that signifies something as beautiful around the 1900s.
Arguably that was also the world started becoming increasingly complex with the pace of technological advancement and the change that is inevitably associated with it, increasing.
The message here is pretty simple. One key element of beauty which, in turn, guides how something is received by its wider public, is the energetic cost required to process it.
What About "Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder"?
To some extent the saying that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is still true. An on-going scientific study found that even among twins the perception of beauty differed. Perception, however, is a construct. It partly based upon data (i.e. underlying reality) and partly upon life experiences and awareness - elements that differ from one individual to the next.
What holds true however for every individual is that their perception of beauty is, indeed, based upon the energetic cost of processing and assessing the image they perceive. Case in point, Nick Fury (again) - to Marvel fans he's the epitome of cool and "easy on the eyes". But to anyone who is not familiar with the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU), he is, indeed, a somewhat fearsome image of a person to be avoided.
Relationships, Marketing And Decision-Making
Beautiful to know as all this may be it’s only useful if we know where to apply it. In Intentional I mentioned how productivity increases and a general sense of well-being is improved when we make small changes to our environment that make it easier for us to be in it. Fixing a squeaky door or a cupboard that sticks may seem inconsequential, yet they make our life instantly easier and this is something we actively control.
When it comes to building relationships, whether of a romantic or platonic nature the ones that last longer and feel great are the ones that do not emotionally drain us with every contact.
Similarly, marketing messages that are easy to evaluate and understand are received, best. This is why one-liners, slogans and catchy refrains do so much heavy lifting when it comes to messaging about an event, a company or a product.
Finally, decision-making always feels easier and more decisive when the options available do not confuse or overload their target audience.
These are easy, science-driven, takeaways that can directly help you in both your life and your business.
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