Ep. #41 Do Looks Really Matter? What the Research Says with Dr. Gordon Patzer

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah, the basic concept is, what’s the role that a person’s looks, and specifically defined as physical attractiveness, play in the person’s life, both in an individual’s life and in society overall? So that's my focus of my research. And then, I look at individual little components such as we're talking about today, dating; however, I also do other research. I talk about how physical attractiveness impacts the elderly, how it impacts politics, and there's really a long list of what has been documented by researchers in this area.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent. As I understand it, you pulled together different areas of research as well from different domains?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes. Yes, absolutely. This physical attractiveness phenomenon topic is a relatively new topic as far as science goes. It only started to be looked at in the mid-sixties, so what is that about, 50,60 years ago?

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: And certainly it identifies closely with social psychology, but it also impacts or has roles with business, and specifically with marketing, advertising, consumer behavior, but we can also go back much farther, Angel, and we can see that anthropology plays a role, because we've had very similar, as might come out in our conversation today, has much similarity throughout history, the role of physically attractiveness, as it has today.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Excellent. Yeah, because I understood it was quite a relatively complex research from that point of view, bringing in lots of different dimensions from the scientific world. How much of an impact do our looks have on our actual results in social context every day?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah, first, let me start by saying as we get into this, is that I'm not an advocate of this so-called physical attractiveness phenomenon…

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: …but I'm really a researcher and communicator about what we know.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gordon Patzer]: With that said, what do we know? We know that physical attractiveness impacts every individual throughout the person’s life. And when I say physical attractiveness, I'm talking about typically the term beauty or prettiness for women, and handsomeness for men, or we may go much younger and refer to cute and topics like that. So it impacts every individual throughout their life, and it's not limited by any means to the United States or to North America or South America but really is a worldwide phenomenon.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Totally. And you were just telling me earlier about like having looked at this in different areas of the world, and you've actually done speaking in various parts around the world. So what would be some examples of situations that people may not associate with this kind of bias? Like today, obviously, we're in dating relationships where it's always debated. I can tell you in our domain it's being debated all the time how important looks are, you know, or they aren't, and whether you can kind of override those biases, and we'll talk a little bit about that later. But right now, just what kind of areas of our lives perhaps we don’t really think about this bias getting introduced but where it exists?

[Gordon Patzer]: Sure. Let's start very young. There's published research, and there's probably about over a thousand researchers that have published studies on the topic of physical attractiveness, there's only a handful of us that have stuck with it the length of time that I and a couple of others have done.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gordon Patzer]: With that said, we can see from the research that, literally at birth, nurses in a nursery center in a hospital, they tend to touch more, speak more and hold more babies that are more physically attractive, in this case, that are more cute. So if we believe like many social psychologists believe that we develop with our environment literally at day one or at birth, we see the more cute being treated differently or more favorable than the less cute. This continues as the child goes into elementary school. We see that in elementary school teachers unknowningly, or at least they do not admit it, and I will say unknowingly, they treat children of higher and lower physical attractiveness differently. They spend more time, they have higher expectations with the children of higher physical attractiveness.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: What happens there then is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the teacher is going to treat the more physically attractive child as being more bright or that expectation and spending more time with him or her, well, sure enough, they're going to develop. Now, so we've got those couple of things but let's go a couple of other areas. We can see in a medical interaction, when a patient goes to a medical doctor, the patients who are more physically attractive, the medical doctor tends to spend more time with the individual, answer more questions, and answer those questions in longer or in more detail.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: So we've got very uncomfortable setting in that case, and certainly something that's really been verified a number of times, and most recently there's an economist at University of Texas in the United States who’s published the book regarding physical attractiveness. And I like this research, or a lot of this research, because I primarily deal with, I’ll say, in the psychology aspect, some sociology, he's coming at it from the economic, and as we see repeatedly, that job applicants who are more attractive are more likely to be hired for the position that they're applying for. They're more likely to be hired at a higher income level.

And if we look at the income of a person over their lifetime, now it's hard to generalize, but we've got enough research and enough people documenting this, we can see that based on the American dollar, and this is translatable it appears around the world as you would convert the currencies, is that a person in the US of higher physical attractiveness, on average, we can conclude, makes about 250,000 dollars more over their career lifetime. Well, the career lifetime is defined as 40 years, but if you add all of that up, that's a quarter of a million US dollars. And again, that's translatable or convertible into other currencies, seems to hold true. So this notion of physical attractiveness or a person’s looks having some unexpected consequences, we can certainly see that to be the case. And we can see it in the judicial system, in the jury system. People arrested for crimes, depending what their physical attractiveness is, we may expect them to be guilty or not guilty accordingly.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, so it's pretty prevalent, and it sounds like every aspect of our lives it's touching, and in areas also that, you know, are a bit politically incorrect, you could say, we don’t really want to talk about these areas because it can put a lot of things into question, like you're saying the judgment system and work, for example. I saw a quote…

[Gordon Patzer]: Oh, you've touched on something, Angel, really, really, really important. In all of this regard, as I started out, I'm saying I'm not an advocate, I'm a messenger of this.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Gordon Patzer]: And in this regard, it's a topic that's very discomforting.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: People do not like to admit that they treat people differently based on physical attractiveness.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gordon Patzer]: So you used the appropriate word. It's very pervasive. At the same time, people are either not aware of it or they literally deny that they treat people differently based on their physical attractiveness because it's very discomforting to talk about this topic. That’s very not politically correct in many cases, and yet I think it's important to bring it to life.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gordon Patzer]: In that regard, let me say also that if you don’t acknowledge or if you pretend that something doesn’t exist, it doesn’t go away, and we can look at things such as racism, sexism, or what we can call this topic, lookism. So it's important I think to acknowledge it and then move on with life, but be aware that it does exist and don’t deny it.

[Angel Donovan]: Well, that's excellent, you know, and I'm really glad you bring it out this way, because on this show all we want is the truth. We’re really looking to get at reality, and the reason for that is that we want to basically get the best result. For the people in this show, they want to improve their lives, they want to get better, and the only way to do that is to deal with reality effectively even if it's discomforting. So we're just going to talk straight today, and I'm glad that you can talk like that and, you know, from your research background and everything.

I did actually see that you were quoted somewhere, I think it was Jezebel, which is a bit of a gossip magazine, not the best, but they said that you actually said it was a good investment decision to invest in plastic surgery in terms of career for many people, because in terms of economics they're going to get good benefits out of it. Is that something you said or is that something they misquoted, or is that something you would say is true?

[Gordon Patzer]: That is something that I would say is true based on a collection of research that shows individuals receive cosmetic surgery, enhance their physical attractiveness, and people treat the people differently based on their physical attractiveness. Now, in that regard, we also know that people who in their own mind feel that they're more attractive then develop a different personality and they become more confident, maybe more persuasive.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: And to excel in life, be it socially, dating or in the workplace, yeah, if we're more confident, if we think we're going to succeed, there's more likelihood that we will succeed. So if we enhance our physical attractiveness, as uncomfortable as that might be, we are going to be more successful in life.

[Angel Donovan]: Thanks for that. I'm glad you also brought up the fact that it also depends on our own opinion, right? And these people who are getting plastic surgery, it's also helping them to feel better about themselves, and then, therefore, they project that out outwards. And that's something we've talked about many times on this show before, and we'll get into it a bit later, I think, when we maybe talk about plastic surgery and some other things a bit later. So I’ll leave that for now.

For now I just wanted to like talk a little bit about, does this affect men and women differently or is it exactly kind of the same? Or is it more important for one sex or the other?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah, that's very good. Women are still, in 2013, and ’14 and ’15 probably, more impacted than men, and this is true in all cultures in all countries. Now, it's less so in the US than many other countries even though the US might be pointed at as particularly focused on physical attractiveness. This difference is not as great. However, physical attractiveness is much more important for women than men. However, an interesting note, for approximately the last I can say probably five to 10 years, maybe the last eight to 10 years, the importance of physical attractiveness for a man has increased substantially more or greater than the importance of physical attractiveness for women.

Now, I don’t want to be misheard there, is that we're coming from a low, low point. Physical attractiveness for men used to be very, very low, so they’ve increased substantially. Women have increased more, but they're at a much higher point.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: Now, in the workplace, which I brought up just a moment ago, for men, we see that better-looking men, more handsome men, it's beneficial to them regardless of position that they're applying for. For women, it's a little more complicated. At the lower-level positions, the more beautiful the woman is, the more likelihood she’s going to get the position, get paid more, etc.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: For higher-level executive positions, it becomes much more tricky, so to speak. Good-looking certainly pays off, but you've got to be careful not to cross the line of being sexy.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: And also, I get email messages from women who self-assess themselves as high above average physical attractiveness or beauty, and they will say that it works against them to be highly educated and highly successful. And the worst situation they will tell me is to be good-looking, competent, and to work for another woman. So physical attractiveness for women has a different rule, and in the dating world, men put much greater emphasis on physical attractiveness of their partner, meaning their woman that they're interested in, than the women put emphasis on the physical attractiveness of their partner, which is men.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, so that's a specific dating dynamic there.

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes.

[Angel Donovan]: Has that remained the same? So, you know, men continue to put a lot more emphasis on looks than women or is there any change in that over time?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes and yes to what you've just said. It continues to remain men put much greater emphasis on the physical attractiveness of their mate than women do.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: However, that has changed substantially in that men continue to be the same as always but women have increasingly looked at the physical attractiveness of men as an important criterion. They used to not consider that at all, but that has certainly increased substantially, and consequently, men, as I said a few minutes ago, their physical attractiveness is increasing, and in part because women are now looking at that more than other things.

Now, for what it's worth, in the dating world, as distasteful as this might be, and maybe controversial, men are going to have as their number one criteria, initially at least, the woman’s physical attractiveness, her beauty.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Women, on the other hand, that will not be their number one criteria for their mate. Their number one criteria is going to be something about means or finances or resources, what does the male bring unrelated to physical attractiveness. However, physical attractiveness or handsomeness of the male has increased for women over the last, I'm going to say again, five, six, seven, eight years.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, and that's interesting. So today I think it also depends on context. I read in your book that depending on what the women is looking for at a certain time, you know, obviously we're in a modern society where women at a certain stage in their life, they're not looking for anything long-term, they're looking for, you know, sexual hookups or they're just looking for casual dating, and I think you specified in your book that based on the scenario, based on the context, the motivations will vary a lot in the women in terms of physical attractiveness and how it influences them.

[Gordon Patzer]: You're exactly right. Now, we see from the research, generalizing from the research, or we see from the research—and not all women fall into this precisely, we're dealing with social science and there are a lot of differences. With that said, women who are in the dating mode, so to speak, tend to prefer mates who are very stereotypically physically attractive.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Those who are interested in marriage long-term, yeah, they're going to be interested in that, but they're going to put much greater emphasis on much more the average-looking person, or the male, because the average-looking person’s more likely to be with them in the long-term, they will feel.

Now, there's a whole other dimension to this, and which I don't know if you want to mention it or whatever, but there is some research, not done by me but reported by me, or at least discussed by me, is it depends what time of the month it is also. And that's a little nuance in the research findings, is that women, depending on their menstrual cycle, will have different interests in physical attractiveness level of their mates. So for women, the whole topic of their looks and their reaction to looks is much more complicated than for men.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Right, right, because I think, you know, during their menstrual cycle, when the egg… basically when they're fertile, during that period, they're more focused on physical attractiveness. Is that correct?

[Gordon Patzer]: When they're fertile as you just said, they are more attracted to men of higher physical attractiveness.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: When they are not in that fertile mode or period, then they're more attracted to men who are less physically attractive than the most attractive men. Yes.

[Angel Donovan]: Great, great, great. And I think something else I read was—this is from the male’s perspective now—that when he's looking for something short-term versus long-term, his kind of motivations change a bit as well, so he gets more focused on different body parts. So I think if he's just looking for something casual or he's just dating, then he's more focused on like larger boob size. Was that something that you covered in your research?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah. That certainly is part of this physical attractiveness phenomenon, but certainly that would be the case that men are going to be looking for, I'm going to say, maybe it goes back to Charles Darwin and such, but the reproductive aspect of the mate that he's attracted to, so the stereotypical more sexiness features of…

[Angel Donovan]: Right, totally.

[Gordon Patzer]: The curvy features are going to stand out for the men, yes.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. But when he's looking for like a longer-term mate, so when he's considering a long-term girlfriend or, you know, marriage, does that get toned down a bit? Is that less important?

[Gordon Patzer]: You've hit it perfectly. It gets toned down a bit.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: However, men as a group still aspire to the higher physical attractiveness even then, but it does get down. Now, slightly in that regard, we often think that people underrate their own physical attractiveness. They see themselves as less attractive than they really are. In reality, that does not seem to be the case, and there are a number of ways that we can measure physical attractiveness or assess.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gordon Patzer]: One is we can have our significant other evaluate us; two, we can evaluate ourselves; or three, which we think is the most realistic, is a group of strangers, which is what we do for research purposes.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: So it's a group of strangers that rate. Well, as we look at this, we see that people do not underrate their physical attractiveness but in general they overrate, both men and women. However, men are particularly bad in that we see ourselves as much more physically attractive than reality. Women themselves, it appears, a little more attractive than reality, and the reality being, again, the 30 strangers that we would have assess the individuals—so men are particularly bad at self-rating, and then consequently, they think they're going to match up with women of similar high levels.

And in this regard, we're kind of getting into another topic that's very discomforting, is I don't think you see, and there's no research on this but we have had commentary on this, is that so-called 9’s and 10s do not date, mate or marry 2’s and 3’s. So we've really discriminated, you know, within ourselves so the very good-lookers, men and women, by and large, they only match up with really good-lookers. And you can just look around and I think you'll see that with rare exception, and there are some rare exceptions, that the so-called rated 2’s and 3’s at the low end of physical attractiveness, they match up with each other. So a really good-looking woman or a really good-looking man generally does not mate up or marry with a very unattractive.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, I mean, that's definitely the main trend. I mean, you often see people which, as you say, they kind of pair up with the same level of attractiveness. Just out of interest, would you recommend, because you're saying basically that men tend to overrate themselves in terms of attractiveness, and earlier we were talking about how if you think that you're more attractive—this was in the context of plastic surgery—then you'll actually be more confident and you'll project a better image and you'll get better results. So I mean, is that the reason why, because you could go onto a hot or not dot com site and find out how people rate you, but maybe that's not in your best interest to do that, if you follow my logic.

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah, what you're talking about also is, you know, what you're hitting on now is that a person’s physical attractiveness, how I feel about how I look, is really a combination of factors both physical and nonphysical. So we often think that a person’s looks or physical attractiveness is really all based on his or her looks, body, face, components, and all of this.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: However, we can raise a person’s physical attractiveness, as odd as this may sound, with nonphysical features or nonphysical aspects.

[Angel Donovan]: Great.

[Gordon Patzer]: For example, is we know—I’ll take it at the extreme. There was initial early research done in Australia where we took a male, we brought him into a hospital setting, and we brought in these 30 strangers as I said before, and we introduced the person as a high school graduate who is a custodian, a janitor on this floor of the hospital. He does a really good job keeping the floor clean, etc. Alright. After that introduction he then left the room, and there was a questionnaire filled out which had embedded a couple of questions, hidden so to speak, but embedded to rate the person’s physical attractiveness. We did the same scenario with 30 different judges, in this case, and the same person with the same clothes, everything, comes in and now we introduce him as a resident from the medical school who is a doctor on that floor.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Same scenario. He then leaves, we have them fill out. Who do you think they rate higher in physical attractiveness? The person with the higher credentials. So there are ways we can adjust. Better education raises a person’s physical attractiveness. Also, as simple as body language. A person with more open body language we see after the interaction is judged higher in physical attractiveness. I'm not talking about liking or attraction, but I'm talking about just the visual physical aspect.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: People are influenced by some nonphysical things.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right.

[Gordon Patzer]: And let me say also, in the dating relationship world, is the longer we know an individual or the more we know about the individual, the higher our judgment of the individual’s physical attractiveness tends to be. Consequently, someone in a relationship, maybe married five, six years, what have you, is we start to see our mate much more attractive than the outside world or that other people do. So the notion is if we can get beyond that first impression, then it really does help to have our potential mate or our potential date to know more about us, because the more they know about us, the more likely they're going to see us as more physically attractive, and if they see us as more physically attractive, they're going to be more attracted or liking of us.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Well, this is very interesting because it connects with a lot of the advice we talk about, all of these things, you know, body language, like status, you were kind of referring to status, a little bit with schooling, and so on, all of these things we talk about a lot in how they have an impact. So could we just go through a kind of list of the most important contributors, physical and nonphysical. In terms of physical, which ones are the main kind of attributes which influence people in this way?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah. First, let me say that when I'm talking with nonresearchers or practitioners such as yourself or the media, is that you would like to have a nice ranking or what have you. And the research is much more complicated. It doesn’t really give us nice ranking. However, as we start to break it down to some extent—well, let me say, first of all, on how the research is done.

What the research is done is usually we ask people to judge people’s physical attractiveness. We have tried in the past to ask them to tell us what determines physical attractiveness. That does not seem to work.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gordon Patzer]: So we have people rate people high and low in physical attractiveness, we then put them to categories, and then we take the people apart, so to speak, and we look at what are the differences between these people in the good-looking category and the not-good-looking category, and we start to see certainly there's always the question, the body and the face. We really can't separate body and face, but if we are forced to, we can see that the face is a much greater determinant than the body in a person’s physical attractiveness unless the person’s body is far extreme, extreme anorexic or extreme 600-pound-type weight.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: So the face becomes most important. When we look into face features, despite what may be some common logic, the mouth tends to be the number one determinant in terms of the face feature on physical attractiveness. The mouth is the teeth, the lips.

[Angel Donovan]: Hmm. Interesting.

[Gordon Patzer]: That becomes most important. A close second becomes the eyes, and a third, a distant third, let's say, or third at least, is then the nose. So we can break down those things. In all those regards, as I said, face more important than body, generally. Generally, mouth most important as we look at the face, and then becomes the eyes, then become nose, and then of course we've got hair and we've got complexion and we've got dimensions of the face. It gets into all of those features.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: But most important is what, at least Americans use the word, but Germans use the word slightly different, is a gestalt. The gestalt means that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And so yes, the mouth, the nose, the eyes, the complexion, etc., they're all important; however, it's really all of those things together which determines if a person’s judged higher or lower in physical attractiveness.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, totally.

[Gordon Patzer]: With all that said, there's one body feature that stands out that the research show clearly both men and women consider real negative, and that body feature, which is difficult to avoid, is a protruding stomach.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: People with protruding stomachs are always rated low in physical attractiveness.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, so that's the little… kind of the potbelly you're talking about, like that you get from metabolic syndrome…

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Okay.

[Gordon Patzer]: And the so-called, what some people call beer belly. But yes.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. That's great. That’s a great list and you gave us a lot of information. It was very interesting. And I thought, I mean, there's a nice bit about that I noticed also that, you know, those are very popular bits to get upgrades on, like you know, dentistry, and you see the plastic surgery in those aspects. One point you didn't touch on was age. How does age influence this whole dynamic?

[Gordon Patzer]: Alright, excellent point. Unfortunately, to be old, as people grow old, their beauty goes down. Their physical attractiveness goes down. And in this regard, if we boil down all of these criteria, and there's an awful lot of criteria, in fact let me add to what I just said early, is it sounds kind of crazy but up to about 10 years ago, the research indicated for the last 30 years up to 10 years ago that the more average-looking face would be judged higher in physical attractiveness. For the last 10 years, the research has clearly shown, the more the symmetrical face, the more physically attractive. Thus, literally, if the left side of the face matches the right side, if the left ear matches the right ear, if the right nostril measures the left nostril. So if you look closely at your face, be it through cosmetics or what have you, the more symmetrical we can make the person, look, the more physically attractive the person is judged to be.

With all of that said, we've got all of these components, and I didn't get into things such as literally the width of the eyes, how far they're apart, and for your information, more physically attractive people, if we take a face for the moment and we can divide it into thirds, if it divides into thirds equally, then that person tends to be judged higher in physical attractiveness. And what I mean by thirds is from the hairline to the top of the eyebrow should be one-third of the face, from the top of the eyebrow to the bottom of the nose should be a third, from the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin should be a third.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gordon Patzer]: Well, when we're talking about age, both for men and women but much, much more for men, what happens with that top third, the hairline goes farther and farther back.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: So this is one feature. The face also changes its complexion. The skin becomes thinner, or yeah, thinner, and more pale. And for men and women, as we age, our lips become more thin, and for the last approximately 20 years, more full lips are judged more physically attractive. So all the little markers of physical attractiveness tend to go down as a person ages, and in general, without question, as a person ages their physical attractiveness goes down.

Now, what I want to say, however, at the same time, is of the many, many little features that determines the physical attractiveness of a person, we can boil those down around the world to two components that really, really matter. One, an adult who looks younger rather than older is judged more attractive, physically attractive, and an adult who is judged more healthy rather than less healthy is judged more physically attractive.

And you mentioned dentistry. Well, healthy young people have very white teeth. You know, not only do the lips get more thinner, but as we age, just look at an older person, naturally-aging older person, the teeth become more gray, and maybe more yellow, but certainly they change from white to less white. And consequently, that's associated with aging, that's maybe associated with less health, and certainly consequently, that notion about boiling it all down to what can we do to look more healthy, what can we do to look younger, is going to be beneficial to our physical attractiveness.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: And all of this then opens up justification, is that if we exercise for vanity purposes, maybe there are some benefits there because we're improving our health very much but we're also increasing our physical attractiveness. So some way, let's focus on health and let's focus on looking younger rather than older, and unfortunately, from my perspective or what have you, that really… well, maybe it's good because there are a lot of options now. We have dentistry, we have cosmetic surgery, we have fitness centers, we have things that will tighten your stomach. And let me say one other point, and then I’ll be quiet for the moment…

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gordon Patzer]: …is if we look at the medical research, and you see this continually the last, I'm going to say, five, six years, you'll see studies every so often that the least healthy people are people with a large stomach, a lot of body fat, or a lot of stomach fat. Well, that equates nicely with this notion that to look more healthy is to be viewed more physically attractive. And I just said about 10 minutes ago to have a protruding stomach is viewed as not physically attractive, well then maybe some historical what we call hardwire reason why we prefer people who are more physically attractive. They're more healthy and we look at the features that determine that.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, and I’d look at the whole health thing as very positive, you know. We're talking about leukism and anabiosis here, but if it can motivate you to stay healthier through your life, then I'd say that's all good. That's a positive motivation and there's nothing wrong with that.

Well, you touched on, before, the nonphysical attributes. Could we delve through those a bit? Because I know those also kind of have a big role to play in aging, especially for men.

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes, certainly I would say, you know, whatever is going to be nonphysical such as credentials of various sorts, education, etc., and then something which I hate to admit but this is true is, particularly for women more than men, even though that might be changing, I don’t have research on how that's changing now, but we do have research on if you say this man makes x amount of money and then you introduced him separately as making substantially more money, lo and behold, he becomes more physically attractive to people.

We talked about body language. We're also talking about clothes. We're talking about cosmetics. We're talking about hairstyle. All of those things are going to—well, excuse me, those are physical things when you get into it. So we're talking about body language, we're talking about credentials, we're talking about resources that the person may bring to the relationship.

[Angel Donovan]: One interesting thing that I've seen discussed before, I'm not sure if your research has gone into this, is hormones. So if a man has higher testosterone or lower testosterone, that can influence. In dating, we talk about it sometimes. For instance, we noticed that when you go to the gym, afterwards you tend to get more looks from women, for instance. And there is a little bit of research around testosterone, but not really about a specific situation. We assume that basically, you know, after you've gone for a good heavy weights lifting session in the gym, then your testosterone is higher, and that's somehow influencing the women. Have you looked into that area at all?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes, and what you bring up is interesting. First of all, not hormones but pheromones. There's also, which I don’t put a lot of credit to, but pheromones, if that's how it's pronounced, is the odor that a person has can change their attractiveness, their physical attractiveness, and their attraction. Now, in regard to hormones, we touched a little bit I guess on this when we talked or mentioned menstrual cycle for women.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: For men, with higher testosterone, we see what’s called facial markers. They have higher cheekbones. They look more masculine. As we age, we lose our testosterone or through lack of exercise, and it impacts our face quickly. A more rugged, handsome man is going to have higher testosterone.

[Angel Donovan]: That's interesting. I didn't realize our facial shape can change that quickly.

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Because from my own experiments and like testing in labs and stuff, I've raised my testosterone 200, when I'm following specific protocols and stuff. So it's very attainable to change the level of testosterone based on your workouts and what you're eating and so on. So it's very interesting. Do you know how rapidly your face would change? So really you're saying it's probably based on changes in the way you look, based on testosterone.

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes. I don't know if the testosterone causes it or if it's associated or correlated with it.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right.

[Gordon Patzer]: But as we raise our testosterone, our facial… or as it decreases, our more handsome, younger facial masculine features are going to be decreasing. I do not know the time aspect on that, but let me also say, as you just said, when you work out at a gym or a fitness center, I don't know this impact either, but the little that I do, the blood flow to my muscles actually inflate my body to some extent, and so I feel better, and also I pay the price for working out, but I probably do look bigger and more husky to an extent, a very small extent.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: And so all that contributes. So the fitness aspect to look better certainly has a dual benefit – makes you look better but also makes you more healthy.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Have you… I mean, I think you touched on this in your book. You looked at the ratios, the hip-to-waist ratio for women and the waist-to-chest ratio for men. Have you covered that in your research?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes. That's covered in the physical attractiveness research, certainly.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: And certainly the hourglass figure as it's often referred to for women, that has a significant impact, even though when you ask men and other women they will not acknowledge that. But if we look at how people are judging people on physical attractiveness or putting them in the category of attractive or unattractive, the attractive are going to have a substantially different waist ratio than the less attractive.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, yeah. So that is one of the important things, because that's something you can influence as well. So, you know, we're always looking for things that you can influence in some way, so it's nice to know these important aspects that you can influence by improving, you know, how narrow your waist is versus how wide your shoulders and cheat are, or for the women, improving their hips. So there's actually, I don't know if you've seen this, there are fitness programs for women now focused on emphasizing their glutes so it gives them wider hips, narrower waist, and it gives them more of an hourglass figure. And that's becoming very popular, and it sounds like that would have some merit.

[Gordon Patzer]: And Angel, what you just mentioned is interesting because it also shows the importance of physical attractiveness or the value that people put on it.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: First of all, as you indicated, you can achieve that or you can move towards it with a lot of work through various fitness exercising. That's one item. You can also do, as we know, cosmetic surgery specifically and liposuction to achieve this. And then third, we have a whole new line of clothes that I'm going to say started about eight, nine years ago. The biggest name that I know is a company called Spanx, S-P-A-N-X, in the United States. And this is a woman who started this, and she actually borrowed 5,000 dollars from people to start this business, and it's really interesting, or it makes you look more… you know, your waist enhancement, etc. And as I said, she borrowed 5000 for this company, and now she was just last year on the Fortune 500 list of billionaires as the youngest self-made billionaire thus far. She's 42 years old I believe at this time, but she made her money from Spanx, and the only reason for Spanx is it's underneath clothes that will give you better shape. So if you don’t do the exercise or the surgery, you have that option. And now, the last two, three years, not as popular yet, but men… or she's got a whole new line about men, and now she has competitors and such, too. So there are a number of ways we can achieve the looks.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. That is really interesting. I didn't know about the Spanx company. I have to look it up afterwards. And you said they're also doing clothes now for men to achieve the same…

[Gordon Patzer]: Yes. Yes. Yes. And it's underclothes, and primarily it's focused on tucking in a protruding stomach.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Not as healthy as actually working on your health and kind of fixing that.

[Gordon Patzer]: No. Exactly. And there's no comparison. However, for many people, it's much easier than doing the fitness route, and it's also much less expensive than doing the surgery route.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, totally, and surgery’s a little bit more…

[Gordon Patzer]: No.

[Angel Donovan]: …extreme.

[Gordon Patzer]: Which I would not recommend either, route. I would recommend the exercise route. But again, that takes time and effort that a lot of people don’t want to do.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Totally. How much of an impact would you say the things that women do to improve their looks have on men? Because, you know, it's a lot more socially acceptable, or has been… as you were saying, things are changing, right? In terms of the cosmetics, the fashion, the style, the plastic surgery even, it's all… it's kind of originated… a lot of those kind of markets have originated more in the women’s side, and now maybe they're getting transferred to the male side also. How much of a difference can all those things… obviously, like putting aside the plastic surgery, which is actually kind of modifying your body, but in terms of the cosmetics and the fashion, the style and the clothes, how much of a difference does that make?

[Gordon Patzer]: All of those things make significant differences such that small differences really do translate into big consequences.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: So, often we think small improvements won't be noticed or what have you, but it really translates into big consequences, and… I guess that's what… you know, something slipped my mind at the moment. I was going to say more about that topic and it just slipped my mind. Maybe I’ll come back to it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, but I just think this is something that's important for men to be aware of, because something typically that happens is like, you know, you go to a nightclub, for instance, and it's kind of dark and the women are wearing makeup, and you meet a girl and you make plans to have a date and stuff. And when we first started dating a lot we used to say how like we were kind of shocked when we met her for the second time. It was daylight and it was a different situation…

[Gordon Patzer]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: And our expectations weren't met, but I think the point is that our expectations weren't very realistic. And it could be worse, you know, if you were drinking alcohol. Fortunately, most of us didn't drink alcohol, but if you're drinking alcohol as well, you know, it could potentially be further distorted. So I think it's important for men to have a clear view of reality, basically, when they're looking in this, to understand when cosmetics are being used, to be able to see that and be able to kind of judge the girl for who she is really underneath as well and be able to see through that. And that will help meet your expectations and, you know, just I think it causes dissonance down the line for a lot of men otherwise.

[Gordon Patzer]: That's right. If I could give a couple of comments as well as I thought about what I thought about what I wanted to say earlier. First of all, you're touching on hormones to some extent about when you might first see the person in the nightclub or what have you. That's one aspect, I believe. Second is it goes back to the notion that we kind of started with, is that a person’s looks can be an opening door that invites the observer to learn more about the person or it can close the door.

So, exactly as you just said, is that men, more than women, but both, but men particularly, need to go beyond that initial first impression. So that's how dangerous or how important a woman’s physical attractiveness is or a man’s, but let's take a woman for the moment, is that her looks can close the door where he won't even try to learn more about her.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: If some way she can get with him that he can learn more about her, as I said earlier, the more we know, the more physically attractive the person gets in our eyes. Plus, he will just learn much more about her unrelated to her appearance. But that darn appearance, the darn looks, can be a closer, you know, can close the door or can open the door.

Now, with that said, you mentioned changes due to cosmetics, etc. We are a funny people in the world, and this is worldwide, but we value higher physical attractiveness overwhelmingly, unless the person has gotten those higher physical attractiveness artificially. Now, strangely enough, if the person’s improved their attractiveness with exercise, that's valuable. But beyond that, we have this unrealistic standard that a person should be born with their beauty.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: So if they get cosmetic surgery, if the man gets a hair transplant, yeah, hair on men are judged more physically attractive. But if that hair is noticeably artificial, be it either through transplant or through, I guess, a wig or a rug or whatever it's called, toupee, it's judged less physically attractive. A woman’s breast enhancement – yes, people like women with larger breasts, but we also are contradictory, is that if we know they are artificial cosmetic surgery breast enhancements, it's not judged. In fact, that becomes negative. So we are this weird little people or weird population around the world, is that we value higher physical attractiveness, but unless it's artificially achieved or achieved through means other than being born with. So we have real high, unrealistic expectations of what we expect of a person.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah, that's… I mean, I guess that's driven by the media and, you know, all the Photoshopping of photos and everything that goes on, painting these perfect images all the time.

[Gordon Patzer]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: And I guess, like I was just thinking about this, I guess with that context, like you're saying that, say I'm working around during the day and, you know, I'm a guy with, say, high standards and I don’t see anything I'm interested in all day, but then I go to the club at night and, you know, women are wearing more makeup and so on, there are different things going on, as you were saying, hormones, because the environment’s a bit more energetic and so on, so the hormones may have an influence there. So that might actually get you interested in someone initially, and then you take an interest with them further and get to know them, and then you like them more. So if you'd met potentially that person during the daytime, none of that whole process would have gotten started. Does that make sense?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah, it makes lots of sense. And so the woman who’s, in this case the woman, or the man, who’s enhanced their attractiveness, then is much more inviting or encouraging for the other person, the observer in this case, the male in this case, to then learn more about the individual. So it's got some real benefit. So if we're aware that physical attractiveness or looks, beauty, handsomeness really play an important role, then we want to enhance our physical attractiveness as best we can, and we want to do it least artificially or what have you. And so if cosmetics makes us look better, then I would say yes, that's certainly going to improve our chances.

And cosmetics gets into an area that you talked about very nicely or just mentioned, is cosmetics as well as fragrances, during the day in the workplace, may not be acceptable, and certainly at night at a club or what have you, certainly would be acceptable. So we've got to, you know, do it context-appropriate, I’ll say, in this case.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, great. What would you say that men do to improve their looks today? You mentioned that it was becoming a more important trend, that men are working more on this. What kind of things do they work on in terms of improving their looks to get better social results and with women?

[Gordon Patzer]: Sure. We can go to anything that they're doing to make themselves look younger, not too young, younger, and to make themselves look more healthy. So, certainly, the exercise fitness that a lot of men do, but certainly not the majority of men, I don’t believe, that certainly contributes. There's a whole new dimension, maybe we can call it the metrosexual, but we do have individuals getting manicures, and we also are having men increasingly who use various face lotions and also bronzes. So men are going into a version of cosmetics, male cosmetics, which again is facial moisturizers that are then going to plump out the skin, and that makes the skin look more younger, and it goes back to that notion, then the person’s going to be judged more physically attractive.

If you want to take it a step further, the number one cosmetic surgery for men is the upper eyelid. So as men age, as I said, the skin changes, the lips change, etc., but the upper eyelid tends to come down. And if you look at individuals in their I’ll say 50s and certainly 60s, you'll see the upper eyelid really encroaching down onto the eye. That's the number one cosmetic surgery, is to raise that up for men.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, so what age are they doing that? Is it like 40 and 50, or when does that typically…

[Gordon Patzer]: I would say in the mid-50s on up.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. So I'm not actually sure what you're talking about there. Is that where like the eyes would droop down at the side but they look like they're sagging?

[Gordon Patzer]: Exactly. It would be where the eyes would droop down. It would be below the eyebrow and it would be the eyelid, I guess you would call it.

[Angel Donovan]: Ah. So it looks like there's something coming a little bit over the eye, you know, a bit more…

[Gordon Patzer]: It's the skin.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah. Yeah, actually it's the skin between the eyebrow and the eyelid. There's part of your eye up there that seems to I guess loosen, and it certainly comes down and it starts covering the eye, but it does not affect vision. But you will see that… and it makes a person look “old or tired.”

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, okay. Very interesting. Are there any other other trends?

[Gordon Patzer]: The cosmetics thing is becoming… is growing in popularity for men.

[Angel Donovan]: Sorry, what was growing in popularity for men?

[Gordon Patzer]: For men, using facial lotion, moisturizers.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Also use concealment to cover up underneath the eye the blue color that people develop as they age.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right.

[Gordon Patzer]: And I don't, but I know several individuals who are also concerned with wrinkles around the eye, so they're using what women have traditionally used to minimize what could be called crow’s feet, but the wrinkles that are particularly around the eye.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: And as we know, the craze about Botox injections in the forehead has long ago left the… well, the movie set, so to speak, or the movie crowd, and it's gone into the general public now for those who can afford it, into Botox and various other injections. In fact, injections have become the real craze in the cosmetic surgery world, the nonsurgery part, and that's to get rid of the smile lines around the face with both men and women, or excuse me, with women and men doing that, and also the wrinkles in the forehead.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Excellent, excellent, because there are quite a few areas there. I mean, I don’t really want to touch on this subject very, very much, but I think I just want to bring it up because I think it's something that guys may see a lot of marketing for. I think on the Internet particularly they see a lot of marketing for plastic surgery when it comes to the genitals and changing those. Is there a trend for men actually, you know, using these kind of services or these kind of enhancements? Because I think this is something that they may see a lot of, and so I just thought it was important to bring up.

[Gordon Patzer]: I do not know what has happened in that area.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Gordon Patzer]: And, you know, of course people are going to be very reluctant to talk about their enhancement.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Gordon Patzer]: I can say, as I mentioned in my book, but I also want to follow up on this, is that there's a very successful physician in Los Angeles, a surgeon, who is doing vagina rejuvenization.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Now, this is not for any medical or sexual reasons, it's strictly for appearance reasons.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Well, I just read, and I do not have firsthand knowledge of this, but he has now opened a practice in Dubai, and he and his colleagues are going to Dubai two weeks out of every month and where they are doing their cosmetic surgeries there including the vagina rejuvenization strictly for aesthetic purposes. And strangely to me is, at least they self-report, all these physicians, that it's just a booming market, certainly in Los Angeles, but it's a booming market in Dubai where I personally would not expect it.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: So it certainly is a trend, and so the fact that men may be getting enhancement with the whole notion that bigger is better, which we have engrained in I think all world society in terms of men, is I could certainly see them in pursuit of that.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, great. Thank you for that comment. So to get a bit more kind of practical now, how do the areas we've discussed about improving looks, what would you separate… is there anything that can be said to be healthy versus unhealthy? Like I'm kind of thinking about the longer-term impacts for your happiness and satisfaction and so on. So what’s kind of healthier for us to invest in versus not healthy to invest in so much?

[Gordon Patzer]: I can take that or I can begin that by going one direction, is something that's healthy is to avoid the unhealthy. And in that regard, it's tough to do in that… let me just go for an example. Height for both men and women is generally considered more physically attractive. The taller the person, the more attractive physically than shorter. Well, what do women do? They wear high heels, spiked shoes to get more height, and this is a fashion around the world. When you want to go out at night or what have you, you can look more attractive by gaining height. We know that, however, that's pretty painful, and women actually get surgeries to adjust so that they can fit into high-heel pointed shoes, so to avoid the painful things.

We also pursue physical attractiveness, I guess, at all costs. I guess we can get into eating disorders as well as cosmetic surgeries. We cannot afford it.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Or they just cannot afford it financially, and they have unrealistic expectations. So to be beautiful, often we… we pursue beauty at painful levels oftentimes.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: With that said, avoid that, and then focus on the things that we were talking about earlier, is what are the nonphysical aspects we can do to enhance our physical attractiveness?

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: Maybe it's a better education. Maybe it's a higher-level position. Maybe it's a better personality in those regards.

Also, as we touched on, is the physical fitness aspect of it. That certainly is positive. We can enhance our physical attractiveness, and at the same time get better health, which is really so interdependent. However, the fitness center craze or the fitness center, the eating well so that we do have proper complexion or as best complexion as we can have, so eating, exercise, personal enhancement, those are certainly three factors, broad factors, that we can do to enhance our physical attractiveness, both men and women.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Well, the nice thing about those is that there are synergies as well. It's like if you work on these to improve your looks, you know, you get the benefits in dating, then you also happen to get other benefits like you're healthier, you live longer, you have more money and you have a better quality of life, you're happier, and so on. So it's nice to look for these synergies.

An area we didn't touch on just then is fashion and style. This is area we tend to tell guys to start learning about because a lot of the guys are a bit shy or haven't been exposed to a lot of fashion and style, and this is one area we feel is pretty easy to improve your looks with just by learning some few things and getting a bit out of your comfort zone. Have you got any opinion on that?

[Gordon Patzer]: Yeah, absolutely, both for grooming and for fashion.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: If we can keep up with the times, if our fashion, if we lose fashion, if we get too old, it's equated again with what we mentioned earlier, with aging before our times, maybe we could call it that.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: And if we keep fashionable, we're going to appear younger, more active, etc. So both fashion and grooming in general become extremely important. And there are image consultants out in the world obviously who are very focused on keeping people fashionable. And men get very stuck in their ways more quickly than women, and so you touched on a good point, is how to motivate men to keep them being fashionable in the latest trends and thinking. So, important factor in that regard, yes sir.

[Angel Donovan]: Thanks. Thanks very much. Okay, so is there like… this question is maybe potentially complicated and I'm not sure if you have any research that will help answer this, but if there isn't just tell us, but if you have an opinion I'm interested. Is there any evidence to say our looks bias, so what we're talking about today, evolves over time? As we age or as we mature, as we potentially have more experience in life, sexually or otherwise, is there evidence to say that potentially this looks bias becomes lesser, and as we become more rational, we think in other ways? Is that something you can comment on?

[Gordon Patzer]: I can say certainly there is research specifically addressing what you just said, and that research that has been published will say kind of what you just said, is that looks become less important and maybe less logical… I mean, more logical. However, at the same time, as we age, the importance of looks does not evaporate or disappear.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Gordon Patzer]: It changes. It diminishes. At the same time, however… let me give you a couple of examples. One is, if we look at people married 20, 25, 30 years, we have questionnaires filled out by these folks, we see that those with spouses who are higher in physical attractiveness, or at least who they see in their eyes as higher in physical attractiveness, express at the same time greater happiness with their marriage or with their relationship or their bond. So it contradicts conventional thought that appearance goes down in importance. Yes, it goes down, but yet it still plays an important role that we're happier with our mates, we're happier with our relationship, we're happier that we made the right decision 20 years ago to marry this person, when that person is good-looking rather than less good-looking.

And then we have another dimension which I just touched on earlier, or as we started this conversation, is that as we become elderly, the importance of physical attractiveness does not disappear. And we often see, for example, elderly women in their 80s, maybe 90s, what’s an extremely important part to their lives? Is they weekly visit to the hairdresser to have their hair done. So, yes, it diminishes, or it reduces, but it certainly does not disappear, the fact that physical attractiveness is an important factor. Unfortunately, as I often say, it's important literally from birth, or cradle, to grave or death. So throughout our lifetime, physical attractiveness… it’s better to be good-looking rather than less good-looking.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. It's unavoidable, as you say, but it's work with it than against it. Well, with that in mind—we've talked about a lot of different things you could do today—for a guy who’s like he wants to improve his results in the real world, in the dating world specifically, what would be your top three recommendations for him to work on that would make a difference?

[Gordon Patzer]: First of all, to have a psychological mindset as he pursues these efforts that small differences translate into big consequences. So what he may think is a small change, I don't know, getting rid of sideburns, changing hairstyle, not doing a combover if he's getting older or what have you, maybe darkening his hair if it doesn’t look artificial, all those things, small differences make big consequences, even the fact, which I’ll give the three items in a moment, even the fact that getting rid of the excess eyelid skin is going to… that's a small change it seems, but surprisingly that has big consequences. If the guy’s aging or whatever, maybe changing his style of glasses, what have you.

So, one is small differences translate into big consequences. Second is fashion, I would say, and third is got it be fitness, physical fitness. And in that regard, as difficult as it is for men, and as what we referred to earlier, is getting rid of that protruding stomach. Now, you can get rid of that, as we said – liposuction, fitness or exercise, and also undergarments. We’d like to choose the physical fitness. Plus physical fitness is going to do a whole bunch of other things which is going to add color to your face, it's going to build bulk to some extent, and it's going to raise confidence.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Gordon Patzer]: Small differences make big consequences, and let's do fashion, whatever that means, hair, glasses, clothes, and third on that list is let's look at our body.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Excellent. Thank you for those points. Very, very good. Dr. Gordon Patzer, it has been extremely educational to have you on the show today, and it's going to be great for our users to get this research-based information. I really appreciate the long experience you've spent in this research subject, so thank you very much for making the time for us today.

[Gordon Patzer]: And I thank you very much for having me as a guest today. Thank you, Angel.