Report on a controversial quote popular and widely known as "Beauty is skin deep" or "Beauty in the eye of a beholder".

1. Beauty is skin deep
Report on a controversial quote popular among
people called “beauty is skin deep” or “beauty in the
eye of a beholder”
Azas Shahrier

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
People’s Perception....................................................................................................................2
Evidence.....................................................................................................................................4
Major View Point from Ethics...................................................................................................4
Relationship with normative theory.......................................................................................4
Influences on ethical decision-making...................................................................................4
Individual factors................................................................................................................4
Situational factors...............................................................................................................4
Individual influences..............................................................................................................4
Moral framing ........................................................................................................................6
Context-related factors .......................................................................................................6
Systems of reward ..............................................................................................................6
Why beauty is skin deep? ..........................................................................................................7
Research Methodology ..............................................................................................................7
Research Findings......................................................................................................................8
Conclusion ...............................................................................................................................11
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................12

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Introduction1
"Beauty is skin deep" and "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" can be very controversial
quotes to some people. Those quotes are all based on how they are viewed by other people.
You may not believe in them but other might believe strongly in them. First, "Beauty is
skin deep" all depends on what type of person you are. Both quotes rate directly to each
other but let's pull them apart separately. I think that ‘Beauty is skin deep' is expressed in
many ways by people. If you are not one of those beautiful people in this world then to
some people you mean nothing. When you look around a normal school you see clicks
right? Well that's what I am talking about. You see the people who express themselves by
wearing darker clothes and the people who always wear the trendy and in style clothes.
Sometimes you get jealous and say mean things because either you wished you looked like
them or you want the things they have. But we were all created differently.
People’s Perception
You have to like yourself first for anyone else to like you. Relating to ‘Beauty is skin deep'
means that people only look at what's inside that counts. Some people believe at love at
first sight, what is all that about? That means they like the person just from seeing them. So
many people in this world can relate. People judge people. You look around and think by
the clothes or hairstyle this girl wears that she can either not afford them or chooses to be
that way. So you think she is poor. Doesn't she deserve your attention too? I think that
beauty is over rated. People need to look at your mind, your intelligence. Being pretty is
not all it's cracked up to be. Since being pretty has got me a lot of compliments it also
brings in the bad sides of beauty.
Therefore most people think that beauty is skin deep which means that a person is only
beautiful by their outside appearance such as weight, height, hair length, or face
complexion. Most people do not think pay attention to the important characteristics that
make and mode a person. They feel that beauty is based on appearance alone. I on the
other hand think differently. Beauty is all about what is on a person's insides. Inside beauty
1
See, http://www.tolerance.org/activity/beauty-skin-deep.

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consists of the person's love for themselves, their love for others, and finally their
personality. These characteristics help shape a beautiful person. Being beautiful means
knowing that you are beautiful. Not allowing others to put you down by making you think
or feel that you are not beautiful. A beautiful person, in my eyes, loves the person that they
are and will be. They accept who they are no matter what others say or do. They value their
life and cherish each breath taken. A beautiful person does not try to change him or herself
because of what others think or say. Beauty requires having self-respect. Displaying self-
respect shows that you love your body; your mind, your spirit, and your soul.hey carry
themselves in a respectable manner. Beautiful people think, say, and do positive things and
try to stay away from negativity. Being able to love others as well as your self is also
another way of displaying beauty. A beautiful person notices the beauty in someone else as
well as himself or herself. Showing generosity to others, even to those that mistreat you is
a beautiful thing. Showing love to others takes courage and sometimes strength when the
person is not treating you how you should be treated. Being kind hearted and helping
others who are less fortunate than you shows your beauty as well. Your will to help
whether it’s saying something nice or doing something nice also displays your beauty. It
means beauty is beyond skin, it's in the soul. Social psychology tells us that beauty in fact
is not only skin deep. That is that beautiful people actually are nicer and friendlier.
The argument goes as follows. Hopefully, we can all agree that we subconsciously assign
positive characteristics such as intelligence and friendliness to beautiful people. Studies
confirm this assumption. We then treat these people nicer than we treat others. Studies
confirm this as well. The improvable hypothesis is that beautiful people are beautiful on
the inside as well. As a result of having been beautiful and therefore kindly treated children
they develop a positive self-image and treat others as they have learned others treat them.
This continues into adulthood creating beautiful people that are friendlier and nicer than
less beautiful people. Thus beautiful looking people become truly beautiful people by way
of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our experience with beautiful people being nice fuels are
expectation by way of a psychological phenomenon known as association that similar
looking (and therefore also beautiful) people will also be nice. We in turn treat them nicer
and they treat us nicely in return further developing their own good character.

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Evidence2
We find evidence of this belief in popular songs "you must have been a beautiful baby; you
must have been a wonderful child. You must have been a beautiful baby cause baby look at
you now”. On contrary, there is flaw in this line of thinking is the assumption that if
beautiful people are treated well, they will become mature, thoughtful, compassionate
individuals who treat others well. No doubt that is sometimes the case, but people who
experience little adversity often develop into amazingly uncharitable, self-cantered
individuals.
Major View Point from Ethics3
Relationship with normative theory
The role of normative theory in the stages of ethical decision-making is primarily in relation
to moral judgement. Moral judgements can be made according to considerations of rights,
duty, consequences, etc. However, the issue of whether and how normative theory is used by
an individual decision-maker depends on a range of different factors that influence the
decision-making process.
Influences on ethical decision-making
Individual factors: The unique characteristics of the individual actually making the relevant
decision. These include factors which are given by birth and those acquired by experience
and socialization.
Situational factors: The particular features of the context that influence whether the
individual will make an ethical or unethical decision. These include factors associated with
the work context and those associated with the issue itself.
Individual influences
1) Age and gender
Research suggests:
2
See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty%27s_Only_Skin_Deep
3
See, http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_66.htm

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- Aged people are more ethical than young
- Female are more ethical than men
2) National and cultural characteristics
People from different cultural backgrounds likely to have different beliefs about right and
wrong, different values, etc. and this will inevitably lead to variations in ethical
decision-making across nations, religions and cultures
Hofstede (1980; 1994) influential in shaping our understanding of these differences – our
‘mental programming’
a) Individualism/collectivism
b) Power distance
c) Uncertainty avoidance
d) Masculinity/femininity
3) Education and employment
- Educated people are more ethical than illiterate. Ex: research reveals that business students
not only rank lower in moral development than students in other subjects such as law, but are
also more likely to engage in academic cheating, such as plagiarism.
- Relationship between employment experience and education and ethical decision making is
still unclear
4) Psychological factors
Cognitive moral development (CMD) refers to the different levels of reasoning that an
individual can apply to ethical issues and problems. The important thing about CMD theory
is that it is not so much what is decided that is at issue, but how the decision is reached in
terms of the individual’s reasoning process.
Pre-conventional: individuals define right and wrong according to self interest and expected
rewards and punishment from authority
Conventional: Individuals live up to what is expected of them immediate peers and those
close to them.
Post-conventional: Individuals go beyond identifying with others’ expectations, and assess
right and wrong according to the upholding of basic rights, values, and contracts of society.
Jones proposes that the intensity of an issue will vary according to six factors:

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a) Magnitude of consequences: This is the expected sum of the harms or benefits for
those impacted by the problem or action, such as health problems or death as a result
of a faulty product.
b) Social consensus: People are in agreement over the ethics of the problem or action.
c) Probability of effect: Likelihood that the harms or benefits are actually going to
happen.
d) Temporal immediacy: Concerned with the speed with which the consequences are
likely to occur. Ex: long term effects of smoking or other unhealthy products.
e) Proximity: the feeling of nearness (social, cultural, psychological or physical) the
decision-maker has for those impacted by his or her decision.
f) Concentration of effect: cheating a person out of a hundred Euros is much more
morally intense than cheating the same sum out of a large multinational with millions
of shareholders.
Moral framing
The same problem or dilemma can be perceived very differently according to the way that the
issue is framed. Language important aspect of moral framing: integrity, honesty, fairness,
propriety-or lying, cheating and stealing.
The problem is that many people in business are reluctant to ascribe moral terms to their
work, even if acting for moral reasons, or if their actions have obvious moral consequences-
Moral muteness occurs because of:
a) Harmony) Efficiency and c) Image of power and effectiveness
Context-related factors: the organizational context in which an employee will be working-
especially the expectations and demands placed on business people within the work
environment that are likely to influence their perceptions of what is the morally right course
of action to take.
Systems of reward
People are likely to do what they are rewarded for. Ex: many organizations offer commission
or bonuses for salespeople in order to motivate them to achieve greater numbers of sales.

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Why beauty is skin deep?4
We all know one or more beautiful people with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-
worth. They believe they are a prince or princess and deserve to be universally treated better
than anyone else. Often they also believe they have the right to treat others like dirt. Since
we have better memory for negative events than positive ones, this is often the lasting
impression we have of beautiful people and it (perhaps unfairly) spawns the saying "beauty
is skin deep."
Well on the other side: -The phrase "beauty is skin deep" is presumptive, misleading and a
patently false statement. It presumes, first of all, that everyone accepts the standard
definition of beauty, i.e., a person whose physical appearance would be appealing to a
majority of people. That majority would first have to agree on a definition of beauty. It also
negates the concept that beauty comes from within! True beauty goes much deeper than
skin. It's difficult to interpret because I don't know that either gender would view them in the
same light as someone of the opposite sex would. But, the essence is that, if you perceive
that a person's features are arranged in a way that is pleasing to you, take it for what it is - a
pleasant looking face! Nothing more, nothing less.
Research Methodology
For research, I have conducted a survey through distributing questionnaire to both teenage
boys and girls. From the questionnaire I have found answers of my questions. I have also
collected data from secondary sources like books, journals, newspapers and articles published
in the internet. These sources have provided elaborate ideas about the statement and also
given me a clear idea of the statement.
4
For more information, Mobius, Markus & Rosenblat, Tanya, 2010. "Why Beauty Matters," Staff General
Research Papers 32112, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.

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Research Findings
The survey has given me mixed results. Perception of beauty is viewed differently by
teenagers. It varies from person to person. The survey has been conducted among the age
between 20 to 23 years old teenagers.
Fig-1
The figure stated above indicates that the teenage boys are influenced more than female
children. This is due to the fact that in our country men are viewed as the dominant class in
the society. Moreover, men are expected to take care of the women in the household.
Whereas, women are expected to settle down with their family duties and maintain other
section of the household responsibilities.

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Similarity or Dissimilarity of Opinions
Fig-2
This figure stated above indicates that around 20% of boys’ decision matches with the girls’
decision. However, around 80% of boys’ decision does not match with girls’ decision. So, it
can be said that in most cases boys decide something else as beautiful which girls do not.
Therefore, there is a gap of similar mentality between boys and girls according to their
choice. In addition, society influences the decision making of boys and girls both directly and
indirectly. In addition, this may change the social demography. However, this influence is
playing a somewhat bad role to the overall well-being of the society.

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Traditional v/s Non-Traditional Lifestyle
Fig-3
This figure indicates that 80% of boys want a traditional lifestyle like having kids, a wife
handling household responsibilities etc. In contrast the other chart shows 60% girls are more
likely to hold non- traditional profession. So, from the above statistics it is clear that there is a
significant difference between most of the boys thought and most of the girls thought. Parents
play an important role in this thought of boys and girls. As because they are more
experienced people and they have seen a lot of the real life. They tend to influence their
children to follow their designated path.
This research shows the as usual answers of my findings. I have found that girls give more
preference to beauty than boys. Many of them feel that societal influence on choice is
responsible for this. The reason behind this is mainly society’s own perception. Many of the
people feel that if one does not have fair skin than the girl is not beautiful. They also feel that
beauty will bring success in life. On the other hand, men think that a beautiful person’s
influence in life is necessary. They feel good when they are influenced because they feel that
they are their cared for by that beautiful person. But in reality a person beautiful or not should
guide their loved ones rather than influence them as it will be better for them on the long run.
I have also found that girls do not want to be dominated by boys. They believe in free will
and independent thoughts. As a result the choice and decisions of beauty becomes dissimilar

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between boys and girls. Most of the boys want their life to follow the traditional pattern
because in our society that is the acceptable norm. On the other hand, most of the girls choose
non-traditional pattern of lifestyle as they do not want to be influenced by anyone and the
society as a whole. So, there is a gap exists between the boys desire and girls desire. As a
result, a growing parity of different opinions create a gap of dreams and desires of what they
want to do and how it turns out to be.
Conclusion
At last finally in nutshell I want to say in conclusion which I got to find from my research
that it means beauty is beyond skin, it's in the soul. It means very simply that if we take a
'beautiful' and a 'not beautiful' person and remove the skin, are they not equal in their looks?
There is nothing about the beauty statement. It is only skin deep. We may not believe it. If
we remove the skin layer of a 'beautiful' person, and I am sure we will see that the beauty
too is removed. We will not have to go deeper. Beauty is superficial, and so is the one
whom measures a person's worth by it.

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Bibliography
Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1998. "Beauty, Productivity, and
Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre," Journal of Labor Economics, University
of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 172-201, January.
Mobius, Markus & Rosenblat, Tanya, 2010. "Why Beauty Matters," Staff General
Research Papers 32112, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
Gabriella Conti & Stephen Pudney, 2011. "Survey Design and the Analysis of
Satisfaction," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages
1087-1093, August._institution [Accessed 15 October 2012]
Wikipedia. 2012. Wikipedia. Available at: http://www.wikipedia.org/. [Accessed 13
October 2012].
Beauty is Skin Deep | Teaching Tolerance. 2012. Beauty is Skin Deep | Teaching
Tolerance. Available at: http://www.tolerance.org/activity/beauty-skin-deep.
Unterberger, Richie. "Cherie Currie Beauty's Only Skin Deep review". Allmusic. Rovi
Corporation. Retrieved 2011-09-23.