Whenever we see or meet someone, we always form a first impression of that person. The first impression can be based on gender, appearance, clothes or the body shape of the person. This is where we start stereotyping people. This happens because we are conditioned to think in a way and it is very hard to unlearn but that is the challenge that all of us should overcome. We all know that looks matter. that means we start judging people What most of us don’t understand is, how much looks matter, and how difficult it is for us to ignore a person’s appearance when making a social judgment? I’m not talking just about romantic relationships, I’m talking about all our human interactions. And by appearance, I’m not talking simply about the “beauty,” dimension, but also of many other qualities of one’s appearance.
“Never judge a book by its cover.” This is a phrase which all of us would have heard. It implies that a person cannot be judged on personal or academic grounds based on his external appearance alone.
In all our perceptions, from vision to hearing, to the pictures we build of people’s character, our unconscious mind starts from whatever objective data is available to us – usually spotty – and helps to shape and construct a complete picture we consciously perceive. In order to offer us this complete picture, our unconscious employs clever tricks and educates guessing to fill in some blanks. In our perception of people, and their perceptions of us, the hidden, subliminal mind takes limited data, and creates a picture that seems clear and real, but is actually built largely on unconscious inferences that are made employing factors such as a person’s body language, voice, clothing, appearance, and social category. I will explain with the help of common examples.
“Beauty and beast” and “Snow white and seven dwarfs” are two stories that are almost known by everyone. Although there are fables, there is deep meaning inside them. What you can learn from them is that people that are not so good-looking can be very good internally. Napoleon was a very short guy, but he was one of the most famous in the history. Theodore Roosevelt, former US president during World War II, was handicapped; but he was one of the most successful presidents in American history. So how can you evaluate people from by external appearance? And actually, there are tons of examples in reality.
Many men would rather choose a woman with a common face than a good-looking one. Because they know the virtue of a woman is more important than her outer appearance. Great deals of couples who go hand in hand for their life attribute their happy marriage to loving the other’s inner quality instead of loving a pretty face. In business, a boss would never judge his employees by their external appearances; instead what he concerns would be their capabilities, their assiduities, and their performances. A person with inappreciable appearances but better performance will more likely be promoted than another one with good appearances but awful performance.
I agree with the title statement because a person’s inner qualities are much more important than his external appearances. Whether a person looks good or bad cannot be decided by anyone. A man’s external appearances are born and generally cannot be changed. But everyone can improve their inner qualities by their own efforts. Infact I would say every human being is special in themselves and should not be compared ever with anyone.
