Beauty Is in the Eyes of Tiny Babies, Too

Now women have to face being judged for their looks not only by men and other adults, but by babies.

According to a University of Texas experiment, a majority of infant girls and boys as young as 2 to 3 months old prefer to look at pretty women when given a choice.

The researchers used 34 6-month-old babies first, showing them pictures on a large screen of 16 women, half of whom adults had judged “moderately attractive,” the other half “moderately unattractive.” In repeated trials, almost three-fourths of the babies preferred the attractive faces. (Their preferences were determined by recording the time they spent looking at each face.)

When the experiment was done again with 30 infants averaging 3 months old, 63% of the babies preferred the prettier faces. The researchers found no correlation between the babies’ choices and their sex or the looks of their own mothers.

It has been widely believed that children would not show perceptions of attractiveness until they were at least 3 years old--old enough to be influenced by their culture, said psychologist Judith Langlois, one of five colleagues who conducted the experiment.

She thinks the team’s findings about babies “seriously challenge” the assumptions that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that perceptions of beauty are determined by prevailing cultural standards and learned by cultural transmission.

The research was published in the May issue of the American Psychological Assn.’s journal Developmental Psychology.

The National Organization for Women Foundation will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution this year with another reminder of what it regards as a conspicuous lack in that document.

Missing is what would have been the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, the equal rights amendment, had it been ratified by the states.

The NOW Foundation is sponsoring a national essay contest on the subject, “Do we need an equal rights for women amendment to the U.S. Constitution?” Essays will be judged on originality, clarity, creativity and furthering the understanding of the need for women’s rights.

There will be three divisions for contestants: grades 9-12, college and continuing education. Prizes will be scholarships starting at $1,000 and publication of winning essays in the National NOW Times.

For further information and entry forms, write NOW Foundation Essay Contest, 1401 New York Ave., N.W., 800, Washington, D.C. 20005. The deadline for entries is Sept. 30.

The Research and Education Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is close to completing a study to determine whether hormone levels and certain other conditions may be associated with alcoholism in women.

Such a finding would further remove the onus that alcoholism is a moral weakness, said Robert McGivern, who is directing the study funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The implication of the research findings so far is that drinking, for some some women alcoholics, is self-medication for specific conditions and that drugs commonly prescribed to relieve these conditions may be beneficial as alcoholism treatment for these women.

McGivern said he cannot name the conditions he is looking at until the study is completed because part of the study involves psychological testing that would be skewed if the subjects knew the details of what the researchers are seeking.

More women subjects without a family history of alcoholism are needed for a control group. Finding people in which there is no strong genetic predisposition to alcoholism has been difficult, McGivern said.

Women in the study must also be premenopausal and at least 21 years old, must not have been in an alcohol abuse program, and must not have used alcohol for the past three months. Because hormone levels vary according to ethnicity, this study, a pilot project, is confined to Caucasians.

Subjects will be given psychological tests and will give blood and saliva samples. They will be paid $20 for a session of about 2 1/2 hours. Confidentiality will be maintained.

Prospective volunteers may call McGivern at (213) 533-3776.