ABSTRACT
Emotional reactions are mainly determined by appearance but also by non-visual considerations. ‘Evolutionary aesthetics’ deals with how and why the people humans have come to perceive some things as ugly, other things as beautiful. The advantages of good looks are widely appreciated, so people strive to improve their appearance. Indeed, livestock breeders frequently select for increased carcass muscularity by influencing myostatin levels. Human harvesting or hunting of a wild species (animal or plant) frequently is associated with the possibilities that it will become dangerously rare or even extinct, but sometimes targeting a species for a given characteristic can result in natural selection of less attractiveness of that feature. Ageism is usually a subcategory of lookism. Although stereotypes and prejudices affect the young, serious discrimination against older individuals is common. Expensive fruits are sometimes sold in very attractive containers. However, domesticated animals are much more commonly ‘dressed up’ to make them more attractive.
