Why you don’t really have a ‘type’

Why you don’t really have a ‘type’ 20 September 2018 Share Save Crystal Ponti Features correspondent Share Save Getty Images We know that beauty standards shift over time. Beauty still is in the eye of the beholder, but our on-going work suggests that the beholder may be changing constantly – Haiyang Yang “Beauty still is in the eye of the beholder, but our on-going work suggests that the beholder may be changing constantly,” says Haiyang Yang, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School and author of a study that found that our sense of beauty can change based on other people’s opinions. “It can be argued that the advent of the internet age may be causing people to change their beauty standards faster than ever before in human history.” Getty Images Our standards of beauty don’t just change over months or years, but can change in an instant You can blame how much we’re bombarded today with images of other people – as well as, yes, internet dating. Getty Image The fact that our brains quickly adapt to our visual environment is not new – but the speed at which our environment can change is “This can make beauty a constantly shifting target and is one piece, though certainly not the only or even most important piece, in the equation of why it is harder to be content with a single partner over the long haul.” Glimpse effect If you find yourself ‘liking’ more people online than you do in the real world, there may be another reason, too.