Green politics, philosophy, history, paganism and a lot of self righteous grandstanding.

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Botox Makes You A Psychopath: Proved (Sort Of)


We all know that people who use artificial means to augment their natural attributes are vain, shallow and self centred with very little regard for their less beautiful brethren. Well now there is some scientific evidence to back this up. Apparently it all comes down to something I thought that only married men did.

Some time ago I discovered that the secret to a happy marriage was to pretend to be listening even if you aren't. The trick is to copy your other half's body language; smiling when they smile, frowning when they smile and so on. Apparently though we all do it unconsciously whether we're married or not.

According to an article in the online journal Social, Psychological and Personality Science by doing this we gain empathy into what the other person is thinking.

It's a curious idea, that to know another's emotions you have to mimic their facial expressions, but it's real science so there must be something in it.

The problem with people who've been botoxed, facelifted or otherwise artificially beautified is that they can't. Their faces are stuck in a sort of bemused half smile and even if you are gurning away like Phil Cool sucking on a lemon, they can't even raise an eyebrow to reciprocate.

The result is that they are less likely to understand what you're thinking. 7% less likely according to the study, which is enough in my book to catagorise them all as sociopaths.

Of course, the fact that they've been botoxed probably means they're rich enough not to need to care what you think.

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