This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

In the famous children's fairy tale, The Ugly Duckling,

a mother duck lays a clutch of eggs.

When the hatchlings emerge, one is different from the rest.

He is huge and awkward looking.

His feathers are not yellow or black, but a muted gray.

As soon as he's hatched, the bullying begins, not only from his siblings, but other animals

too.

And so the ugly duckling roams the countryside, slowly accepting his fate of being an outcast.

Then, one day, he sees a flock of swans, entranced by their beauty, he swims toward them.

As he gets closer, he expects them to be disgusted by his appearance, just like all the other

creatures he has encountered.

But to his surprise, they welcome him with open wings.

You know the rest of the story. The flock of swans sees the duckling for what he truly is.

A young swan who will grow up to be as beautiful as the rest of them.

I've long had misgivings about the story. What is its moral? If people don't look like they belong to our tribe, it's okay to treat them badly we can only find acceptance among people

who are just like us to be ugly is to be cursed in our episode last week, we explored the science of beauty, why we are attracted to it and how we are moved by it.

If you miss that episode, please do listen to it.

This week we explore some of the more complicated elements of our fascination with beauty,

especially beautiful people.

From infancy, human beings are fascinated by beautiful people.

From infancy, human beings are fascinated by those who are good looking.

...