Physical Appearance Impacts Social Relations, Not Personality Development
Purva H. Rawal
Northwestern University
The author takes a fundamental physical reality, our appearance, and then attempts to see how this largely immutable inheritance shapes our personality development. The basis of the paper is that people react to another individual's physical appearance, thereby provoking a behavior in the individual that is a response to the initial reaction. In other words, the author hypothesizes that a self-fulfilling prophecy takes place. The circular phenomenon then affects development and socialization.
Popkins presents his hypothesis clearly and succinctly; however, he makes a few points that deserve attention. He quickly sums up the eternally controversial nature and nurture debate in a matter of a sentence. At the same time, he quantifies the effects of nature and nurture at fifty percent. This is a presumptuous statement, as the debate continues to fuel controversy in psychological circles. For example, if nature and nurture were truly each fifty percent responsible for any psychological behavior or effect then we would have to assume that in monozygotic twin studies conducted on bipolar disorder patients, the concordance rates would be hovering closely around the fifty percent mark (Bertelsen, Harvald, & Hauge, 1977). However, as has been clearly demonstrated, the concordance rates for monozygotic twins suffering from bipolar disorder range from the high sixty percent range up to eighty percent. Although the author notes that controversy continues to rage and is far from settled, he also fails to recognize that cause and effect relationships are extremely difficult to establish in psychological research. Causal factors and apparent effects are often circular and cannot be distinguished from one another. The nature-nurture debate was discussed briefly and