Can we define beauty?

If you look up beauty in the English dictionary, it is defined: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind. This seems to make sense for Western culture, but would the definition be the same in a Chinese dictionary? We are driven by the desire to have pleasure in our lives. When coming from an individualistic culture, most people think, "It's all about me" and "What makes me happy?" These questions are derived from the pleasure principle. Freud's pleasure principle explains that people seek pleasure and avoid pain. Hence the need for beauty in our life. Beauty, while subjective, still stimulates deep satisfaction to the mind. Now I pose the question: how subjective is it?

We see everyday that people perceive beauty differently. It is seen in the way people are dressed, who people chose as mates, the different types of art in our culture and the different people who appreciate it. However research on beauty in western culture explains the perception of people in rather a definitive manner. Basically we're simple creatures. We see the most simple patterns and symmetry as beautiful. In a recent study done using geometric patterns, the majority of the participants found the patterns that were simple and geometric to be the most attractive (Winkielman, Halberstadt, Fazendeiro, & Catty, 2006).

So maybe beauty is determined by specific facial features. I mean, celebrities are considered very beautiful and they don't seem to have patterns on their faces. While it was once credited that specific nose shapes are considered more beautiful than others, current research has been refuting this evidence. Other research has shown that people find faces that are digitally composited to make an "average" face is more attractive than individual features. The study consisted of participants who looked at and rated pictures of Caucasian male and female pictures that were composites of different people. Some features were taken from less attractive individuals and combined with features from more attractive people. People were finding the composited pictures more attractive than the pictures of the beautiful people (Langlois and Roggman, 1990).

Now, back to the question about celebrities. They're pretty much universally recognized as attractive. So what is the reason for this? Maybe there is something exceptionally beautiful about them that stands out...or maybe it's just a case of our old friend the mere exposure effect. We tend to like the things that we are constantly exposed to. Since movie stars are always in the media, it's hard not to be exposed to them. This may be the culprit as to why we find them so attractive.

All this makes sense when looking at beauty in Western culture, but what about beauty in other cultures. You would think that they would perceive beauty a lot differently than we Americans do, right? You would think...