The Law of Equal Hotness

Are there laws that guide social and psychological interactions, and if so how can we learn them? As with any form of science, we gather observations, draw tentative conclusions, plan further observations to confirm (or refute) them, and look for plausible theories to explain them.

Over the last few years one conclusion I've reached is this: If you see two women walking together, there's a high probability they are very similar in looks. If one of them would be deemed good looking, it is rare that the other is not also, and vice versa. If they are more plain looking, older, or overweight they remain closely tuned to each other. I call this the "Law of Equal Hotness" (LEH).

The same is true of couples, men walking together, and pairs of couples, but it is most striking with pairs of women, who often seem to express a level of confidence in their appearance by the way they dress. Furthermore, they seem able to grade themselves into a series of very precise levels, like a spectrum. I haven't yet tried to count or name these levels, but there are more than six.

It would be simple enough to formally test this idea. Take photos or video clips of subjects, chosen fairly to include all pairs on a given street without deleting any that don't fit the hypothesis; devise a scoring sheet that includes indicia of class, ethnicity, clothing, age, beauty, and flair; and recruit panels of judges to score the photos. Better yet, take two separate photos, one of each member of a given pair, and shuffle them, so your panel won't know which ones were together and must score each one blindly. Compare scores to see how close they came for each pair. Develop measures of similarity and an estimate of variance within and between pairs.

Theory / Explanation

The LEH is a common example of a more general law I call "birds of a feather flock together" (BFFT). Irrespective of looks, people tend to feel more comfortable with others "like" themselves. Thus for example at a party people will tend to sort themselves into groups such as sports fans, computer nerds, aspiring actors, new parents, older guys, grandmothers, and so on.

The best explanation for why women tend to associate with others with similar looks, to a high degree of precision, is that due to their similarly ranked appearance, they tend to experience the social world the same way. Parents, teachers, boyfriends, older men, husbands, employers, people on the street and in bars, etc., will tend to treat them in similar ways. Consequently they will tend to have (and have had) many highly similar experiences, can share a point of view, and can give each other advice (about men and the world) that will be highly pertinent to the other's experiences and needs.

In slightly more formal language, the two women are both (a) open thermodynamic systems that tend toward higher degrees of organization, (b) cybernetic systems that receive, process, and act on information, and (c) self creating autonomous life forms that evolve socially toward specific levels of "fitness" or attunement to environmental conditions. As such they will tend to experience a very similar set of privileges, opportunities, expectations, and limitations imposed on them by society's ranking system, in terms of what they can do (or get away with), and where they hit rough spots. The experience and advice of one will be well suited to the other, hence they can speak each other's language.

Suggestions for Further Research

• Develop a detailed analysis of the privileges / problems that female appearance brings.
• Identify / enumerate levels or types of women who tend to befriend each other.
• Carry out controlled studies as described above.
• Take a deeper look at causal factors; for example, do pairs adjust to each other's mode of dress, to the situation, to the season, etc?
  
• Look for practical applications, for example in the women's clothing, advertising, and entertainment industries.
• Don't forget to cite me as the original source of these insights.
  

Perhaps in a "less material" world where media, advertising, and entertainment placed less emphasis on looks, this effect would be less pronounced and people walking together would appear more diverse. However, in the world we're living in now, women are increasingly sexualized by society as girls, leading them to live remarkably appearance-determined lives.

In more extreme cases we see the emergence of entire class / caste systems composed of individuals who share similar privileges, experiences, and appearance, and who tend to socialize primarily or solely with others of the same class / caste. However, this short article is focused mainly on beauty and its possible influence on social friendships.