Anthropoaesthetics as an Aspect of Anthropoecology

Abstract

The source of activity of every individual or group is to a great extent determined by the necessity of interaction with other individuals or groups (Afanasiev, 1990), i.e. with the diversity of anthropological surroundings. This manifests itself in the participation of individuals in the organization of their ecosystems, including the ethnocultural and physical conditions of life (Sukharev, 1998). Therefore it is possible to single out certain ecological aspects of perception of anthropological specificity of the surrounding population by an individual (group), leaning upon the definition of anthropoecology as a discipline, studying the laws of interaction between human communities and the system of natural, social and other factors, (Anthropological dictionary, 2004) as well as the coevolution of humans with their environment, in the process of adaptation (Lisseyev, 2001). At the same time it is usually emphasized that the ecological approach is best of all realized on the base of the principle of reciprocity of development of an individual and the surrounding reality, on the perception of the objects of this reality (including other people) with due regard to the reasons for the preference and corresponding values orientation. This represents the subject of ecological psychology (Sergeyenko, 2002; Pavlenko, 2002). In this context the relations between the individual and the environment (autoecology) as well as between the individual and a group (sinecology) are considered (Lisseyev, 2001).
The study of the aesthetic perception of anthropological types by individuals belonging to different ethnoterritorial and age groups is the subject matter of a special branch of physical anthropology—anthropoaesthetics, which studies the peculiarities of the aesthetic preference of human facial features in modern populations, analyzing the dependence of human perception on the anthropological environment (Haldeyeva, 2004).