In each city, we talk to 40 people of all walks of life. We ask them to sort images of bodies and faces of women and men, from most to least beautiful, and we ask them to explain their tastes.

In this way, we can understand how people see and experience beauty.  We can see how this varies across people, not only across but also within the five cities. Thus, we see that beauty is not the same for everyone.

We also find out how, and why, people judge others on beauty. For most people today, beauty is very important. This not only means that they devote much time and money to it, but also that they may judge others on the basis of their appearance.

The Q-sorts helps us see how this happens, and what sort of standards people apply to judge others. This helps us understand why and how people are privileged, or alternatively punished or excludes on the basis of their looks.