Consider two situations:
(A) we experience physiological changes including dopamine released from neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in response to auditory stimuli (we get pleasure out of hearing something)
(B) we experience physiological changes including dopamine released from neurons in the VTA in response to visual stimuli (we get pleasure out of seeing something)
Suppose someone admires or seeks to enhance either stimuli A or B. Without any other information, would you consider auditory or visual reward seeking behavior as more desirable? It does not seem obvious to me why we should have a preference.
Now, suppose you heard someone say one of the following statements:
(A) “I’m going to spend $1000 on a class designed to teach me how to enhance my beauty.”
(B) “I’m going to spend $1000 on a class to improve my singing.”
I think the person who made statement (A) would be considered shallow, while the person who made statement (B) would not.
Or, consider the following two statements:
(A) I admire her because she is so beautiful.
(B) I admire her because she has a beautiful singing voice.
Again, I think admiring physical beauty is considered more shallow. Why? Both involve admiring an (mostly) innate feature. Both involve stimulus-reward.
I think it’s because physical beauty is so closely linked to mating. The mesolimbic dopamine (ML-DA) system promotes seeking behavior. In the case of physical beauty stimuli, it often promotes mate seeking behavior. The non-beautiful majority have incentive to disapprove of those who mate-seek primarily based on attractiveness. By lowering the status of those who (overtly) value beauty, they potentially makes themselves more desirable. Hearing a talented singer triggers a different type of seeking behavior — we primarily want to hear more music of that type. This is not threatening to the vocally-challenged majority.