16 ms·

The economics of good looks

137 points by martincmartin 15y ago

csomar 15y ago
Is there any idea to know if I'm a nice guy or not? I never had a girl friend, or talked to a girl for more than 10 minutes alone. I completely ignore if I look good or I'm bad. Any measures or software to estimate that?
ikarous 15y ago
I have felt variously throughout my life both beautiful and homely. As a gay man, I perceive the ubiquitous social pressure to be attractive much more acutely than most heterosexual men. That pressure is not easy to shake off; I can only imagine what women experience. Case in point: a few years ago, I noticed that my hair wasn't quite as thick and lush as it once was. I panicked, stupidly. Without performing adequate research, I began taking a medication that blocks the hormone DHT. Only later did I learn that this medication can subtly alter cognition by affecting the production of various neuro-steroids. Obviously, the value of my mind vastly outweighs that of my appearance, so I stopped taking the medication knowing that one day, I'd probably lose my hair because of it. Despite the obviousness of the choice, it was ridiculously difficult to implement. The social imperative to be beautiful is powerful. Yet: You aren't your hair. Or your face. Or your breasts. It may very well be that attractive people have it easier than less attractive people. But that's a problem with human nature, not with those not blessed by beauty. Make reasonable steps to improve your appearance, then forget about it. Self confidence, humor, and a compassionate nature will always win the day with people who matter. Ask yourself: is Steve Jobs as classically attractive as Brad Pitt? Who is more accomplished? Isaac Asimov? Donald Knuth?
- run4yourlives 15y ago
  >Ask yourself: is Steve Jobs as classically attractive as Brad Pitt? Who is more accomplished? Isaac Asimov? Donald Knuth? Depends on how you rate accomplishment. Your average female certainly knows one of those people, perhaps two given recent news. But unless they are big into Sci-Fi or computer science, they have no idea who Asimov and Knuth are. In the evolutionary struggle to breed, Brad Pitt is the winner here, by a long shot.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - cellis 15y ago
      Ideas mean nothing in the grand scheme of humanity. In 200 years we could collapse back into the dark ages. Only surviving descendants do. The "anyone can produce a baby" is a pretty lie told to those who forsake their prime directive (mating and caring for offspring) in order to serve those who do,in order to make them feel better about themselves. Repeating this lie will not make it true. And how do you know that one baby (which can cumulatively produce millions more) is not a more "positive impact for humanity"?
  - d0mine 15y ago
    Compare Donald Knuth vs. Lady Gaga at Google FTCS! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2476164 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2476164
  - WildUtah 15y ago
    Pitt: 3 children (Age 47) Asimov: 2 children Knuth: 2 children Jobs: 4 children In the evolutionary struggle, I'd say all the fame and gorgeous abs haven't created Ramses-style success for Pitt. Academic reputation and billions of dollars do less for you than simply marrying a nice girl who likes babies would.
    - danenania 15y ago
      Yes, I think a lot of this focus on looks is just an exaggerated venting of sexual frustration. When you're not getting any, it can feel like the best thing in the world would be to become a Brad Pitt lookalike so you could have your pick and go out on some huge bacchanalic binge, but there's a reason a guy like Brad doesn't spend much of his time doing that sort of thing--it isn't all that satisfying or fulfilling. In reality, once you are able to reach a base level of intimacy and satisfaction in one (or multiple) sexual relationship(s), how others perceive your looks in general stops mattering almost completely, and the fortunate truth is that achieving this satisfied state doesn't really require being some sort of Casanova, just moderately socially active, comfortable with yourself, and willing to put yourself out there occasionally. It may be slightly easier to be happy in this aspect of life as a very attractive person, but in the whole scheme of what it takes to be fulfilled, it's a fairly small advantage really.
markbao 15y ago
Sure sucks for those without good looks, but I see it as more gas for the fire to make yourself overcome that disadvantage.
- jshort 15y ago
  I think that is a part of the imbalance, those that have good looks tend to be more confident and thus are more likely to succeed.
- Yhippa 15y ago
  Absolutely. Either accept your lot in life or try to overcome it. I can't see a good way of regulating lookism. Hey, Abercrombie & Fitch have been able to get away with it for years (http://jezebel.com/5479980/american-beauty-a-brief-history-of-abercrombies-hiring-practices http://jezebel.com/5479980/american-beauty-a-brief-history-o...).
  - roel_v 15y ago
    Well, if we can't get away from lookism, we need to have ways to redistribute the effects, right? We do it with smarts (if we assume that, in the aggregate, smart people make more money), so why not with good looks? So, attractive people need to sleep with the uglies, and the more attractive they are, the more they should do it. We'll add a few fields to tax forms where you enter your hotornot.com score, and a few months later if you're ugly you get sex coupons to spend and beautiful people get an assigned amount of sex coupons to collect. (I usually use this argument to argue against wealth redistribution and progressive taxing, but I guess it works the other way around too ;) )
    - dodo53 15y ago
      Well progressive taxation already redistributes money whether it's from aggregate advants of smarts or looks. You're talking of non-economic advantages, which are not redistributed for smarts either
      - 15y ago
beaumartinez 15y ago
You can't change genetics, but you can become fitter, leaner, and more muscular, and wear flattering clothes.
- alextp 15y ago
  Indeed. Living in a third-world country makes it really obvious that while beauty is rooted in nature it can very easily be bought if you have enough money. As you age, the niceness your skin is inversely correlated to solar exposure and manual labor, and positively correlated with money spent in moisturizers and other products. How fit your body is also depends on the money/time spent on a gym and on the quality of the food you eat. Your hair will also look as nice as the money you spend on it (even if you're bald), and even teeth can be fixed if you have enough money at a young age. Finally, beauty is socially defined, and over time the standards will shift to mirror other aspects of society (in Brazil, for example, white people are generally better off, so all standards of beauty encourage "looking white", by hair straightening, makeup, etc. In places where rich people don't do manual work and stay indoors all day being pale is considered pretty, while in places where rich people can afford to go to the beach looking tan is considered better).
- horatione 15y ago
  In addition, a considerable component of beauty depends on your state of mind and who you are as a person, i.e. how sensitive, how alert, how calm, how happy you are. This effects your eyes, the way you smile, the way you hold yourself and the way you move. And thus appearance is influenced by your worldview, moral choices, etc. Some call it 'charisma', which sort of implies that it is a lottery win, like having good genes, but it really isn't.
- sunchild 15y ago
  Great point. Some of the most attractive people alive aren't beautiful. See the entire genre of Rock & Roll for sources.
jmjerlecki 15y ago
I see this as a skill that can be improved – just like anything else. Even if you don't consider yourself the most attractive person, having a strong self worth and putting an effort into your appearance can go a long ways. There are enough sites/books/friends out there to help you figure out what is a good look for you. I have constantly harped on friends that it is amazing how much dressing better can do for your career. Control the things you can control and what you wear is certainly something you can.
marknutter 15y ago
Love the affiliate links to the referenced books at the top of the article.
marze 15y ago
Current studies show a positive correlation between IQ and looks. If that is true, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to think the same factors that result in good looks also result in a well developed brain, attempts to normalize pay regardless of looks are misguided.
- gwern 15y ago
  The correlation between IQ and looks is weak. The correlation between looks and salary? Hm... I bet the beauty effect remains after controlling for IQ (controls like education are already doing that to a great degree because they correlate much more strongly with IQ than beauty).
- thisuser 15y ago
  How well does IQ correlate with intelligence?
  - VMG 15y ago
    Considering that it is designed to measure intelligence in a way that can be objectively defined, I'd say it correlates pretty good. Can you think of many intelligent people with a low IQ or unintelligent people with a high IQ?
  - praptak 15y ago
    Intelligence is not defined precisely enough to speak of correlation here. Maybe a better question to consider is: is it fair that salary is correlated with IQ?
  - chrischen 15y ago
    If anyone could answer this question with confidence, it'd be 100%.
olalonde 15y ago
I used to be skeptical about those claims that beauty could help you out (in a significant way) professionally, since I had never experienced it myself. I'm not sure how I rank, beauty-wise, but I'm definitely not in the top 1%... in North America (Montreal). However, things changed when I moved to China. Chinese people tend to like tall, light skin, light hair, light eyes, big eyes guys (i.e.: me). I'm probably in the top 1% in China, if not more (I'm not bragging, ask any decent looking guy who's been there that matches the description). I believe my newly found handsomeness opened me up to multiple opportunities. Here's two examples (among many others). One time, in Starbucks, a CEO from a Hong Kong private equity firm started talking to me. After some chat, he knew I was the ideal candidate for this big software project he had in mind. Anecdote: He was reckless enough to use my computer to login onto his business email account. Hell, he probably didn't even notice I was running Ubuntu. Another time, I met a guy in a bar. He started serving me drinks as he noticed I was attracting pretty girls around the table. He told me that he owned multiple consumer electronics stores in China. A few days later, he was calling me to discuss the possibility of me opening up and managing a new store for him in Hong Kong. I like to think that "knowing I was handsome" gave me a lot of confidence which is what really helped me out. But I'm having a hard time convincing myself...
- bluekeybox 15y ago
  It's very funny how relative the concept of sex appeal is between different cultures. One of the key few moments in my life was when an old Chinese woman who was a coworker of mine at the time told me: you are smart, know math, and are good looking; you shouldn't work here; you should work on Wall Street. I rarely before thought of myself a good looking, being thin, pale, light-haired and not conforming to the traditional wide-shoulder, tall-dark-and-handsome masculine ideal we have here in the West. For better or worse, her comment certainly increased my ambition...
  - diminish 15y ago
    a chinese friend of mine said she got an acceptance at MIT, a position at chase manhattan bank, because he is in 1% among americans for being slim and fit only.
parenthesis 15y ago
"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." — Roald Dahl (in The Twits)
- end550 15y ago
  I feel like that's a cruel thing to say. "You're supposed to put your guard down when you're ugly".
  - dodo53 15y ago
    Or worse - reverse it and you have if I think you're ugly, you can't have good thoughts.
    - reddit_clone 15y ago
      I wouldn't go that far. But it is true (in my experience) that good looking people are a bit more self-absorbed than normal.
  - dot 15y ago
    No. "You're supposed to not worry so much." People are drawn to people that are happy. It's a very attractive trait.
- fabulous 15y ago
  that's what ugly people say :D
- Monkeyget 15y ago
  "What is good looking, but looking good? Be good, be womanly, be gentle,—generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration." -- John Greenleaf Whittier
youssifa 15y ago
"Yet because ugliness is harder to define than race or sex, some argue that anti-discrimination laws are impossible to maintain." Anybody else find the premise to that statement a bit short-sighted? I just read an interesting book called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, where he cites scientific studies that prove many of our prejudices occur not at the conscious level, but rather unconsciously. In other words, even if you personally do not consider yourself a racist, a sexist, or a looks-ist (need a real word for that last one), you can easily be swayed by such factors -- even if you are aware that you could be influenced. To assume it all happens consciously, and to consider legislation as the primary way of preventing discrimination, is a bit short-sighted in my opinion. Being aware of this concept is a first step, but efforts should be made to control for unconscious bias as well. Companies have an incentive to do this as they may be passing up better qualified candidates. Perhaps developing a way to implement blind performance reviews or conducting non-soft skills, technical interviews that test a person's cognitive ability behind a screen could be one way to curb the trend.
- Jun8 15y ago
  Sex may be easy (well, in most cases) easy to define but race may be much very hard to define "objectively", e.g. see the novel/movie The Human Stain.
- lurker17 15y ago
  You may be interested in the Implicit Association Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ It comes with a disclaimer: "Important disclaimer: In reporting to you results of any IAT that you take, we will mention possible interpretations that have a basis in research [...] If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further. [...] I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed. [Click]"
  - youssifa 15y ago
    Yes, this test is actually referenced throughout "Blink" -- Really interesting when you look at the results.
sp332 15y ago
People pick you based on how they feel about you. Sometimes they pick you because you're nice, or funny. And sometimes just looking at you makes them feel good.
DevX101 15y ago
There's a positive feedback loop involved as well. Beautiful people are more likely to have others want to befriend them. This social practice makes them more sociable. Which makes more people want to befriend them. I don't know if anyone here has lost a significant amount of weight (50+ pounds) while they were still young, but they will confirm this effect. In fact, this effect is often so strong, that people who have lost weight often become very skeptical of people's motivations. People who had never noticed them are now suddenly nice and friendly. This starts to make you wonder if the interest of other people in you, is purely based on your looks or who you really are.
- symptic 15y ago
  If your store isn't bringing in enough customers you can upgrade the facade to bring in more traffic, but it's still up to you to make the sale once they walk inside.
Shenglong 15y ago
Lookism is a little silly. Unlike race and gender, looks are something we actively work on. I have a lot of gorgeous women in my life (even if I never compliment them), and I know they take hours each day to make sure they look great. They spend effort in everyting from learning to put on makeup to accent their appearance, to using moisturizers, masks, cleansers, eye cream, lip gloss, to keeping a consistent workout schedules. Really, looks and knowledge are really developed in similar ways. They're not things we can't change. We're allowed to judge people on intellectual merit as well as physical fitness, so why not on looks? You can work as hard as you want in an academic area or in a sport, and chances are you'll still never be in the top 1%. Likewise, your looks are also rooted in your genetic luck. Other than stigma, I really see very little difference between academic merit, physical merit, and looks.
TWSS 15y ago
I love the comments that argue that since a preference for attractive (i.e., symmetrical) faces is hard-wired, we shouldn't try to legislate against it. From what I remember of ev psych, suspicion of individuals who are not of our group/tribe is also hard-wired - I wonder if those same commenters would abolish legal protection based on race. That said, as a woman in tech, the concept of "erotic capital" resonates with me. I'm wildly ambivalent about it, though - the risk seems to outweigh any potential reward.
- JoeAltmaier 15y ago
  Yet women with "exotic good looks" are valued highly. Women NOT of your tribe are more desirable than those within it.
- reddit_clone 15y ago
  >I love the comments that argue that since a preference for attractive (i.e., symmetrical) faces is hard-wired, we shouldn't try to legislate against it Well, it is also hard to quantify. How are you going to prove to a jury that you are plain and thus got turned down?
  - lurker17 15y ago
    You can't in a single case, but over time and many cases, pattern of discrimination can be suggest via statistical methods. This is how covert racial discrimination cases are tried.
quantumhobbit 15y ago
Looking good takes a certain amount of discipline. You have to eat right and exercise and take time to groom yourself. I wonder how much of the increase in success for attractive people is caused directly by their looks, ie greater self-esteem and unfair treatment. How much of the increase is not caused by good looks but correlates with good looks due to a deeper cause such as greater self-discipline?
mikerg87 15y ago
I call bullshit on this. If this had any truth to it, you'd think the entire C-level in every corporation would be overrun with "beautiful" people. I think someone saw Gattaca and made a bet with a colleage to see if they could get something published based on the premise.
reddit_clone 15y ago
Money can go a long way in mitigating lack of beauty (At least in men).
- orangecat 15y ago
  For men, social status is much more important than either looks or money.
  - erikb 15y ago
    And often money walks hand in hand with social status. And concerning attractiveness to women, that high correlation and what their women can buy from their money often is enough "prove".
- shard 15y ago
  It's true for women also, but by using the money for plastic surgery and skin care, etc. They do some pretty awful yet impressive things nowadays to reshape body structures, things like disconnecting/removing calf muscles for a slimmer calf, breaking and resetting the jaw for a narrower face, and all different kinds of lasers to get rid of acne and scars and wrinkles.
spindritf 15y ago
> It limits a person’s right to equal opportunity, reinforces the subordination of groups where unappealing characteristics, including obesity, are concentrated (ie, the poor, some ethnic minorities) That doesn't seem to be true: > Contrary to conventional wisdom, … the poor have never had a statistically significant higher prevalence of overweight status at any time in the last 35 years. Despite this empirical evidence, the view that the poor are less healthy in terms of excess accumulation of fat persists. http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not-fat.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not-fat.h...
johnwatson11218 15y ago
Does anyone else think that this could be one more thing holding back telecommuting? Lately I have been trying to spot more of the soft factors that keep people coming into offices.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
etherael 15y ago
Somewhat interesting that most of these comments are about the accuracy of the observations that looks have a beneficial impact in the stated areas. Is that really up for debate with the amount of verification already done on this subject? I think a far more interesting question is how to exploit this global and obviously negative fact. 1) Don't play the game, you don't want to bother being stuck in a peer group where this is standard operating procedure. The fact that it is so widespread is actually a bonus here because you can easily cut out association with a huge swathe of humanity purely because they are simple beasts hung up on their evolutionary drives. 2) Know that generally, others not playing the game are likely to be focused on other areas also. Take their lack of focus on their appearance as an indicator that this might be the case, try to see where they are actually focusing their attention. 3) If your discard evolutionary metrics for lifestyle, largely you get to make them for yourselves. This is an enormously freeing experience in and of itself and I can't recommend it highly enough. If there's one thing life has taught me it is that you do not have to accept the measures you are constantly barraged with as the only valid ones, and in fact if you don't, you will have less market competition in the areas which you end up focusing purely because humans generally don't do that.

137 points by martincmartin 15y ago

Is there any idea to know if I'm a nice guy or not? I never had a girl friend, or talked to a girl for more than 10 minutes alone. I completely ignore if I look good or I'm bad. Any measures or software to estimate that?

ikarous 15y ago

I have felt variously throughout my life both beautiful and homely. As a gay man, I perceive the ubiquitous social pressure to be attractive much more acutely than most heterosexual men. That pressure is not easy to shake off; I can only imagine what women experience. Case in point: a few years ago, I noticed that my hair wasn't quite as thick and lush as it once was. I panicked, stupidly. Without performing adequate research, I began taking a medication that blocks the hormone DHT. Only later did I learn that this medication can subtly alter cognition by affecting the production of various neuro-steroids. Obviously, the value of my mind vastly outweighs that of my appearance, so I stopped taking the medication knowing that one day, I'd probably lose my hair because of it. Despite the obviousness of the choice, it was ridiculously difficult to implement. The social imperative to be beautiful is powerful. Yet: You aren't your hair. Or your face. Or your breasts. It may very well be that attractive people have it easier than less attractive people. But that's a problem with human nature, not with those not blessed by beauty. Make reasonable steps to improve your appearance, then forget about it. Self confidence, humor, and a compassionate nature will always win the day with people who matter. Ask yourself: is Steve Jobs as classically attractive as Brad Pitt? Who is more accomplished? Isaac Asimov? Donald Knuth?

run4yourlives 15y ago
>Ask yourself: is Steve Jobs as classically attractive as Brad Pitt? Who is more accomplished? Isaac Asimov? Donald Knuth? Depends on how you rate accomplishment. Your average female certainly knows one of those people, perhaps two given recent news. But unless they are big into Sci-Fi or computer science, they have no idea who Asimov and Knuth are. In the evolutionary struggle to breed, Brad Pitt is the winner here, by a long shot.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - cellis 15y ago
    Ideas mean nothing in the grand scheme of humanity. In 200 years we could collapse back into the dark ages. Only surviving descendants do. The "anyone can produce a baby" is a pretty lie told to those who forsake their prime directive (mating and caring for offspring) in order to serve those who do,in order to make them feel better about themselves. Repeating this lie will not make it true. And how do you know that one baby (which can cumulatively produce millions more) is not a more "positive impact for humanity"?
- d0mine 15y ago
  Compare Donald Knuth vs. Lady Gaga at Google FTCS! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2476164 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2476164
- WildUtah 15y ago
  Pitt: 3 children (Age 47) Asimov: 2 children Knuth: 2 children Jobs: 4 children In the evolutionary struggle, I'd say all the fame and gorgeous abs haven't created Ramses-style success for Pitt. Academic reputation and billions of dollars do less for you than simply marrying a nice girl who likes babies would.
  - danenania 15y ago
    Yes, I think a lot of this focus on looks is just an exaggerated venting of sexual frustration. When you're not getting any, it can feel like the best thing in the world would be to become a Brad Pitt lookalike so you could have your pick and go out on some huge bacchanalic binge, but there's a reason a guy like Brad doesn't spend much of his time doing that sort of thing--it isn't all that satisfying or fulfilling. In reality, once you are able to reach a base level of intimacy and satisfaction in one (or multiple) sexual relationship(s), how others perceive your looks in general stops mattering almost completely, and the fortunate truth is that achieving this satisfied state doesn't really require being some sort of Casanova, just moderately socially active, comfortable with yourself, and willing to put yourself out there occasionally. It may be slightly easier to be happy in this aspect of life as a very attractive person, but in the whole scheme of what it takes to be fulfilled, it's a fairly small advantage really.

markbao 15y ago

Sure sucks for those without good looks, but I see it as more gas for the fire to make yourself overcome that disadvantage.

jshort 15y ago
I think that is a part of the imbalance, those that have good looks tend to be more confident and thus are more likely to succeed.
Yhippa 15y ago
Absolutely. Either accept your lot in life or try to overcome it. I can't see a good way of regulating lookism. Hey, Abercrombie & Fitch have been able to get away with it for years (http://jezebel.com/5479980/american-beauty-a-brief-history-of-abercrombies-hiring-practices http://jezebel.com/5479980/american-beauty-a-brief-history-o...).
- roel_v 15y ago
  Well, if we can't get away from lookism, we need to have ways to redistribute the effects, right? We do it with smarts (if we assume that, in the aggregate, smart people make more money), so why not with good looks? So, attractive people need to sleep with the uglies, and the more attractive they are, the more they should do it. We'll add a few fields to tax forms where you enter your hotornot.com score, and a few months later if you're ugly you get sex coupons to spend and beautiful people get an assigned amount of sex coupons to collect. (I usually use this argument to argue against wealth redistribution and progressive taxing, but I guess it works the other way around too ;) )
  - dodo53 15y ago
    Well progressive taxation already redistributes money whether it's from aggregate advants of smarts or looks. You're talking of non-economic advantages, which are not redistributed for smarts either
    - 15y ago

beaumartinez 15y ago

You can't change genetics, but you can become fitter, leaner, and more muscular, and wear flattering clothes.

alextp 15y ago
Indeed. Living in a third-world country makes it really obvious that while beauty is rooted in nature it can very easily be bought if you have enough money. As you age, the niceness your skin is inversely correlated to solar exposure and manual labor, and positively correlated with money spent in moisturizers and other products. How fit your body is also depends on the money/time spent on a gym and on the quality of the food you eat. Your hair will also look as nice as the money you spend on it (even if you're bald), and even teeth can be fixed if you have enough money at a young age. Finally, beauty is socially defined, and over time the standards will shift to mirror other aspects of society (in Brazil, for example, white people are generally better off, so all standards of beauty encourage "looking white", by hair straightening, makeup, etc. In places where rich people don't do manual work and stay indoors all day being pale is considered pretty, while in places where rich people can afford to go to the beach looking tan is considered better).
horatione 15y ago
In addition, a considerable component of beauty depends on your state of mind and who you are as a person, i.e. how sensitive, how alert, how calm, how happy you are. This effects your eyes, the way you smile, the way you hold yourself and the way you move. And thus appearance is influenced by your worldview, moral choices, etc. Some call it 'charisma', which sort of implies that it is a lottery win, like having good genes, but it really isn't.
sunchild 15y ago
Great point. Some of the most attractive people alive aren't beautiful. See the entire genre of Rock & Roll for sources.

jmjerlecki 15y ago

I see this as a skill that can be improved – just like anything else. Even if you don't consider yourself the most attractive person, having a strong self worth and putting an effort into your appearance can go a long ways. There are enough sites/books/friends out there to help you figure out what is a good look for you. I have constantly harped on friends that it is amazing how much dressing better can do for your career. Control the things you can control and what you wear is certainly something you can.

marknutter 15y ago

Love the affiliate links to the referenced books at the top of the article.

marze 15y ago

Current studies show a positive correlation between IQ and looks. If that is true, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to think the same factors that result in good looks also result in a well developed brain, attempts to normalize pay regardless of looks are misguided.

gwern 15y ago
The correlation between IQ and looks is weak. The correlation between looks and salary? Hm... I bet the beauty effect remains after controlling for IQ (controls like education are already doing that to a great degree because they correlate much more strongly with IQ than beauty).
thisuser 15y ago
How well does IQ correlate with intelligence?
- VMG 15y ago
  Considering that it is designed to measure intelligence in a way that can be objectively defined, I'd say it correlates pretty good. Can you think of many intelligent people with a low IQ or unintelligent people with a high IQ?
- praptak 15y ago
  Intelligence is not defined precisely enough to speak of correlation here. Maybe a better question to consider is: is it fair that salary is correlated with IQ?
- chrischen 15y ago
  If anyone could answer this question with confidence, it'd be 100%.

olalonde 15y ago

I used to be skeptical about those claims that beauty could help you out (in a significant way) professionally, since I had never experienced it myself. I'm not sure how I rank, beauty-wise, but I'm definitely not in the top 1%... in North America (Montreal). However, things changed when I moved to China. Chinese people tend to like tall, light skin, light hair, light eyes, big eyes guys (i.e.: me). I'm probably in the top 1% in China, if not more (I'm not bragging, ask any decent looking guy who's been there that matches the description). I believe my newly found handsomeness opened me up to multiple opportunities. Here's two examples (among many others). One time, in Starbucks, a CEO from a Hong Kong private equity firm started talking to me. After some chat, he knew I was the ideal candidate for this big software project he had in mind. Anecdote: He was reckless enough to use my computer to login onto his business email account. Hell, he probably didn't even notice I was running Ubuntu. Another time, I met a guy in a bar. He started serving me drinks as he noticed I was attracting pretty girls around the table. He told me that he owned multiple consumer electronics stores in China. A few days later, he was calling me to discuss the possibility of me opening up and managing a new store for him in Hong Kong. I like to think that "knowing I was handsome" gave me a lot of confidence which is what really helped me out. But I'm having a hard time convincing myself...

bluekeybox 15y ago
It's very funny how relative the concept of sex appeal is between different cultures. One of the key few moments in my life was when an old Chinese woman who was a coworker of mine at the time told me: you are smart, know math, and are good looking; you shouldn't work here; you should work on Wall Street. I rarely before thought of myself a good looking, being thin, pale, light-haired and not conforming to the traditional wide-shoulder, tall-dark-and-handsome masculine ideal we have here in the West. For better or worse, her comment certainly increased my ambition...
- diminish 15y ago
  a chinese friend of mine said she got an acceptance at MIT, a position at chase manhattan bank, because he is in 1% among americans for being slim and fit only.

parenthesis 15y ago

"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." — Roald Dahl (in The Twits)

end550 15y ago
I feel like that's a cruel thing to say. "You're supposed to put your guard down when you're ugly".
- dodo53 15y ago
  Or worse - reverse it and you have if I think you're ugly, you can't have good thoughts.
  - reddit_clone 15y ago
    I wouldn't go that far. But it is true (in my experience) that good looking people are a bit more self-absorbed than normal.
- dot 15y ago
  No. "You're supposed to not worry so much." People are drawn to people that are happy. It's a very attractive trait.
fabulous 15y ago
that's what ugly people say :D
Monkeyget 15y ago
"What is good looking, but looking good? Be good, be womanly, be gentle,—generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration." -- John Greenleaf Whittier

youssifa 15y ago

"Yet because ugliness is harder to define than race or sex, some argue that anti-discrimination laws are impossible to maintain." Anybody else find the premise to that statement a bit short-sighted? I just read an interesting book called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, where he cites scientific studies that prove many of our prejudices occur not at the conscious level, but rather unconsciously. In other words, even if you personally do not consider yourself a racist, a sexist, or a looks-ist (need a real word for that last one), you can easily be swayed by such factors -- even if you are aware that you could be influenced. To assume it all happens consciously, and to consider legislation as the primary way of preventing discrimination, is a bit short-sighted in my opinion. Being aware of this concept is a first step, but efforts should be made to control for unconscious bias as well. Companies have an incentive to do this as they may be passing up better qualified candidates. Perhaps developing a way to implement blind performance reviews or conducting non-soft skills, technical interviews that test a person's cognitive ability behind a screen could be one way to curb the trend.

Jun8 15y ago
Sex may be easy (well, in most cases) easy to define but race may be much very hard to define "objectively", e.g. see the novel/movie The Human Stain.
lurker17 15y ago
You may be interested in the Implicit Association Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ It comes with a disclaimer: "Important disclaimer: In reporting to you results of any IAT that you take, we will mention possible interpretations that have a basis in research [...] If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further. [...] I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed. [Click]"
- youssifa 15y ago
  Yes, this test is actually referenced throughout "Blink" -- Really interesting when you look at the results.

sp332 15y ago

People pick you based on how they feel about you. Sometimes they pick you because you're nice, or funny. And sometimes just looking at you makes them feel good.

DevX101 15y ago

There's a positive feedback loop involved as well. Beautiful people are more likely to have others want to befriend them. This social practice makes them more sociable. Which makes more people want to befriend them. I don't know if anyone here has lost a significant amount of weight (50+ pounds) while they were still young, but they will confirm this effect. In fact, this effect is often so strong, that people who have lost weight often become very skeptical of people's motivations. People who had never noticed them are now suddenly nice and friendly. This starts to make you wonder if the interest of other people in you, is purely based on your looks or who you really are.

symptic 15y ago
If your store isn't bringing in enough customers you can upgrade the facade to bring in more traffic, but it's still up to you to make the sale once they walk inside.

Shenglong 15y ago

Lookism is a little silly. Unlike race and gender, looks are something we actively work on. I have a lot of gorgeous women in my life (even if I never compliment them), and I know they take hours each day to make sure they look great. They spend effort in everyting from learning to put on makeup to accent their appearance, to using moisturizers, masks, cleansers, eye cream, lip gloss, to keeping a consistent workout schedules. Really, looks and knowledge are really developed in similar ways. They're not things we can't change. We're allowed to judge people on intellectual merit as well as physical fitness, so why not on looks? You can work as hard as you want in an academic area or in a sport, and chances are you'll still never be in the top 1%. Likewise, your looks are also rooted in your genetic luck. Other than stigma, I really see very little difference between academic merit, physical merit, and looks.

TWSS 15y ago

I love the comments that argue that since a preference for attractive (i.e., symmetrical) faces is hard-wired, we shouldn't try to legislate against it. From what I remember of ev psych, suspicion of individuals who are not of our group/tribe is also hard-wired - I wonder if those same commenters would abolish legal protection based on race. That said, as a woman in tech, the concept of "erotic capital" resonates with me. I'm wildly ambivalent about it, though - the risk seems to outweigh any potential reward.

JoeAltmaier 15y ago
Yet women with "exotic good looks" are valued highly. Women NOT of your tribe are more desirable than those within it.
reddit_clone 15y ago
>I love the comments that argue that since a preference for attractive (i.e., symmetrical) faces is hard-wired, we shouldn't try to legislate against it Well, it is also hard to quantify. How are you going to prove to a jury that you are plain and thus got turned down?
- lurker17 15y ago
  You can't in a single case, but over time and many cases, pattern of discrimination can be suggest via statistical methods. This is how covert racial discrimination cases are tried.

quantumhobbit 15y ago

Looking good takes a certain amount of discipline. You have to eat right and exercise and take time to groom yourself. I wonder how much of the increase in success for attractive people is caused directly by their looks, ie greater self-esteem and unfair treatment. How much of the increase is not caused by good looks but correlates with good looks due to a deeper cause such as greater self-discipline?

mikerg87 15y ago

I call bullshit on this. If this had any truth to it, you'd think the entire C-level in every corporation would be overrun with "beautiful" people. I think someone saw Gattaca and made a bet with a colleage to see if they could get something published based on the premise.

reddit_clone 15y ago

Money can go a long way in mitigating lack of beauty (At least in men).

orangecat 15y ago
For men, social status is much more important than either looks or money.
- erikb 15y ago
  And often money walks hand in hand with social status. And concerning attractiveness to women, that high correlation and what their women can buy from their money often is enough "prove".
shard 15y ago
It's true for women also, but by using the money for plastic surgery and skin care, etc. They do some pretty awful yet impressive things nowadays to reshape body structures, things like disconnecting/removing calf muscles for a slimmer calf, breaking and resetting the jaw for a narrower face, and all different kinds of lasers to get rid of acne and scars and wrinkles.

spindritf 15y ago

> It limits a person’s right to equal opportunity, reinforces the subordination of groups where unappealing characteristics, including obesity, are concentrated (ie, the poor, some ethnic minorities) That doesn't seem to be true: > Contrary to conventional wisdom, … the poor have never had a statistically significant higher prevalence of overweight status at any time in the last 35 years. Despite this empirical evidence, the view that the poor are less healthy in terms of excess accumulation of fat persists. http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not-fat.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not-fat.h...

johnwatson11218 15y ago

Does anyone else think that this could be one more thing holding back telecommuting? Lately I have been trying to spot more of the soft factors that keep people coming into offices.

deleted 15y ago

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etherael 15y ago

Somewhat interesting that most of these comments are about the accuracy of the observations that looks have a beneficial impact in the stated areas. Is that really up for debate with the amount of verification already done on this subject? I think a far more interesting question is how to exploit this global and obviously negative fact. 1) Don't play the game, you don't want to bother being stuck in a peer group where this is standard operating procedure. The fact that it is so widespread is actually a bonus here because you can easily cut out association with a huge swathe of humanity purely because they are simple beasts hung up on their evolutionary drives. 2) Know that generally, others not playing the game are likely to be focused on other areas also. Take their lack of focus on their appearance as an indicator that this might be the case, try to see where they are actually focusing their attention. 3) If your discard evolutionary metrics for lifestyle, largely you get to make them for yourselves. This is an enormously freeing experience in and of itself and I can't recommend it highly enough. If there's one thing life has taught me it is that you do not have to accept the measures you are constantly barraged with as the only valid ones, and in fact if you don't, you will have less market competition in the areas which you end up focusing purely because humans generally don't do that.