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Ask HN: How influential can physical appearance be in professional environments?

I'm talking about ugly/good-looking, fat/fit, skinny/strong, tall/short... etc. Do you think physical appearance plays an important role to define hierarchies inside organizations and can decide who has the upper hand in debates?

airbreather 4y ago
There is some evidence that if there was any single physical characteristic that seems to be positive it is tallness. However, there are obviously many possible arguments on subtle cause/effects with correlated characteristics etc. I provide no references, but plenty exist if you search.
- maury91 4y ago
  Then I'm very screwed, I'm a Sardinian in Lithuania ( Sardinians are the shortest population in Europe,and Lithuanians one of the tallest )
  - selfawareMammal 4y ago
    Thankfully it's not all about height, even though it's important. I'm sure you can sharpen other skills to make things go your way.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - maury91 4y ago
    I'm sorry it wasn't understandable, but I was sarcastic, I'm doing great even if I'm the shortest
    - giuscri 4y ago
      How did you end up in Lithuania from Sardinia? How's the life there for an engineer?
      - maury91 4y ago
        Kind of the classic story, my wife is Lithuanian. We first tried living in Sardinia but the job market in Sardinia is terrible, so we moved to her country so she could even more chances, and because I'm an Engineer for me finding work is easy in every country. Here in Lithuania Engineers are paid very well and are in high demand. For "very well" I mean compared to the average salary in the country, obviously you will get less money compared to UK or Germany. Cost of life is way cheaper than UK or Italy, both food and rent/mortgage is less than the other two countries
        Bakary 4y ago
        Is it hard to illegally procure casu marzu in Lithuania?
        maury91 4y ago
        I'm not a big eater of Casu Martzu, so I don't know if getting is hard, but my parents usually ship me some homemade cheese without problems, I believe they could ship also Casu Martzu without problems ( I don't think customs check what type of cheese is being shipped )
  - goethes_kind 4y ago
    Fratello! For me, being short seems to make people believe I am more approachable and that seems to work in my favour.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dijonman2 4y ago
  It’s not about what you have, it’s about what you do with what you have. People who take care of themselves tend to have their life together. Correlation vs causation and all that.
- vagrantJin 4y ago
  Anecdotes are data points as well. Works well in careers where interacting with people might be more important than proficiency at the job.
jstx1 4y ago
Very - you can predict success to some extent based purely on people's yearbook photos: > Here the authors find that inferences of power from photos of the faces of the managing partners of America’s top 100 law firms significantly corresponded to their success as leaders, as measured by the amounts of profits that their firms earned. More interesting, this relationship was also observed when judgments were made based on photos of the leaders taken from their undergraduate yearbooks, before they began their careers or entered law school. Facial cues to success may therefore be consistent across much of the lifespan (approximately 20–50 years). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258189428_Judgments_of_Power_From_College_Yearbook_Photos_and_Later_Career_Success https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258189428_Judgments... There is also - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect - which is different from the above but obviously related.
- Helmut10001 4y ago
  Non-paywall link: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/33197/1/Rule%26Ambady%282011%29.pdf https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/33197/1/Ru...
- WithinReason 4y ago
  > you can predict success to some extent based purely on people's yearbook photos It's already shown that facial attractiveness can predict athletic prowess: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1474704918801369 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1474704918801369 So it's likely that people's abilities can influence their appearance. There was a lot of evolutionary pressure to develop abilities to judge people based on appearance, so we would expect humans to be really good at it.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    This result isn’t surprising at all though, compared to financial success. Obviously athleticism would be physically visible on the face (and probably be considered more attractive).
    - 4y ago
xupybd 4y ago
Pretty people get undeserved favor form basically everyone. Presentation has a lot of power. We're all shallower than we'd like. You can game this with little effort. Dress well, maintain a good haircut and pretend to be confident.
- XorNot 4y ago
  Also shower every day, and use deodorant. Too many people think if they can't smell anything then no one else can. They're wrong. Smell is a very primal sense, pretty much linked to our "you are in danger" response.
  - feet 4y ago
    >Smell is a very primal sense, pretty much linked to our "you are in danger" response. Are you stating that all scents are fear inducing?
    - XorNot 4y ago
      No, but it is a sense we use constantly: people instinctively avoid unpleasant odors. It's one of our most basic environment assessment tools and it's always active: we smell things to assess all sorts of properties, but chiefly "is this toxic/a biohazard" is pretty well coded into us. Forcing someone to consciously suppress that impression upfront is fighting against some pretty basic "am I safe?" instincts.
      - feet 4y ago
        Smells also let us know when people are sick or signal a good match for mates, but deodorant is us covering up all signals without considering those other possibilities. When is the last time smells helped you avoid a toxic human?
- fredestine 4y ago
  tbh it depends. in IT if you are handsome other people will be jealous and they will also think you are stupid or not as smart as them because of your appearance.
lm28469 4y ago
As much as everywhere else, everyone will tell you it doesn't matter but we're all biased in a way or another
hardware2win 4y ago
I do believe that yes
tipsytoad 4y ago
I'm sure it has a role, alongside other features such as charisma and confidence. Of course the effect is subjective and varied, but oftentimes I've found that people that claim a decision being down to appearance to be those that blame their computer when their code doesn't run :)
- lbriner 4y ago
  My own experience is that confidence trumps everything. There are people who really don't know that much (in multiple fields, not just Dev) but they are either completely un self-aware or they don't care and simply portray rock solid confidence. Perhaps some fields demand this like marketing where certain sorts of marketing are hard to quantify/value objectively so you need to show confidence so that the department keeps its funding!
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Confidence that persists in spite of rejection. People who are by their own admission lack confidence will not enter situations where the probability of rejection is high. Confident people will enter a greater number of these situations, and will continue to enter them even if they were rejected previously.
steerpike 4y ago
Coming to grips with the hidden influence of my own physicality has been a long term struggle for me. I realised over a long time that the fact that I was over six foot, male, white, bearded, broad and articulate meant that people inherently saw me as significantly more capable and tended to defer to me in a multitued of situations. This wasn't something that naturally gelled with the way I viewed my own competencies, but it's also really, really, really hard to get people to stop doing. Basically I have a significant 'self discrepancy gap'[0] between 'Own Actual' and 'Other Actual' that I constantly need to work at. Years of experience have taught me that these kind of gaps are pretty common in our industry. Yes it exists and think it's incredibly important for people to be aware of the power of their own physicality and not to abuse it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discrepancy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discrepancy_theory
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  Own it and be thankful for the gifts you were given. I just wonder where we were today without those favorable attributes?
- eigart 4y ago
  I have those same physical traits, and this comment was helpful. This has been really frustrating as a junior developer, it's just impossible to get any critical feedback or have someone take a mentorship role. I've been in so many dumb situations where someone more experienced or knowledgeable should have just told me I was doing something dumb. I am certain it is a net positive without trying to abuse it, but I've been thinking about it a lot since graduating. Everyone just treats me really well and places a lot of completely unwarranted trust in me.
  - jan_Inkepa 4y ago
    >This has been really frustrating as a junior developer, it's just impossible to get any critical feedback or have someone take a mentorship role. I've had a situation where I was asking a tall/attractive/charismatic acquaintance for technical advice and he stoped me and said something like "Why are you asking me for advice, you are way more experienced than I am". It's not that I shouldn't have talked with him about the technical matter, just that it was funny that I slid so naturally into the 'underling' role.
antiherovelo 4y ago
It matters. If you are tall and good looking, it helps. BUT… Amongst the vast majority of the most capable, successful, and broadly well-respected people I have worked with, their status has had little to do with their beauty. I am thinking of folks that are not “attractive” in any conventional sense, yet their wits and competence and heart makes them so. In certain professions, the effect of beauty is outsized. I hardly need name these; look for shallow aesthetes and cameras. In technical professions that value actual competence, I have found that it doesn’t matter (much.)
totetsu 4y ago
Throw into that list, the way you talk, the set of vocabulary you use, the clothes you wear, your Cultural Capital.
thefz 4y ago
Yes, in good and bad ways. I've witnessed very competent and attractive female colleagues get discredited for their appearance, every comment implying that they fucked their way up to their position, or being unable to be close friends with any male coworker for the same reason. But all in all dressing appropriately to your body, being clean and well groomed is a positive for everyone.
noir_lord 4y ago
All things been equal (which they never are) then physical attractiveness is probably a slight benefit to the attractive person. Similar to the statistical correlation with tallness (though again whether that's a matter of taller than average people doing well because they are taller or because physical height is correlated with better diet/socio-economic group as a child etc). This stuff is always so blurry because of confounding factors and inability to control for other factors.
jefffoster 4y ago
Gives me a chance to reference the best Harvard Business Review title ever: How Earlobes Can Signify Leadership Potential (https://hbr.org/2011/11/how-earlobes-can-signify-leadership-potential https://hbr.org/2011/11/how-earlobes-can-signify-leadership-...)
- jcutrell 4y ago
  Finally a link in this thread that will fuel my confirmation bias.
- rchaud 4y ago
  This title sounds like it was thought up in a Middle Managers sub-forum on Bodybuilding.com
luckylion 4y ago
It obviously does. It will be interesting how much of a shift we'll see with more work from home. Do the same effects carry over in calls and async communication? Will "more video calls" mean attractiveness plays a larger role? Will doing voice calls weaken that (or focus it on the voice alone)?
fsloth 4y ago
Good looking people have always an edge. Tall people always appear more competent than their shorter colleagues. These are biases. They can be overriden by the experiences of people in a community quite easily, but towards unfamiliar people these biases can be quite strong.
- fiat_fandango 4y ago
  Curiously, as I've gotten older I've found that "weird" looking people who are also confident enough to some degree are almost always far more interesting in terms of personal pursuits / interests than "pretty" or conventionally attractive people. Maybe this is a personal bias - but in time being attractive impresses me to a similar degree as someone driving a flashy car - sure it's pretty looking, but I don't ascribe that to real success or depth of intellect. Dating pretty people in New York quickly illustrated how dull most "pretty" women are. The one thing I'll never understand is how shaving my head actually increased my perceived attractiveness with women - admittedly I'm a weird somewhat unattractive person.
newaccount2021 4y ago
dougmwne 4y ago
Absolutely, in a major way. There are piles of studies showing all kinds of pay discrimination based on physical characteristics. The meritocracy is bullshit. People hire tall sexy people. You really think the workplace is all that different from Tinder?
langitbiru 4y ago
Height: - https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/naija-fashion/203429-many-ceos-tall-people-height-matter-bisi-daniels.html https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/naija-fashion/2... - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/the-necktie-syndrome-why-ceos-tend-to-be-significantly-taller-than-the-average-male/articleshow/10178115.cms?from=mdr https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/the-necktie-syndrome-wh... Attractiveness: - https://www.geekwire.com/2014/study-ugly-men-tougher-time-raising-venture-capital/ https://www.geekwire.com/2014/study-ugly-men-tougher-time-ra...
trabant00 4y ago
On average and in statistics - absolutely. The effect has been measured by numerous studies. But studies use large numbers and actively try to eliminate other factors, which is why I would caution against using this on a personal level to try to explain certain outcomes. Remember this thing about statistics: on average Bill Gates and any one of us are billionaires. I think a lot of people are using studies like this to justify some shortcomings in their life when you can easily look around the people you know and see hugely varied outcomes regardless of looks. And good looks can be a career trap too, especially if you actively rely on them. And one more thing: by far one of the most important physical appearance factors is youth. Which goes away for the best looking. And it also clearly shows the importance of other factors as we don't have a world full of 22 year old CEOs.
mettamage 4y ago
Well, tangentially related and I don't know enough of the topic (I haven't delved into it yet) but "pretty privilege" is a thing. Here are a couple of seed links for further investigation (I have no clue about their quality): https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pretty+privilege+ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pretty+privileg... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeunlimited https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeun... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeunlimited https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeun... -- I have some ideas, anecdotes and personal experiences on the topic (as I'm traveling a lot as a digital nomad and I tend to talk to people wherever/whenever since I solo travel). I'm sorry that I can't make this comment razor sharp (also in brevity, it's tough to do). The reason I'm sorry for that is because I know that this is a sensitive topic and I might step on some toes. I don't intend to, but it might be a bit inevitable. Some people might think that speaking from personal experience is not enough. And yes, it's definitely biased, but I am noticing I am learning a lot more about European/western society (as a Dutch person even) than I was in the past 10 years simply because I talk to a lot of people. I'm currently traveling a lot and in daily life I see a huge difference to how people treat you when attractive. In The Netherlands I'm at best average in attractiveness (I've asked for brutal feedback from multiple people, and I'm averaging 6 out of 10). However, in other countries I'm seen as slightly more attractive because I'm about 190 cm, which is 6.23 feet/inches (whatever you Americans use). Dutch people are one of the tallest if not the tallest in the world. So I'm more common there. Already in Germany, I'm seen as more attractive due to my "language skills" (Dutch people speak better English than Germans, on average, I definitely do; combined with some conversational German/Italian and some basic French). And I do notice the difference. And I'm beginning to get a hunch that in Southern Europe I'm even seen as more attractive since they're a lot shorter on average. All of this is based on how I interact with women. I've noticed that men don't really act that differently around me. I've been in Lisbon and Berlin recently and met all kinds of people. But yea, I'm seeing my own "pretty privilege" (however marginal) in the dating market. People treat me differently whereas I stay the same. And I'm definitely hearing stories of how very stereotypically attractive women are getting whatever they want (even if they don't want it). I'm also hearing how stereotypically attractive women are more prone to having experienced sexual violence. So if you think they have it easy: I'm not going to compare, I'm not going to judge. I know too little, but what I do see is that less stereotypical attractive women seem to talk less about having experienced sexual violence (again, I might be biased, my sample might be biased, something else might be off - it's just my personal experience and it does beg the question to formulate a hypothesis and investigate if one would be an academic feminist/psychologist, provided there is no research on it). But looks influence stuff in daily life so hard that it must have a strong effect in corporate culture as well. This is especially the case since men are the assertive sex when it comes to the mating game, and men are holding more economic/political power than women. Humans are not robots. We can't keep our emotions fully hidden or suppressed. Biases will leak out, whether we're aware of them or not. So logically speaking, yes, it will have some effect. A more interesting question would be more: how much of an effect? Will it have more of an effect for women? If you have a female boss/male subordinate will it have more of an effect (if the male is attractive)? There are a lot of variables here that might influence the strength of the effect. With that said, I've also experienced how much pure "inner beauty" can do, from both my side and other men/women. It can do a whole lot, especially when presented with positivity and optimism. My experience is that a lot of charisma can be trained. Like, I don't think I'll ever be wildly charismatic. But compared to my untrained self, I'm an order to two order of magnitudes better, and it has definitely helped me to make my inner world more relatable to other people. Knowing how you present yourself in a: 1 on 1 conversation, group conversation and presentation... It's important and has little to do with personality and looks (other than that the personality and looks need to be incorporated with how to present yourself, but in all look/personality variations - communication skills in being relatable and pleasant to be around with is a skill - even the most hardcore pessimist can be relatable and pleasant to be around with by using his/her pessimism as very creative playful humor, for example).
rrgok 4y ago
I'm kinda glad to read these comments, because they mostly align with my perception. The popular opinion among my circle of friends and relatives is that appearance doesn't matter for men: it is all hard-work and grind. It is exhausting to make people see that all else being equal, physicality play a non negligible role.
xenocratus 4y ago
This is just one single study - I would prefer a meta analysis, if anyone has one - but it's worth sharing nonetheless. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/715141 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/715141
reactor 4y ago
Beside all those mentioned, I've seen people with loud and sharp (not high pitch sort of) voice getting an edge (sometimes unfair advantage) in many professional settings.
- jan_Inkepa 4y ago
  "Sharp", as in people who are good at articulating words?
  - reactor 4y ago
    People who are good at articulation will have listeners, but what I meant is sound without 'buzziness'.
    - GameOfFrowns 4y ago
      Perhaps you mean 'voice projection'? Unfortunately voice is just another factor that comes to genetics. I've been training to lower my rather high-pitched voice and voice projection for years now, albeit without much to show. Guess I hit the limit of my genetic potential.
- silveroriole 4y ago
  And in any loud, crowded room (say at a conference, or a pub/bar after work), women and quieter men will struggle to be heard at all. Men with loud deep voices will dominate the conversation automatically. This probably has more impact on professional development than people think.
blackoil 4y ago
If I consider my own biases, I would consider a fit, well groomed person to be more competent. I believe this bias is based on fact that if someone is fit also means he/she is disciplined and well groomed is meticulous and these traits would transfer to other aspects of work also. Now, I understand that lot of things like age, genetics, ... make up for some of the signal that I am reading, but that is the nature of biases.
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  A lot of what makes attractive men's bodies look "attractive" is in the bone structure. They look fit without actually having to be fit: height, rugged face, wide shoulders, barrel chest, narrow hips.
quadcore 4y ago
deleted
- statictype 4y ago
  Kind of agree. There are definite obvious advantages in certain physical characteristics. But it’s trivial to overshadow those with either a. being really good at what you do b. Being socially approachable c. Deft at playing the political game
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    If you have to be 99.9999th percentile at what you “do” to overshadow those, how trivial is it? I do not foresee a future where an American political party nominates a 5ft3in (1.6m) man as a Presidential, or even Senate candidate. Similar for playing professional level sports, or lead actor in movies.
    - matwood 4y ago
      Tom Cruise is listed as 5'7" - he's probably a bit shorter. Sports will lean towards whatever physical characteristics benefits the sport.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Tom Cruise is 60 years old and got famous during a time a when average height for upper socioeconomic classes was lower. Is there any example more recent than him? If he was auditioning for his roles today, I doubt he gets them. Especially because actresses are nowadays just as tall or taller with heels, why bother having to do all the work to make the actor look a little taller than the actress, when you can just hire another actor. >Sports will lean towards whatever physical characteristics benefits the sport. Of course, but in many popular sports, being taller and bigger makes you so much faster and stronger such that if you are first percentile in size, no realistic amount of talent will give you an advantage.
log101 4y ago
Here it is asked whether appearance makes any difference in professional setting, but comments seem to be diverged from the question. Young people seem to exaggerate the role of their appearance, it might make a slight difference when you first trying to find a job, but after that all that is left is your experience and talent. I can't imagine getting fired for being ugly or landing (and then staying at) a job for being attractive.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  >but after that all that is left is your experience and talent This is wishful thinking.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > I can't imagine getting fired for being ugly or landing (and then staying at) a job for being attractive. You're looking at it the other way around. You wouldn't get fired for being 'ugly', but you could be treated less well than your co-workers, or not be offered a pathway to a higher-level job with better compensation.
Tepix 4y ago
There's only so much you can do about being tall and good looking. Even losing weight is extremely difficult for some people. You should focus on the things you can influence easily, i.e. clothes (including shoes), grooming, manners, ...
dustedcodes 4y ago
It's probably controversial to say, because we _want_ to be better than just animals, but the hard truth is that we are still animalistic in every sense and physical appearance plays a fundamental role in absolutely everything in life. Being good looking, tall and physically fit is the biggest privilege in life. You don't need to be Jeff Bezos rich, if you look good you can pick and choose partners as and when you wish. You can live out some of your craziest fantasies because women/men will do things which they wouldn't do in normal circumstances. Married people will cheat because they want a taste of you, people will be extremely inviting to you even they don't know you, people will give you the benefit of trust, they will be extra friendly, at Christmas parties people will seek conversations with you which will increase your social score at work and help with promotions because popular people are more likely to get given extra opportunities and responsibilities and so forth. In short, if you are good looking you will be able to experience things in life which so many people will never even dream of. Things that you'd think only happen to filthy rich people or in movies will all of a sudden happen to you even when you didn't look for it. Doors just open and you will be able to either say yes or no to those chances in life. I am not saying it is good, as mentioned, we try to be better than this, but the facts speak against it. This was posted on HN a while ago and I really enjoyed this read: https://medium.com/@sfard/the-greatest-privilege-we-hardly-talk-about-beauty-7db3f70c1116 https://medium.com/@sfard/the-greatest-privilege-we-hardly-t...
- unsigner 4y ago
  "Tall" is something that comes out of the genetic roulette, and there's little you can do (see the recent article about men going through painful leg bone extension procedures). However, "being physically fit" is under your control (for the vast majority of people) and you can tip the scales quite a bit on "being good looking" if you make the effort.
- gorilla0 4y ago
  Putting on my philosophical hat for a minute, I would say that while humans have put in lot of social structures to counter evolutionary tendencies, they still slip through in all our interactions with other humans.
- 4y ago
dmichulke 4y ago
Out of all the above adjectives, the ones that are "actionable" are skinny/strong and fat/fit. I made an effort to improve in those areas and I feel the results. Simple things like people looking away if you look back at them, abusive bosses shouting at my colleagues but never at me, or reining in a couple of misbehaving 8 year olds with a determined look.
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  What is your height?
  - dmichulke 4y ago
    6'2" = 189cm
jossclimb 4y ago
open a twitter account as someone working in tech, with a photo of a cute girl and watching your following number skyrocket.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
le-mark 4y ago
I once worked with a short, over weight white guy, late 30 or early 40 who moved into a client facing role. It was a disaster. Although he dressed well, he had the body type that clothes just didn’t fit him well. He would always look disheveled and frumpy, his shirts would not stay tucked in. He was very capable but the (east coast) business bros at the client would not take him seriously and openly mocked him. He went back to a technical role. It was sad and I learned a lot about human nature from witnessing it.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Building a wardrobe of clothes that fit is the kind of "hack" that is blindingly obvious, but I think would rub HN readers the wrong way. It feels deceptive, because nothing about your inherent skills or personal qualities have changed. But short of changing your body, face or racial background (none of which should impact a career negatively to begin with), changing your wardrobe probably has the highest and quickest ROI.
- Bakary 4y ago
  By definition he is not dressing well. There is a ceiling to what you can do with certain body types but frumpiness and untucked shirts is not that.
- tacostakohashi 4y ago
  From an "east coast business bro" perspective, looking presentable is a simple problem-solving exercise. Obesity can be tackled with diet and exercise, and if off-the-rack clothing doesn't fit well, one can get bespoke shirts made by a tailor. A person who presents themselves as not being able to manage this task is treated accordingly. Note that this isn't related to some congenital trait, it's all about the choices the person makes for themselves.
  - ferrumfist 4y ago
    I kind of agree with you, actually. I think when it comes to clients, you should be presenting yourself in such a way that's most likely to sync with them. If your client is a bunch of grizzled/cynical old-school IT guys then you should approach them differently from how you would treat a room full of young type-A finance bros.
krageon 4y ago
If you are more beautiful (or at the very least more trained) than the person next to you, folks will listen to you more. Your natural looks influence that, but focusing on that won't help: You cannot change that. Going to the gym is something you can do. You will not have debates in an organisation. You will have popularity contests. Sometimes those are judged on the merit of what you say, but usually they are judged on how much what you say appeals to the other listeners.
johnnymorgan 4y ago
It's no different than high school is the sad reality
ivanmontillam 4y ago
I'd say that physical appearance affects yes, and I'd add that your name is also part of that physical appearance impact. If you have a commonly accepted name (like "John"), your life will not be hard nor easy. If your name is a mixup of your parents name or something just invented on the spot, you'll life will be harder. You may ease it up by adding a nickname. If your name is not a common one, but accepted in previous generations (like "Anastasius" or "Manfred", "Vincent", etc.) it'll be seen as a bold choice by your parents and impact positively your life.
- Bakary 4y ago
  Since when is Vincent in the same league as Anastasius or Manfred? (No it's not my own name… just curious)
bloak 4y ago
It's probably just me (I'm probably neurodivergent in some way) but in discussions like this people keep using the word "attractive" and I honestly have no idea what they mean by that word. If you showed me two photographs of people and asked me which looks more "intelligent", which looks more "wise", which looks more "honest", which looks more "friendly", which looks more "approachable", or dozens of questions like that, I could have a go at answering the question. But if you asked me which looks more "attractive" I would have no idea how to answer. Would I understand the question if it were phrased differently, or is the concept itself something that I have for some reason never acquired? Does anyone else have this problem, or is it really just me? (Sorry if this is a little bit off-topic: of course the original question doesn't use the word "attractive".)
- SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
  Someone you'd want to have sex with, not to put to fine a point on it...
  - Bakary 4y ago
    That's not a sufficient criteria because people can tell if their competitors are attractive ar not
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      Male taste in men and female taste in men are not the same. Straight men and most gay men think muscle bound manly men with chiselled jaws are the hotness. Lots of women like KPop androgynes. Lots more men be ‘mirin a guy who has big muscles than women.
      - Bakary 4y ago
        Even taking this into account, it's still possible to determine or sense the attractiveness of most attractive competitors. At least to the point where sexual attraction cannot be the sole criteria
  - 4y ago
Blackstone4 4y ago
Sexism and racism....are huge areas of concern...whereas tall men and good looking people are treated much better than short men and ugly people...our morality, in the West, is inconsistent and arbitary..
- Bakary 4y ago
  There's a limited amount of energy and time available, and fixing problems is difficult and uncertain. If we wanted something more consistent, we would probably have to pull a Peter Singer and donate the bulk of our resources to the most unfortunate. I don't think we really want a less arbitrary system even if we could define it!
  - Blackstone4 4y ago
    Yeah I see where you are coming from. I do not necessarily want us to be 100% consistent...just an honest conversation about how arbitary we are!!
    - Bakary 4y ago
      That would open up a Pandora's box, honestly. Even if the goal were 20% consistency, short or ugly people would definitely not make the cut compared to helping people in the third world or other potential targets of redistributive justice. Our entire economic and social edifice is built on certain other countries being poorer and less energy intensive. Now if the goal is simply to be a bit more mindful, that would be doable i.e. avoiding unnecessary remarks about height the way we avoid saying hurtful comments in other contexts
Daub 4y ago
I have a classic British accent. When I started teaching in foreign universities, I found that in meetings people would stop and listen to what I was saying… even defer to me. In the UK, I was just another Brit, is a sea of Brits, and thusly ignored.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Spare a thought for those with heavy Scottish accents teaching overseas.
motohagiography 4y ago
Being in shape is an honest and almost unfakable signal of work and personal discipline, which has knock on effects to your credibility in any discussion. It may be worth asking what the quality of the assumption that we don't have control over our appearance is. Consider someone who just doesn't take care of themselves, and what beliefs and choices their consequent appearance is the effect of. There is a contra- effect as well, where in some environments, being physically repulsive is a signal of power. Government and academia spring to mind. In tech we have a natural suspicion of shiny looking sales and marketing people, but when you examine that closely, it's because they live and die based on the actual revealed desires of others, where in tech power is independent of desire, and power comes from outsmarting, defeating, and overpowering others intellectually or politically. There is a conflict addiction among "nerds," where we have to tilt at machines and objects instead of people to get our adrenal hit because other people don't really tolerate that aggressive need from others very enthusiastically. Since we prevail based on intellectual domination, we don't index on physical appearance as much, but people who prevail based on actual desire necessarily do. In the thousands of co-workers I can remember, I would say the main strategy of people who prevail in discussions, but who have neglected their physical appearance - is disagreeableness. It either originates from some quirk that causes them to miss social cues, or it was learned behaviour where they realized they didn't need to make themselves appealing if they were persistent. There is also a cliche about PhD's being like this, where a great number have been trained to be weirdly combative based on their recieved authority, while lacking the normal signifiers of success like basic physical fitness, collegiality, benevolence, charisma, wit, charm, and ultimately other people just attribute their uncanny ignobility to their institution. We have tons of data from social media sites, chat apps, and online forums where it would be plausible to rank text-based charisma (pure ideas) and physical attractiveness as judged by an algorithm, and we could find out empirically whether there is a strong correlation, but I don't think we need to. Appearance is an evolutionary strategy, and I would say, yes it is very influential because we listen to people based on it because it's a signal of how invested they likely are in certain values.
- fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
  I think law students and lawyers are nerds of a sort. We like disagreeable people like a blade enjoys a whetstone. Abrasive, sure, but helpful in honing our skills and ideas even if it demands care and persistence. With the self-awareness that one is sometimes the blade, sometimes the whetstone, I think there’s a place-for and value-in all types.
notacoward 4y ago
One attribute that I haven't seen mentioned yet is voice. A man with a deep voice absolutely will get more attention than their peers, while a high and/or nasal voice (male or female) can be a significant handicap. A bit of training can help, but to a large extent these are innate and immutable characteristics that can effect career (and romantic) trajectories.
- Bakary 4y ago
  Some languages or accents within languages make this problem worse or ameliorate it. It's better to be high-pitched and British than high-pitched and American.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    The acceptability of accents is heavily influenced by pop culture, which is perhaps why a high-pitched British accent may seem OK, because of the compensatory cultural value of the Britishness. A Russian accent will not be treated as generously in the English-speaking world, after years of bad-guy one-liners being the reference point. Same goes if you have a Middle Eastern accent, or an Indian accent.
    - notacoward 4y ago
      I'm sure there are many people for whom those are The Worst, but in my direct experience the worst reactions tend to be associated with accents within the US. Try speaking with a Texas accent in Brooklyn, or vice versa. Yikes.
      - rchaud 4y ago
        But you see my point. A TX accent can be substituted for a more mainstream one far more easily than a foreign accent can.
  - Daub 4y ago
    Owner/user of Classic British ascent and former drama student. When I was taught elocution, we were told to begin and end each word distinctly to the following/preceding words. This impacts positively of the 'readability' of speaking. This 'clipped' delivery is the distinguishing feature of the classic British received pronunciation (RP) accent.
remify 4y ago
Last year a few months after confinment I went on vacation and while I was having a break in a too expensive restaurant in the Geneve airport something weird was going on but I couldn't tell what. An hour later it hit me, all these people around me were good looking and outright elegant. Most of them were doing business. A lot of studies shows that indeed good looking people does have better odds in the traditional success game.
throwaway2016a 4y ago
Not an answer to your question per-say but I believe there is a strong correlation. Anecdotally I've seen traditionally good looking people get promoted far more often even for technical non-sales roles. I've actually become a little obsessed with this idea (stopping shy of being unhealthy). To the point where I lost 25 lbs (through diet and exercise over 6 months), wear nicer cloths (even on Zoom meetings), and whiten my teeth. And it may be a placebo effect. It may just be increased confidence. But I think I've seen results from it. I'm lucky I have a starting point that was already good (but not great) by US societal standards (I'm average height, male, was only slightly overweight, in good health, and my body responds well to exercise for someone almost hitting 40). But some people may not be lucky. Edit: For context, I'm a technical founder (CxO). I think the effect may be more limited if you are, say, a junior software developer where technical and soft skills may be enough to differentiate you and run you up the ladder. But at the very competitive higher levels it often boils down to who they board/execs/principals/investors like more. And looks, unfortunately, play a role.
fiat_fandango 4y ago
I'm in my late twenties but look about four years younger, I'm in good shape but I'm also bald and have supposedly a "weird" face. I'm sure if I was forced to go back to an in-office environment I'd encounter progress issues because of my appearance. While at FAANG I actually started to wear makeup to mask the dark circles I naturally have under my eyes - for better or for worse I also have an expensive skincare routine now. Undeniably I look weird - I really worry about this going into the future.
- rchaud 4y ago
  I suggest you have a gander at Marc Andreessen's photo for the New Yorker (or was it Vanity Fair), and ask yourself if you look weird by comparison. I can almost assure you that you don't, at least not in comparison to that pic.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Looking weird in public is a form of fronting for people like Andreessen. "I have so much money your opinion means literally nothing to me because I will never need anything from you".
    - fiat_fandango 4y ago
      You have a point haha - but I had some portraits taken last year and after the fact I had to say "I looked like a fucking beluga whale" hahaha
sainib 4y ago
Short answer: Yes Long answer : people with better physical appearance are generally more successful, leaving all other conditions similar. Bottomline: part of career growth planning should focus on improving physical appearance. Join gym, eat right, get timely haircut etc.
tpoacher 4y ago
Not exactly where you were going with this, but yes, absolutely: the way you present and thus perceive yourself absolutely affects how you behave, which in turn affects your performance, as well as how others see you.
regularperson26 4y ago
I believe this is a subject that is not talked about enough. First because of a) If you haven't experienced it or paid close attention it will go over your head and b) People don't like to openly talk about 'pretty privilege' because they think the mere act of talking about it will inherently catalogue them as 'ugly'. I have firsthand experience on this since I grew up with a brother who is objectively hot, and of course hotter than me. And Im not talking 'yea hot' im talking 'way better looking than models' hot, we literally couldn't go anywhere without a girl approaching one way or another, and thats crazy to say about a guy. Since a young age i realized our social interactions always tended to gravitate towards him, and understood as I was already seeing, he was going to get better opportunities, and would have to work way less for the same objectives. What I did was I started taking advantage of it. p.e, when we were younger i used to bring him to work with me wherever I was working, cause I knew the reactions he provoked on people. So whenever we worked at the same place I never got fired bc usually the manager was either in love with him if it was a girl, or wanted to be friends with him if it was a guy. I admit it was funny seeing the same reactions on people every single time they met him, and their behavioral changes towards me, and thats just a small example. What im saying is life is mostly unfair. The best we can do is work with the cards we're dealt towards the best we can do.

airbreather 4y ago

There is some evidence that if there was any single physical characteristic that seems to be positive it is tallness. However, there are obviously many possible arguments on subtle cause/effects with correlated characteristics etc. I provide no references, but plenty exist if you search.

maury91 4y ago
Then I'm very screwed, I'm a Sardinian in Lithuania ( Sardinians are the shortest population in Europe,and Lithuanians one of the tallest )
- selfawareMammal 4y ago
  Thankfully it's not all about height, even though it's important. I'm sure you can sharpen other skills to make things go your way.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- maury91 4y ago
  I'm sorry it wasn't understandable, but I was sarcastic, I'm doing great even if I'm the shortest
  - giuscri 4y ago
    How did you end up in Lithuania from Sardinia? How's the life there for an engineer?
    - maury91 4y ago
      Kind of the classic story, my wife is Lithuanian. We first tried living in Sardinia but the job market in Sardinia is terrible, so we moved to her country so she could even more chances, and because I'm an Engineer for me finding work is easy in every country. Here in Lithuania Engineers are paid very well and are in high demand. For "very well" I mean compared to the average salary in the country, obviously you will get less money compared to UK or Germany. Cost of life is way cheaper than UK or Italy, both food and rent/mortgage is less than the other two countries
      - Bakary 4y ago
        Is it hard to illegally procure casu marzu in Lithuania?
        maury91 4y ago
        I'm not a big eater of Casu Martzu, so I don't know if getting is hard, but my parents usually ship me some homemade cheese without problems, I believe they could ship also Casu Martzu without problems ( I don't think customs check what type of cheese is being shipped )
- goethes_kind 4y ago
  Fratello! For me, being short seems to make people believe I am more approachable and that seems to work in my favour.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dijonman2 4y ago
It’s not about what you have, it’s about what you do with what you have. People who take care of themselves tend to have their life together. Correlation vs causation and all that.
vagrantJin 4y ago
Anecdotes are data points as well. Works well in careers where interacting with people might be more important than proficiency at the job.

jstx1 4y ago

Very - you can predict success to some extent based purely on people's yearbook photos: > Here the authors find that inferences of power from photos of the faces of the managing partners of America’s top 100 law firms significantly corresponded to their success as leaders, as measured by the amounts of profits that their firms earned. More interesting, this relationship was also observed when judgments were made based on photos of the leaders taken from their undergraduate yearbooks, before they began their careers or entered law school. Facial cues to success may therefore be consistent across much of the lifespan (approximately 20–50 years). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258189428_Judgments_of_Power_From_College_Yearbook_Photos_and_Later_Career_Success https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258189428_Judgments... There is also - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect - which is different from the above but obviously related.

Helmut10001 4y ago
Non-paywall link: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/33197/1/Rule%26Ambady%282011%29.pdf https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/33197/1/Ru...
WithinReason 4y ago
> you can predict success to some extent based purely on people's yearbook photos It's already shown that facial attractiveness can predict athletic prowess: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1474704918801369 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1474704918801369 So it's likely that people's abilities can influence their appearance. There was a lot of evolutionary pressure to develop abilities to judge people based on appearance, so we would expect humans to be really good at it.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  This result isn’t surprising at all though, compared to financial success. Obviously athleticism would be physically visible on the face (and probably be considered more attractive).
  - 4y ago

xupybd 4y ago

Pretty people get undeserved favor form basically everyone. Presentation has a lot of power. We're all shallower than we'd like. You can game this with little effort. Dress well, maintain a good haircut and pretend to be confident.

XorNot 4y ago
Also shower every day, and use deodorant. Too many people think if they can't smell anything then no one else can. They're wrong. Smell is a very primal sense, pretty much linked to our "you are in danger" response.
- feet 4y ago
  >Smell is a very primal sense, pretty much linked to our "you are in danger" response. Are you stating that all scents are fear inducing?
  - XorNot 4y ago
    No, but it is a sense we use constantly: people instinctively avoid unpleasant odors. It's one of our most basic environment assessment tools and it's always active: we smell things to assess all sorts of properties, but chiefly "is this toxic/a biohazard" is pretty well coded into us. Forcing someone to consciously suppress that impression upfront is fighting against some pretty basic "am I safe?" instincts.
    - feet 4y ago
      Smells also let us know when people are sick or signal a good match for mates, but deodorant is us covering up all signals without considering those other possibilities. When is the last time smells helped you avoid a toxic human?
fredestine 4y ago
tbh it depends. in IT if you are handsome other people will be jealous and they will also think you are stupid or not as smart as them because of your appearance.

lm28469 4y ago

As much as everywhere else, everyone will tell you it doesn't matter but we're all biased in a way or another

hardware2win 4y ago

I do believe that yes

tipsytoad 4y ago

I'm sure it has a role, alongside other features such as charisma and confidence. Of course the effect is subjective and varied, but oftentimes I've found that people that claim a decision being down to appearance to be those that blame their computer when their code doesn't run :)

lbriner 4y ago
My own experience is that confidence trumps everything. There are people who really don't know that much (in multiple fields, not just Dev) but they are either completely un self-aware or they don't care and simply portray rock solid confidence. Perhaps some fields demand this like marketing where certain sorts of marketing are hard to quantify/value objectively so you need to show confidence so that the department keeps its funding!
- rchaud 4y ago
  Confidence that persists in spite of rejection. People who are by their own admission lack confidence will not enter situations where the probability of rejection is high. Confident people will enter a greater number of these situations, and will continue to enter them even if they were rejected previously.

steerpike 4y ago

Coming to grips with the hidden influence of my own physicality has been a long term struggle for me. I realised over a long time that the fact that I was over six foot, male, white, bearded, broad and articulate meant that people inherently saw me as significantly more capable and tended to defer to me in a multitued of situations. This wasn't something that naturally gelled with the way I viewed my own competencies, but it's also really, really, really hard to get people to stop doing. Basically I have a significant 'self discrepancy gap'[0] between 'Own Actual' and 'Other Actual' that I constantly need to work at. Years of experience have taught me that these kind of gaps are pretty common in our industry. Yes it exists and think it's incredibly important for people to be aware of the power of their own physicality and not to abuse it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discrepancy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discrepancy_theory

Traubenfuchs 4y ago
Own it and be thankful for the gifts you were given. I just wonder where we were today without those favorable attributes?
eigart 4y ago
I have those same physical traits, and this comment was helpful. This has been really frustrating as a junior developer, it's just impossible to get any critical feedback or have someone take a mentorship role. I've been in so many dumb situations where someone more experienced or knowledgeable should have just told me I was doing something dumb. I am certain it is a net positive without trying to abuse it, but I've been thinking about it a lot since graduating. Everyone just treats me really well and places a lot of completely unwarranted trust in me.
- jan_Inkepa 4y ago
  >This has been really frustrating as a junior developer, it's just impossible to get any critical feedback or have someone take a mentorship role. I've had a situation where I was asking a tall/attractive/charismatic acquaintance for technical advice and he stoped me and said something like "Why are you asking me for advice, you are way more experienced than I am". It's not that I shouldn't have talked with him about the technical matter, just that it was funny that I slid so naturally into the 'underling' role.

antiherovelo 4y ago

It matters. If you are tall and good looking, it helps. BUT… Amongst the vast majority of the most capable, successful, and broadly well-respected people I have worked with, their status has had little to do with their beauty. I am thinking of folks that are not “attractive” in any conventional sense, yet their wits and competence and heart makes them so. In certain professions, the effect of beauty is outsized. I hardly need name these; look for shallow aesthetes and cameras. In technical professions that value actual competence, I have found that it doesn’t matter (much.)

totetsu 4y ago

Throw into that list, the way you talk, the set of vocabulary you use, the clothes you wear, your Cultural Capital.

thefz 4y ago

Yes, in good and bad ways. I've witnessed very competent and attractive female colleagues get discredited for their appearance, every comment implying that they fucked their way up to their position, or being unable to be close friends with any male coworker for the same reason. But all in all dressing appropriately to your body, being clean and well groomed is a positive for everyone.

noir_lord 4y ago

All things been equal (which they never are) then physical attractiveness is probably a slight benefit to the attractive person. Similar to the statistical correlation with tallness (though again whether that's a matter of taller than average people doing well because they are taller or because physical height is correlated with better diet/socio-economic group as a child etc). This stuff is always so blurry because of confounding factors and inability to control for other factors.

jefffoster 4y ago

Gives me a chance to reference the best Harvard Business Review title ever: How Earlobes Can Signify Leadership Potential (https://hbr.org/2011/11/how-earlobes-can-signify-leadership-potential https://hbr.org/2011/11/how-earlobes-can-signify-leadership-...)

jcutrell 4y ago
Finally a link in this thread that will fuel my confirmation bias.
rchaud 4y ago
This title sounds like it was thought up in a Middle Managers sub-forum on Bodybuilding.com

luckylion 4y ago

It obviously does. It will be interesting how much of a shift we'll see with more work from home. Do the same effects carry over in calls and async communication? Will "more video calls" mean attractiveness plays a larger role? Will doing voice calls weaken that (or focus it on the voice alone)?

fsloth 4y ago

Good looking people have always an edge. Tall people always appear more competent than their shorter colleagues. These are biases. They can be overriden by the experiences of people in a community quite easily, but towards unfamiliar people these biases can be quite strong.

fiat_fandango 4y ago
Curiously, as I've gotten older I've found that "weird" looking people who are also confident enough to some degree are almost always far more interesting in terms of personal pursuits / interests than "pretty" or conventionally attractive people. Maybe this is a personal bias - but in time being attractive impresses me to a similar degree as someone driving a flashy car - sure it's pretty looking, but I don't ascribe that to real success or depth of intellect. Dating pretty people in New York quickly illustrated how dull most "pretty" women are. The one thing I'll never understand is how shaving my head actually increased my perceived attractiveness with women - admittedly I'm a weird somewhat unattractive person.

newaccount2021 4y ago

dougmwne 4y ago

Absolutely, in a major way. There are piles of studies showing all kinds of pay discrimination based on physical characteristics. The meritocracy is bullshit. People hire tall sexy people. You really think the workplace is all that different from Tinder?

langitbiru 4y ago

Height: - https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/naija-fashion/203429-many-ceos-tall-people-height-matter-bisi-daniels.html https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/naija-fashion/2... - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/the-necktie-syndrome-why-ceos-tend-to-be-significantly-taller-than-the-average-male/articleshow/10178115.cms?from=mdr https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/the-necktie-syndrome-wh... Attractiveness: - https://www.geekwire.com/2014/study-ugly-men-tougher-time-raising-venture-capital/ https://www.geekwire.com/2014/study-ugly-men-tougher-time-ra...

trabant00 4y ago

On average and in statistics - absolutely. The effect has been measured by numerous studies. But studies use large numbers and actively try to eliminate other factors, which is why I would caution against using this on a personal level to try to explain certain outcomes. Remember this thing about statistics: on average Bill Gates and any one of us are billionaires. I think a lot of people are using studies like this to justify some shortcomings in their life when you can easily look around the people you know and see hugely varied outcomes regardless of looks. And good looks can be a career trap too, especially if you actively rely on them. And one more thing: by far one of the most important physical appearance factors is youth. Which goes away for the best looking. And it also clearly shows the importance of other factors as we don't have a world full of 22 year old CEOs.

mettamage 4y ago

Well, tangentially related and I don't know enough of the topic (I haven't delved into it yet) but "pretty privilege" is a thing. Here are a couple of seed links for further investigation (I have no clue about their quality): https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pretty+privilege+ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pretty+privileg... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeunlimited https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeun... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeunlimited https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiOI4tF2uo&ab_channel=zoeun... -- I have some ideas, anecdotes and personal experiences on the topic (as I'm traveling a lot as a digital nomad and I tend to talk to people wherever/whenever since I solo travel). I'm sorry that I can't make this comment razor sharp (also in brevity, it's tough to do). The reason I'm sorry for that is because I know that this is a sensitive topic and I might step on some toes. I don't intend to, but it might be a bit inevitable. Some people might think that speaking from personal experience is not enough. And yes, it's definitely biased, but I am noticing I am learning a lot more about European/western society (as a Dutch person even) than I was in the past 10 years simply because I talk to a lot of people. I'm currently traveling a lot and in daily life I see a huge difference to how people treat you when attractive. In The Netherlands I'm at best average in attractiveness (I've asked for brutal feedback from multiple people, and I'm averaging 6 out of 10). However, in other countries I'm seen as slightly more attractive because I'm about 190 cm, which is 6.23 feet/inches (whatever you Americans use). Dutch people are one of the tallest if not the tallest in the world. So I'm more common there. Already in Germany, I'm seen as more attractive due to my "language skills" (Dutch people speak better English than Germans, on average, I definitely do; combined with some conversational German/Italian and some basic French). And I do notice the difference. And I'm beginning to get a hunch that in Southern Europe I'm even seen as more attractive since they're a lot shorter on average. All of this is based on how I interact with women. I've noticed that men don't really act that differently around me. I've been in Lisbon and Berlin recently and met all kinds of people. But yea, I'm seeing my own "pretty privilege" (however marginal) in the dating market. People treat me differently whereas I stay the same. And I'm definitely hearing stories of how very stereotypically attractive women are getting whatever they want (even if they don't want it). I'm also hearing how stereotypically attractive women are more prone to having experienced sexual violence. So if you think they have it easy: I'm not going to compare, I'm not going to judge. I know too little, but what I do see is that less stereotypical attractive women seem to talk less about having experienced sexual violence (again, I might be biased, my sample might be biased, something else might be off - it's just my personal experience and it does beg the question to formulate a hypothesis and investigate if one would be an academic feminist/psychologist, provided there is no research on it). But looks influence stuff in daily life so hard that it must have a strong effect in corporate culture as well. This is especially the case since men are the assertive sex when it comes to the mating game, and men are holding more economic/political power than women. Humans are not robots. We can't keep our emotions fully hidden or suppressed. Biases will leak out, whether we're aware of them or not. So logically speaking, yes, it will have some effect. A more interesting question would be more: how much of an effect? Will it have more of an effect for women? If you have a female boss/male subordinate will it have more of an effect (if the male is attractive)? There are a lot of variables here that might influence the strength of the effect. With that said, I've also experienced how much pure "inner beauty" can do, from both my side and other men/women. It can do a whole lot, especially when presented with positivity and optimism. My experience is that a lot of charisma can be trained. Like, I don't think I'll ever be wildly charismatic. But compared to my untrained self, I'm an order to two order of magnitudes better, and it has definitely helped me to make my inner world more relatable to other people. Knowing how you present yourself in a: 1 on 1 conversation, group conversation and presentation... It's important and has little to do with personality and looks (other than that the personality and looks need to be incorporated with how to present yourself, but in all look/personality variations - communication skills in being relatable and pleasant to be around with is a skill - even the most hardcore pessimist can be relatable and pleasant to be around with by using his/her pessimism as very creative playful humor, for example).

rrgok 4y ago

I'm kinda glad to read these comments, because they mostly align with my perception. The popular opinion among my circle of friends and relatives is that appearance doesn't matter for men: it is all hard-work and grind. It is exhausting to make people see that all else being equal, physicality play a non negligible role.

xenocratus 4y ago

This is just one single study - I would prefer a meta analysis, if anyone has one - but it's worth sharing nonetheless. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/715141 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/715141

reactor 4y ago

Beside all those mentioned, I've seen people with loud and sharp (not high pitch sort of) voice getting an edge (sometimes unfair advantage) in many professional settings.

jan_Inkepa 4y ago
"Sharp", as in people who are good at articulating words?
- reactor 4y ago
  People who are good at articulation will have listeners, but what I meant is sound without 'buzziness'.
  - GameOfFrowns 4y ago
    Perhaps you mean 'voice projection'? Unfortunately voice is just another factor that comes to genetics. I've been training to lower my rather high-pitched voice and voice projection for years now, albeit without much to show. Guess I hit the limit of my genetic potential.
silveroriole 4y ago
And in any loud, crowded room (say at a conference, or a pub/bar after work), women and quieter men will struggle to be heard at all. Men with loud deep voices will dominate the conversation automatically. This probably has more impact on professional development than people think.

blackoil 4y ago

If I consider my own biases, I would consider a fit, well groomed person to be more competent. I believe this bias is based on fact that if someone is fit also means he/she is disciplined and well groomed is meticulous and these traits would transfer to other aspects of work also. Now, I understand that lot of things like age, genetics, ... make up for some of the signal that I am reading, but that is the nature of biases.

GameOfFrowns 4y ago
A lot of what makes attractive men's bodies look "attractive" is in the bone structure. They look fit without actually having to be fit: height, rugged face, wide shoulders, barrel chest, narrow hips.

quadcore 4y ago

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statictype 4y ago
Kind of agree. There are definite obvious advantages in certain physical characteristics. But it’s trivial to overshadow those with either a. being really good at what you do b. Being socially approachable c. Deft at playing the political game
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  If you have to be 99.9999th percentile at what you “do” to overshadow those, how trivial is it? I do not foresee a future where an American political party nominates a 5ft3in (1.6m) man as a Presidential, or even Senate candidate. Similar for playing professional level sports, or lead actor in movies.
  - matwood 4y ago
    Tom Cruise is listed as 5'7" - he's probably a bit shorter. Sports will lean towards whatever physical characteristics benefits the sport.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Tom Cruise is 60 years old and got famous during a time a when average height for upper socioeconomic classes was lower. Is there any example more recent than him? If he was auditioning for his roles today, I doubt he gets them. Especially because actresses are nowadays just as tall or taller with heels, why bother having to do all the work to make the actor look a little taller than the actress, when you can just hire another actor. >Sports will lean towards whatever physical characteristics benefits the sport. Of course, but in many popular sports, being taller and bigger makes you so much faster and stronger such that if you are first percentile in size, no realistic amount of talent will give you an advantage.

log101 4y ago

Here it is asked whether appearance makes any difference in professional setting, but comments seem to be diverged from the question. Young people seem to exaggerate the role of their appearance, it might make a slight difference when you first trying to find a job, but after that all that is left is your experience and talent. I can't imagine getting fired for being ugly or landing (and then staying at) a job for being attractive.

deleted 4y ago
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GameOfFrowns 4y ago
>but after that all that is left is your experience and talent This is wishful thinking.
rchaud 4y ago
> I can't imagine getting fired for being ugly or landing (and then staying at) a job for being attractive. You're looking at it the other way around. You wouldn't get fired for being 'ugly', but you could be treated less well than your co-workers, or not be offered a pathway to a higher-level job with better compensation.

Tepix 4y ago

There's only so much you can do about being tall and good looking. Even losing weight is extremely difficult for some people. You should focus on the things you can influence easily, i.e. clothes (including shoes), grooming, manners, ...

dustedcodes 4y ago

It's probably controversial to say, because we _want_ to be better than just animals, but the hard truth is that we are still animalistic in every sense and physical appearance plays a fundamental role in absolutely everything in life. Being good looking, tall and physically fit is the biggest privilege in life. You don't need to be Jeff Bezos rich, if you look good you can pick and choose partners as and when you wish. You can live out some of your craziest fantasies because women/men will do things which they wouldn't do in normal circumstances. Married people will cheat because they want a taste of you, people will be extremely inviting to you even they don't know you, people will give you the benefit of trust, they will be extra friendly, at Christmas parties people will seek conversations with you which will increase your social score at work and help with promotions because popular people are more likely to get given extra opportunities and responsibilities and so forth. In short, if you are good looking you will be able to experience things in life which so many people will never even dream of. Things that you'd think only happen to filthy rich people or in movies will all of a sudden happen to you even when you didn't look for it. Doors just open and you will be able to either say yes or no to those chances in life. I am not saying it is good, as mentioned, we try to be better than this, but the facts speak against it. This was posted on HN a while ago and I really enjoyed this read: https://medium.com/@sfard/the-greatest-privilege-we-hardly-talk-about-beauty-7db3f70c1116 https://medium.com/@sfard/the-greatest-privilege-we-hardly-t...

unsigner 4y ago
"Tall" is something that comes out of the genetic roulette, and there's little you can do (see the recent article about men going through painful leg bone extension procedures). However, "being physically fit" is under your control (for the vast majority of people) and you can tip the scales quite a bit on "being good looking" if you make the effort.
gorilla0 4y ago
Putting on my philosophical hat for a minute, I would say that while humans have put in lot of social structures to counter evolutionary tendencies, they still slip through in all our interactions with other humans.
4y ago

dmichulke 4y ago

Out of all the above adjectives, the ones that are "actionable" are skinny/strong and fat/fit. I made an effort to improve in those areas and I feel the results. Simple things like people looking away if you look back at them, abusive bosses shouting at my colleagues but never at me, or reining in a couple of misbehaving 8 year olds with a determined look.

GameOfFrowns 4y ago
What is your height?
- dmichulke 4y ago
  6'2" = 189cm

jossclimb 4y ago

open a twitter account as someone working in tech, with a photo of a cute girl and watching your following number skyrocket.

deleted 4y ago
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le-mark 4y ago

I once worked with a short, over weight white guy, late 30 or early 40 who moved into a client facing role. It was a disaster. Although he dressed well, he had the body type that clothes just didn’t fit him well. He would always look disheveled and frumpy, his shirts would not stay tucked in. He was very capable but the (east coast) business bros at the client would not take him seriously and openly mocked him. He went back to a technical role. It was sad and I learned a lot about human nature from witnessing it.

rchaud 4y ago
Building a wardrobe of clothes that fit is the kind of "hack" that is blindingly obvious, but I think would rub HN readers the wrong way. It feels deceptive, because nothing about your inherent skills or personal qualities have changed. But short of changing your body, face or racial background (none of which should impact a career negatively to begin with), changing your wardrobe probably has the highest and quickest ROI.
Bakary 4y ago
By definition he is not dressing well. There is a ceiling to what you can do with certain body types but frumpiness and untucked shirts is not that.
tacostakohashi 4y ago
From an "east coast business bro" perspective, looking presentable is a simple problem-solving exercise. Obesity can be tackled with diet and exercise, and if off-the-rack clothing doesn't fit well, one can get bespoke shirts made by a tailor. A person who presents themselves as not being able to manage this task is treated accordingly. Note that this isn't related to some congenital trait, it's all about the choices the person makes for themselves.
- ferrumfist 4y ago
  I kind of agree with you, actually. I think when it comes to clients, you should be presenting yourself in such a way that's most likely to sync with them. If your client is a bunch of grizzled/cynical old-school IT guys then you should approach them differently from how you would treat a room full of young type-A finance bros.

krageon 4y ago

If you are more beautiful (or at the very least more trained) than the person next to you, folks will listen to you more. Your natural looks influence that, but focusing on that won't help: You cannot change that. Going to the gym is something you can do. You will not have debates in an organisation. You will have popularity contests. Sometimes those are judged on the merit of what you say, but usually they are judged on how much what you say appeals to the other listeners.

johnnymorgan 4y ago

It's no different than high school is the sad reality

ivanmontillam 4y ago

I'd say that physical appearance affects yes, and I'd add that your name is also part of that physical appearance impact. If you have a commonly accepted name (like "John"), your life will not be hard nor easy. If your name is a mixup of your parents name or something just invented on the spot, you'll life will be harder. You may ease it up by adding a nickname. If your name is not a common one, but accepted in previous generations (like "Anastasius" or "Manfred", "Vincent", etc.) it'll be seen as a bold choice by your parents and impact positively your life.

Bakary 4y ago
Since when is Vincent in the same league as Anastasius or Manfred? (No it's not my own name… just curious)

bloak 4y ago

It's probably just me (I'm probably neurodivergent in some way) but in discussions like this people keep using the word "attractive" and I honestly have no idea what they mean by that word. If you showed me two photographs of people and asked me which looks more "intelligent", which looks more "wise", which looks more "honest", which looks more "friendly", which looks more "approachable", or dozens of questions like that, I could have a go at answering the question. But if you asked me which looks more "attractive" I would have no idea how to answer. Would I understand the question if it were phrased differently, or is the concept itself something that I have for some reason never acquired? Does anyone else have this problem, or is it really just me? (Sorry if this is a little bit off-topic: of course the original question doesn't use the word "attractive".)

SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
Someone you'd want to have sex with, not to put to fine a point on it...
- Bakary 4y ago
  That's not a sufficient criteria because people can tell if their competitors are attractive ar not
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Male taste in men and female taste in men are not the same. Straight men and most gay men think muscle bound manly men with chiselled jaws are the hotness. Lots of women like KPop androgynes. Lots more men be ‘mirin a guy who has big muscles than women.
    - Bakary 4y ago
      Even taking this into account, it's still possible to determine or sense the attractiveness of most attractive competitors. At least to the point where sexual attraction cannot be the sole criteria
- 4y ago

Blackstone4 4y ago

Sexism and racism....are huge areas of concern...whereas tall men and good looking people are treated much better than short men and ugly people...our morality, in the West, is inconsistent and arbitary..

Bakary 4y ago
There's a limited amount of energy and time available, and fixing problems is difficult and uncertain. If we wanted something more consistent, we would probably have to pull a Peter Singer and donate the bulk of our resources to the most unfortunate. I don't think we really want a less arbitrary system even if we could define it!
- Blackstone4 4y ago
  Yeah I see where you are coming from. I do not necessarily want us to be 100% consistent...just an honest conversation about how arbitary we are!!
  - Bakary 4y ago
    That would open up a Pandora's box, honestly. Even if the goal were 20% consistency, short or ugly people would definitely not make the cut compared to helping people in the third world or other potential targets of redistributive justice. Our entire economic and social edifice is built on certain other countries being poorer and less energy intensive. Now if the goal is simply to be a bit more mindful, that would be doable i.e. avoiding unnecessary remarks about height the way we avoid saying hurtful comments in other contexts

Daub 4y ago

I have a classic British accent. When I started teaching in foreign universities, I found that in meetings people would stop and listen to what I was saying… even defer to me. In the UK, I was just another Brit, is a sea of Brits, and thusly ignored.

rchaud 4y ago
Spare a thought for those with heavy Scottish accents teaching overseas.

motohagiography 4y ago

Being in shape is an honest and almost unfakable signal of work and personal discipline, which has knock on effects to your credibility in any discussion. It may be worth asking what the quality of the assumption that we don't have control over our appearance is. Consider someone who just doesn't take care of themselves, and what beliefs and choices their consequent appearance is the effect of. There is a contra- effect as well, where in some environments, being physically repulsive is a signal of power. Government and academia spring to mind. In tech we have a natural suspicion of shiny looking sales and marketing people, but when you examine that closely, it's because they live and die based on the actual revealed desires of others, where in tech power is independent of desire, and power comes from outsmarting, defeating, and overpowering others intellectually or politically. There is a conflict addiction among "nerds," where we have to tilt at machines and objects instead of people to get our adrenal hit because other people don't really tolerate that aggressive need from others very enthusiastically. Since we prevail based on intellectual domination, we don't index on physical appearance as much, but people who prevail based on actual desire necessarily do. In the thousands of co-workers I can remember, I would say the main strategy of people who prevail in discussions, but who have neglected their physical appearance - is disagreeableness. It either originates from some quirk that causes them to miss social cues, or it was learned behaviour where they realized they didn't need to make themselves appealing if they were persistent. There is also a cliche about PhD's being like this, where a great number have been trained to be weirdly combative based on their recieved authority, while lacking the normal signifiers of success like basic physical fitness, collegiality, benevolence, charisma, wit, charm, and ultimately other people just attribute their uncanny ignobility to their institution. We have tons of data from social media sites, chat apps, and online forums where it would be plausible to rank text-based charisma (pure ideas) and physical attractiveness as judged by an algorithm, and we could find out empirically whether there is a strong correlation, but I don't think we need to. Appearance is an evolutionary strategy, and I would say, yes it is very influential because we listen to people based on it because it's a signal of how invested they likely are in certain values.

fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
I think law students and lawyers are nerds of a sort. We like disagreeable people like a blade enjoys a whetstone. Abrasive, sure, but helpful in honing our skills and ideas even if it demands care and persistence. With the self-awareness that one is sometimes the blade, sometimes the whetstone, I think there’s a place-for and value-in all types.

notacoward 4y ago

One attribute that I haven't seen mentioned yet is voice. A man with a deep voice absolutely will get more attention than their peers, while a high and/or nasal voice (male or female) can be a significant handicap. A bit of training can help, but to a large extent these are innate and immutable characteristics that can effect career (and romantic) trajectories.

Bakary 4y ago
Some languages or accents within languages make this problem worse or ameliorate it. It's better to be high-pitched and British than high-pitched and American.
- rchaud 4y ago
  The acceptability of accents is heavily influenced by pop culture, which is perhaps why a high-pitched British accent may seem OK, because of the compensatory cultural value of the Britishness. A Russian accent will not be treated as generously in the English-speaking world, after years of bad-guy one-liners being the reference point. Same goes if you have a Middle Eastern accent, or an Indian accent.
  - notacoward 4y ago
    I'm sure there are many people for whom those are The Worst, but in my direct experience the worst reactions tend to be associated with accents within the US. Try speaking with a Texas accent in Brooklyn, or vice versa. Yikes.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      But you see my point. A TX accent can be substituted for a more mainstream one far more easily than a foreign accent can.
- Daub 4y ago
  Owner/user of Classic British ascent and former drama student. When I was taught elocution, we were told to begin and end each word distinctly to the following/preceding words. This impacts positively of the 'readability' of speaking. This 'clipped' delivery is the distinguishing feature of the classic British received pronunciation (RP) accent.

remify 4y ago

Last year a few months after confinment I went on vacation and while I was having a break in a too expensive restaurant in the Geneve airport something weird was going on but I couldn't tell what. An hour later it hit me, all these people around me were good looking and outright elegant. Most of them were doing business. A lot of studies shows that indeed good looking people does have better odds in the traditional success game.

throwaway2016a 4y ago

Not an answer to your question per-say but I believe there is a strong correlation. Anecdotally I've seen traditionally good looking people get promoted far more often even for technical non-sales roles. I've actually become a little obsessed with this idea (stopping shy of being unhealthy). To the point where I lost 25 lbs (through diet and exercise over 6 months), wear nicer cloths (even on Zoom meetings), and whiten my teeth. And it may be a placebo effect. It may just be increased confidence. But I think I've seen results from it. I'm lucky I have a starting point that was already good (but not great) by US societal standards (I'm average height, male, was only slightly overweight, in good health, and my body responds well to exercise for someone almost hitting 40). But some people may not be lucky. Edit: For context, I'm a technical founder (CxO). I think the effect may be more limited if you are, say, a junior software developer where technical and soft skills may be enough to differentiate you and run you up the ladder. But at the very competitive higher levels it often boils down to who they board/execs/principals/investors like more. And looks, unfortunately, play a role.

fiat_fandango 4y ago

I'm in my late twenties but look about four years younger, I'm in good shape but I'm also bald and have supposedly a "weird" face. I'm sure if I was forced to go back to an in-office environment I'd encounter progress issues because of my appearance. While at FAANG I actually started to wear makeup to mask the dark circles I naturally have under my eyes - for better or for worse I also have an expensive skincare routine now. Undeniably I look weird - I really worry about this going into the future.

rchaud 4y ago
I suggest you have a gander at Marc Andreessen's photo for the New Yorker (or was it Vanity Fair), and ask yourself if you look weird by comparison. I can almost assure you that you don't, at least not in comparison to that pic.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Looking weird in public is a form of fronting for people like Andreessen. "I have so much money your opinion means literally nothing to me because I will never need anything from you".
  - fiat_fandango 4y ago
    You have a point haha - but I had some portraits taken last year and after the fact I had to say "I looked like a fucking beluga whale" hahaha

sainib 4y ago

Short answer: Yes Long answer : people with better physical appearance are generally more successful, leaving all other conditions similar. Bottomline: part of career growth planning should focus on improving physical appearance. Join gym, eat right, get timely haircut etc.

tpoacher 4y ago

Not exactly where you were going with this, but yes, absolutely: the way you present and thus perceive yourself absolutely affects how you behave, which in turn affects your performance, as well as how others see you.

regularperson26 4y ago

I believe this is a subject that is not talked about enough. First because of a) If you haven't experienced it or paid close attention it will go over your head and b) People don't like to openly talk about 'pretty privilege' because they think the mere act of talking about it will inherently catalogue them as 'ugly'. I have firsthand experience on this since I grew up with a brother who is objectively hot, and of course hotter than me. And Im not talking 'yea hot' im talking 'way better looking than models' hot, we literally couldn't go anywhere without a girl approaching one way or another, and thats crazy to say about a guy. Since a young age i realized our social interactions always tended to gravitate towards him, and understood as I was already seeing, he was going to get better opportunities, and would have to work way less for the same objectives. What I did was I started taking advantage of it. p.e, when we were younger i used to bring him to work with me wherever I was working, cause I knew the reactions he provoked on people. So whenever we worked at the same place I never got fired bc usually the manager was either in love with him if it was a girl, or wanted to be friends with him if it was a guy. I admit it was funny seeing the same reactions on people every single time they met him, and their behavioral changes towards me, and thats just a small example. What im saying is life is mostly unfair. The best we can do is work with the cards we're dealt towards the best we can do.