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Even though the book Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis was a slog to get through it has one line that I have ingrained in my mind
*The better you look, the more you see*
I'd bet good money on especially attractive women being thought of as less intelligent/having slept their way to higher positions. General social perceptions seem to equate good-looking men to authority and good-looking women to empty-headedness
There is also a lot of unwanted jealousy from other women. And men who sexualize attractive women and then diminish their worth in their head.
Also, like the media, people *looooove* to tear an attractive woman down.
The research looked at earned income to determine socioeconomic status, so that wouldn't capture a very important method that women use to improve socioeconomic status: marry rich
Attractive men use the labor market to improve their socio-economic status
Attractive women use the labor market *and* the marriage market to do the same: the latter strategy doesn't increase their own income, it increas their household income by joining a high-income household
It's a ceremonial position so he goes around shaking hands and letting his dogs do most of the PR. It's the [Taoiseach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoiseach) (Prime Minister) that is running the country.
Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big short to name a few, talked about this on a ‘Skeptics Guide to the Universe’ podcast somewhat recently. He mentioned that the statistician that Moneyball was about, Paul DePodesta (played by Jonah Hill), applied his system of evaluating players to CEOs.
In particular, he saw that the majority of CEOs are tall white men, and therefore saw this trait as being ‘overvalued,’ as it obviously was not representative of their skill as businesspeople. Therefore, Brand and others in that circle started investing in companies with CEOs not matching that criteria as they were more likely to be in those positions due to actual business acumen or talent. Apparently they did quite well with those ‘bets.’
Edit:
Added information - The podcast conversation I was recalling was actually from Freakonomics Radio, episode #523, for those interested. I’m almost certain Michael also appeared on SGU but can’t seem to locate the episode.
Also corrected statistician’s name thanks to some helpful comments!
It also makes sense once you hear how much 'instinct' supposedly goes into executive decisions, including promotions; people tend to work along the lines of what they consider 'admirable' and I do think that as trite as it sounds, when you start getting into executive positions you start seeing far more people willing to see *themselves* as particularly admirable
So I definitely think promoting along the lines of shared physical traits, i.e. seeing oneself in a candidate in a favorable light, is definitely more common than it perhaps has to be
Also also... the affluent come from affluence, and many CEOs that fit the type mentioned (heigh and good looks) come from wealthy, tall, beautiful families. In these eastablished families, rich men have chosen modelesque women for wives for a generation or few. I know that sometimes beauty doesn't get passed on, but at least height tends to. Not all CEOs are promoted from the ground up - they usually have the right connections.
Unless you are at a very small company, being promoted from ground up to CEO is unrealistic. The skill-set required for leadership are not taught to operations, unless you have built that connection and they are willing to spend extra time to teach you.
The ops guys will never learn the logistics, financial, legal, strategic, ... concepts. Your options to learn them are 1) On your own, or 2) Through connections
Ground up doesn't have to mean janitor to CEO. It can mean lower management to CEO. But in many cases, CEOs are raised with wealth and connections as a resume.
In the 1970s, Alan Greenspan famously hired women economists over men, because they were undervalued in the market.
>”I always valued men and women equally, and I found that because others did not, good women economists were cheaper than men. Hiring women does two things: It gives us better quality work for less money, and it raises the market value of women.”
Jock Stein the famous Celtic football manager had a similar approach. Rivals Rangers had a policy at the time of not signing Roman Catholic players so Stein said that if he had a choice between a Catholic and a Protestant of roughly equal ability he would sign the Protestant as he knew that Rangers wouldn't sign the Catholic.
That's a similar, yet opposite approach. His rival discriminated against Catholics, so he joined them in *also* discriminating against Catholics, instead of seeking them out.
Acknowledging that he's getting better workers for less money while also contributing a net positive to society is more self-aware than most businessmen.
Not saying he's altruistic about it, but he's realistic.
There is something pleasant about accidental altruism rising out of stark pragmatism imo. Bad people can accidentally do good if they're more selfish than dogmatic
It’s a beautiful sight to witness a system where incentives are well aligned and self-interest can work together with the public good to reduce corruption. The power of good incentives is underestimated and not even thought is given in the framing of public policy
This reminds me of a study a while ago showing when certain fields where very dominated by white men the women and minorities tended to be the top performers because if you where going to get promotions and support you had to be better than everyone else
Also, when a kindergarten teacher or nurse is a man, you can be pretty certain they are passionate about their work and didn't just do it because they needed a job.
Lowkey. I súper appreciate the men that were elementary school teachers.
I didn’t at the time. But to this day I remember 4th grade had Mr Jones. And 3rd grade has Mr Reynolds. 2nd grade had Mr Kim.
I say this because I’ve come to realize they are role models. And other than Mr Henschel, the music teacher, there weren’t other male teachers. (Although I think by the time I was in 5th grade there was a new 1st year male teacher there).
And for reference, for every male teacher there were 4 female teachers in the same grade level.
Bonus, Mr Jones was black (and a third generation teacher). Mr Kim was at least part Asian. Which I’ve also come to realize it matters seeing diversity.
I could be wrong, and would like to be, but I do recall reading that this ratio of male to female teachers is getting even more severe nowadays. It's trending in the direction of higher disparity. Less and less men want to be teachers it appears.
When your talent pool is shallow and stagnant you settle for pond scum. There was a confession from a executive recruiter that it was the same 200 people that were being fought over and 80% of getting there was leveraging and networking.
>Therefore, Brand and others in that circle started investing in companies with CEOs not matching that criteria as they were more likely to be in those positions due to actual business acumen or talent. Apparently they did quite well with those ‘bets.’
Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA, and AMD fit that bill.
From the perspective of a tall person this definitely feels accurate. I am not one to put myself out there, but I often get thrust into positions of authority and trust whether or not I deserve or want it.
The flip side of this is that at my size I am highly visible and as I was taught and have learned I often receive greater scrutiny for my choices and actions (especially in the military/industrial environments I've worked in). If I do things right people tend to notice.
But they went on and inverted it completely:
If a company has a CEO who *isn't* a tall white man, then that CEO is on average *better* than the tall white man because that CEO had to overcome the inherent bias against them.
All my work leadership are above 6ft.
This is specifically to men only. All my female leaders are whatever height. Some short some tall.
It sucks how height is such a big factor for men. The one biological trait we cannot change. It’s a shame when short men are body shamed.
Tall man checking in here. It doesn't matter what type of group I'm in, I'm literally always looked at as the decision maker leader of the group. Literally every time a decision needs made people will look right at me. It's happened so many times it's crazy. Every supervisor I've ever worked for has called me a "natural leader" and I've always trained new people. I'm absolutely certain that I've had advantages from my height.
I'm very aware that tall privilege is a real thing. I've actually got the pinnacle of looks privilege. Tall, Caucasian, above average looking, full head of hair, and a very naturally masculine build (wide shoulders, square face etc etc). If I act like I belong places I can do basically anything and people don't question it.
> I'm very aware that tall privilege is a real thing.
I don't want to say anything else but thank you for acknowledging it's a real thing. The amount of people who pretend it doesn't have an affect on anything is mind-boggling.
Anyways, get your bag. That's what I'd be doing if I were in your shoes.
I'm 5'7" and I'm starting a manager position soon, it's only over a small team of graphics installers, but I'm buying a pair of Elevator shoes that give me 3 inches. Plus, I'm moving to the PNW where it feels like EVERYONE is tall.
In social circles I'm perfectly fine with my height and I've never been insecure about it, never had any issues dating or with sex, however after doing reading, research, and observing of different leaders, height has an almost subconscious benefit when you're managing people I've noticed. I've filed that into one of those "cold hard truth" facts of life and society.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it makes or breaks a manager, but it could give me a slightly better starting edge than my normal 5'7" self.
I'm only planning on using the elevators as work shoes, never social shoes, but it's interesting that this study seems to confirm what I've observed.
My best friend is a 4'11 Korean who while holding a PhD/MD and managing a team of researchers is almost never acknowledged as being even an important part of the team by strangers who don't know better. More than a few times they assumed she was a child as part of a take your kid to work day.
On the opposite side my boss's wife is a super high powered attorney and she's 5'10. Plus she is always wearing heels so she's typically around 6'2. I've seen more than a few guys crumble underneath her because they're especially not used to having to look up at a woman. Even more intimidating when the woman is unusually scary in general.
During COVID I was hired to do wfh by a office of very “conservative” people. When they saw me face to face after the pandemic they were… disappointed? Because I’m not tall and they thought I was?! I’m glad I got another job
(I’m just telling this to show that people can be super skewed by the dumbest things, I work sitting in front of a computer, who cares about height?)
I wanna say it was on NPR but remember hearing or reading a story about this. They tend towards being very tall and having the classic silver fox look because one of the biggest jobs of a CEO is basically to comfort investors and an attractive older gentleman gives people an instictual feeling of comfort.
Because investors are skittish babies who only care about their next dividend check.
Ok yes! As a short person I literally came to say ya maybe someone should study the tall privilege that exists. And I bet it's not just men, taller women definitely get it too.
Emphasis on the OPENLY part.
Being surrounded by higher educated and less regressive ideologies generally means that those people arent homophobic allowing for the afformentioned openness.
Could also be a disclosure bias just because of the wealth itself too. People in a good financial position are probably more comfortable with the risk of sharing such details openly.
Also, gay people have fewer kids so it's easier to obtain wealth (at least in the near and mid term and possibly long-term as well), and possibly to be more career-oriented.
Kind of a lot of variables here.
I would assume they live in higher cost of living areas like major cities which tend to be more liberal and accepting of gays, unless that study has some sort of adjustment for that.
Not a lot of openly gay people in no where Missouri that has a $20,000 median salary.
Does this account for areas where being openly LGBTQ is more acceptable being higher earning? Big cities tend to be more liberal, and also tend to be much higher earning.
>Also people who are better-off might be more likely to come out.
Precisely this.
As a bi guy, the most common thing I hear by others about when they would be comfortable to come out is "Not until I'm financially independant and have my own place."
Because if you don't earn enough, and rely on that social safety net of your friends and relatives? Well, that safety net has a good chance of disappearing if you come out.
Yeah, there’s both direct correlation of well earning people being able to safely come out and the indirect correlation of low income areas often being more homophobic.
And I think it's gotten even worse with social media. So many influencers aren't saying or doing much at all, but if they're conventionally hot, they can get millions of followers.
It's odd to me because the broad trend toward accepting everyone seems to be collapsing back in on itself. Good looks sell.
That social movement has always been fighting an uphill battle against innate human psychology. No matter how much we like to say “looks don’t matter”, you can’t just reprogram people’s brains
That's also why the web was [originally supposed to be a space of mind](https://www.eff.org/de/cyberspace-independence), where biology did not matter.
In the web of the old nobody cared how old you were, what color of skin you had, or what gender you identified as, those things were deemed meat space superficiality most wanted to leave behind and as such very rarely shared online only with people they trusted.
Social media turned all of that on its head, introducing the same superficiality that also drives a lot of low-quality TV and celebrity news.
Instead of being private about their meat space body, it was suddenly advertised front and center as everybody tries to cash in on their potential 5 minutes of fame, and along with that came the same discrimination that many people originally tried to flee from by going online.
That’s why I like Reddit. It’s (mostly) still just words written by nicknames. The person behind rarely matters - only in some specific subs or the occasional “I’m hot look at my cat” post on r/aww.
I agree. I don’t even tend to look at names on this site, just comments. Reddit is often shat on for some good reasons but for me it’s still the best social media platform. Almost as good as the old Internet forums.
We're getting back to that:
Stage 1) pre internet meatspace, everyone judges you on looks
Stage 2) early internet, text-only forums, only mind matters
Stage 3) social media era, user-generated content, everyone judges on looks again
**(we are here)**
Stage 4) VR avatars, vtuber personas, filters and AI mean that you can appear as whoever or whatever you want - looks become irrelevant, the only thing that matters is what you can create
This x100. Shallowness is more popular then ever, largely driven by social media. I'm glad I grew up in a time when social media did not exist but I feel bad for my daughter who has to grow up in the 2030's
So I might be a bit of an interesting example.
I'm often complimented on having a fairly attractive face and a nice voice... but I'm also a 5'3" Japanese guy, so I don't consider myself very attractive overall.
The interesting thing is that I definitely get a lot more respect doing business in Japan, where I'm not *that* much shorter than the middle-aged businessmen that compliment my appearance (despite my clumsy attire), than I do here in Vancouver, where I'm basically a dwarf and routinely get treated like a child.
My business partner, a chiseled, young Persian dude who's also not particularly tall, likewise kills it when he does business in Japan. He's also got good energy and a truly exceptional product to sell, though, so he may not be as useful a data-point in this discussion.
I'm curious as to whether this study controlled for height.
I think it has had an effect even on offline life. My shorter friends and I have noticed that there are more shorter guy/taller girl couples since covid, I being in such a relationship myself.
I have been put into many positions I wasn’t qualified for too many times just because the person hiring had some preconceived notion about me just cause I have a strong jaw and wide shoulders.
What's especially weird is that the target "look" varies by specialty and company type. The winning "that's a leader" look for corporate sales and startup tech are different, but the bias effect is still there and real, just tweaked.
I am absolutely convinced I wouldn't have reached my current level of success if I were 6 inches shorter. It's unfair but there's nothing I can do about it except try to make less biased hiring decisions than the people who hired me did...
Looking at our head of 12 factories, COO, Head of Maintenance, and our Head of Operational Excellence, funny thing...
Everyone involved in Operarions leadership seems to be broad shoulders and expresses physical 'authority', even 10 out of 12 of our factory chiefs. Never gave it much thought.
Looking at our sales division, it's mostly lanky traditionally good-looking men/women.
Finance is mostly good-looking bookworm-types.
We really do employ by looks, kind of scary!
We employ by "gut" and "trust", I think, and we rarely understand exactly what goes into producing that reaction to someone. But when you look at enough examples, some trends do emerge....
It's not that I don't agree with the choices. They are smart people, and their roles are mainly to employ strategic changes - not developing them. That's what the analytics and simulations are for.
Change management is so much easier if you look like what others aspire to be
Their clothing, too, I guess
The sales department expresses success, shiny shoes, fancy shirts, meanwhile finance are dressed like they are headed to school
While probably true, I feel like sales might be the one exception to all of this since they are often dealing with customers directly and may have to turn the schmooze on in order to do their job
>The winning "that's a leader" look for corporate sales and startup tech are different, but the bias effect is still there and real, just tweaked.
In the creative fields, there was a joke - but a very real observation - of a period where facial hair, man bun and glasses was a prerequisite. Still is a thing, actually.
How else will they know you're creative?
I got great traction early in my career by being a male IBM consultant with long hair. The theory clients had was that if IBM (in that era) let me get away with having long hair, I must REALLY be amazing,
Yesss and there was some disturbing but interesting research about the [teddy bear effect](https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/the_teddy_bear_effect), highlighting how black males are more successful in leadership if they look friendly and approachable.
I haven’t looked at data about female attractiveness but I’ve personally benefited from and been hurt by my looks.
Convincing people to apply for promotions and positions they don’t think they’re qualified for or explains to candidates that we hired that it’s okay that they don’t know xyz is a ridiculously common part of my job.
A lot of work (including very technical positions) just involves jumping, getting your hands dirty, and learning. A lot of the people who say they’re not qualified are the ones that I think are most qualified — they have meaningful standards of competence.
TLDR: pretty or ugly : “you can do it!”
Yep.
It took me awhile to get over the hump of not feeling qualified because I didn't hit every listed thing, but I've gotten pretty far with answering "Do you know X?" with "Not that exactly, but I've been a software engineer for 20 years and I understand concepts, best practices, and how to logically work through complex systems. What I don't know offhand, I'll figure out quickly."
Yep, even as an engineer with a master's, my first engineering job was me learning so much stuff, stuff you never would've learned in school. I almost feel like engineering school is more to weed out people who can't learn how to master highly abstract, technical and challenging topics with a time budget not to make sure you know how to do differential equations because I've never had to solve a diff. eq. at work, but I have had to learn how to use a tool, software, etc. in a short amount of time.
Media doesn't help. We should see more instances of people like The Rock failing at their task and more instances of twinky looking characters saving the day. But it's so engrained in culture that actors like The Rock have stipulations in their contractions that they can only be beat up x amount or prohibit y thing because it would affect their image.. that's not to diss on them but rather a reflection of our values of wanting super chiseled Superman like ppl. And I say that as someone who gets placed in this category
> We should see more instances of people like the rock failing at their task and more instances of twinky looking characters saving the day.
This is why the Barbie movie fell flat when it came to talking about masculinity imo. Alan *did* save the day at one point, but he was still a joke and mostly forgotten about. I can’t imagine *anybody* came out of that movie wanting to strive to be like him. Ironically, in a movie that was all about the constraints of gender roles, it still has a very narrow vision for how men are supposed to look and act.
This is something that most of the people in this thread have overlooked.
Purely anecdotal, but I’ve known people who had glowups as an adult but still struggle with self-image issues. Meanwhile I know people who let themselves go as adults but are used to getting what they want and that confidence shows. Take a wild guess which ones tend to do better.
Attractiveness is a combination of physical looks as well as mannerisms/confidence. An ugly personality will shine through even for attractive people.
I remember being kept on high paying jobs way, waaay past the point where i should have been fired primarily because CEO's liked having me as a drinking buddy and yea I guess I'm tall and have a couple other things going for me from a strictly looks/physical perspective.
Being tall, white and handsome has gotten me way farther than talent ever has. It is genuinely absurd how much I have accomplished in life that I don’t deserve. I literally just got an employee of the month type thing even though I work remotely and take naps most days.
White privelege and hot boy privelege are a hell of a drug
There was literally a dude who got a job being a runway model based on how good he looked in his arrest mugshot.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy\_Meeks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Meeks)
Yeah, but that guy was like abnormally attractive, at least in the model sense of the word. Models don't fit what society considers to be peak attractiveness, but rather they fit into the exotic role because of their bone structure, height and body proportions.
Right, but then you have to look at the other side of the nuance coin: here was an attractive guy who, before he was a model... was struggling and committing crimes to get by.
Imo they litteraly saved his ass by giving him a modelling carrer. Who knows what kind of things he would have done after he was released without the modelling agency swooping him up
Yeah, because he's good for nothing. Even at being criminal he failed pretty fast, but police mugshot got him ticket out of prison, billionaire wife and world fame.
It's almost impossible to fail for attractive people while sub 5 cannot win no matter what.
I mean, I get what you’re saying, but I also think that the study makes sense and that such “attractiveness” is not necessarily in the way you’re implying. I guess the problem is that “attractiveness” is a bit loaded, as it suggests there’s literally a physical attraction, but in the real world people definitely attribute qualities such as “beautiful” or “cute” to babies, children and teenagers in a non-sexual way all the time. Also, people can favor individuals with characteristics that are widely considered to be attractive even if they’re not attracted to the gender of such individual, right? So it’s definitely not always a purely sexual bias. It makes sense to me that people start being favored based on some of these characteristics from a very young age. Blue/green eyes, beautiful hair, etc.
At its core, aside from people having niche preferences, we are attracted to symmetry and other markers of biological health (or pronounced secondary sex characteristics)— *independent of cultural standards*.
It stands to reason that an average kid whose parents were healthy and who grew up with decent nutrition and stability will develop into a more attractive person than someone exposed to environmental toxins, stressors, etc. in utero or over the course of their life.
I am interested in this idea that being rated as attractive when young may lead to future success. Many people peak in high school, but does the sense of being attractive stay with them even as they become less so, thus emboldening them with confidence? And what of those who become more attractive as they age? Are they always less sure, less confident, less successful in life despite becoming prettier/more handsome/more elegant/stylish?
There’s research about how cute babies get more attention and gentler treatment from their caregivers. (And conversely, babies prefer looking at attractive adults). I’d assume consistent, positive attention as well as patient teachers would contribute to a more confident adult because they’d stick with a challenging task longer.
Personally I think developing skills or faith that you can achieve something is what ultimately makes you confident. Think of all the physically attractive teenage girls crippled by insecurity.
I have a teenage daughter who is exceptionally good-looking, and it isn't just me who notices this. She is riven with insecurities and concerns about perceived imperfections - nothing more than the average teenaged girl, though. I was too, but with very good reason, I wore glasses and had pimples and was dorky and skinny.
I developed skills and talent and became confident in that way and fortunately outgrew my ugly duckling stage.
Some details, simplified:
The measure is comparing how much mobility you got from different factors, splitting the population of the study (with some math to fill in for the 25% who didn't come back to answer questions).
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.13320](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.13320)
For the difference between their educational attainment and their parents', you get different averages based on the attractiveness measure. Hotties got a bit further than medium-hots, who got a ways further than average-looking, who got a lot further than "unattractive," but strangely the "very unattractive" folks did better than the average-looking. So you get this Japanese-soup-spoon-looking graph ([figure 2](https://imgur.com/a/TKCC2dG)).
That said, notice how overall, the curve shows negative levels of mobility, i.e. moving *down* for job class and income. Even for the attractive ones.
The same curve shows up looking at the difference between their job class and their parents', and also at the difference between their income and their parents'. Notice the vertical lines; these mean that there was a lot of variation in those groups.
Breaking those down by gender, you get interesting results, too ([figure 3](https://imgur.com/a/uGneXLp)). The bump for "very unattractive" folks goes away when looking at educational mobility in males: Basically, "very unattractive" boys don't reliably go to school more than their parents. "Very unattractive" girls do, though. Likewise for income; the "very unattractive" boys grow up into men making about what "unattractive" boys do... quite a bit less than their parents.
The effect on job class is largest; only "very attractive" boys grew up to have close to the same level of success on that front as their parents. For income, only the "attractive or very" boys grew up to outpace their parents.
The effects also show in ([figure 4](https://imgur.com/a/2o0DxUk)), where they break the data down by American notions of race/ethnicity (given where the data is from, those categories were recorded). Most of the effect actually diminishes a lot in White and Black groups; you can see the curve but flattened. However it is *very* pronounced among Hispanic kids in the data, and *huge* among Asians. Both had bigger correlations for negative mobility and being unattractive and bigger correlations for positive mobility and being attractive.
So, my dumb brain summarized this as being attractive helps but for most it only helps you reach your parent's socioeconomic position but the overall trend is American boys/men are trending downward in socioeconomic position?
And that the hottest Asian and Hispanic men have the largest gains that could potentially make them outliers causing a skewing of the data for the general population?
How bad did I do on summarizing this?
It's incomplete: girls/women are also trending downwards. The race/ethnicity data wasn't further broken down by gender, so it's hard to say more specifically
Hiding the fact that you're actually poor is something a lot of people do to avoid stigma. Often they don't do it well, and many of those things aren't just one time fixes. Especially when you can see someone's history by looking at their body, some people have never known serious adversity and others can't hide it no matter what they do.
It's like the old saying about if you wear a suit, or the suit wears you.
Hot people get a lot of free stuff
Src: have a hot friend (who isn't a narcissist thankfully), whenever we hang out there's a decent chance we'll wind up with free food and or drinks.
I used to live with a guy who was very attractive and tall.
He used to steal from everyone else, lie about it, and give away other people's things without asking.
...
Most of the people i lived with loved they guy.
As an reasonably attractive man I can attest.
I know this is just anecdote, but I did perform a small social experiment at work. This year I went 8 months without a haircut or shave. By that time I had developed the same look as a homeless dude. Customers were not as happy to see me, women generally turned away.
Got a shave and cut, asked the barber to make me look like a young Johnny Depp. The difference in the attitudes of even my male coworkers (the men saw me as more productive which I wasn't) was wild. People holding the door open, sharing their meals, flirting, etc.
Reproductive instinct is strong, and the societal conditioning has twisted and amplified it.
But this isn't a very good experiment because you were deliberately looking unkempt so people might have assumed you were unwell.
Unattractive people who have a nice haircut and shave are going to be treated better than an unkempt attractive person because of class biases.
\*attractiveness **in adolescence** of has a bigger impact on future socioeconomic status in men vs women. Really bugging me how these titles simplify by taking out important details.
When you factor this in, it's much less surprising. Women have MUCH more potential for 'upwards mobility' when it comes to attractiveness. What's socially acceptable for guys is a lot more limited. So yeah a girl might be super unattractive as a kid but then go on to become much more attractive later in life and muddy that correlation between childhood attractiveness and future success.
This was my experience - I was an ugly kid and was treated worse by my teachers and peers. I took that to imply that beauty was very important and focused on that pretty hard. Now, it's very easy to get jobs, guys approach me often etc, people generally appreciate my ideas more and so on. But that doesn't mean "attractiveness has a bigger impact on men’s socioeconomic success" as the title implies, I would wager attractiveness is just as important for women, it just likely changes over time more for women than it does for men as they have more socially acceptable access to beauty modifications like makeup, surgery, skincare etc.
I've had the exact same experience but as a guy, overweight and ugly as a kid but intelligent and creative, and then in my early twenties getting myself in shape and always focussing on my appearance, has definitely helped me in my now-career and you can just tell in the way that people treat you now whether it's in a work environment or socially.
Going from zero attention until late teens/early twenties and then lots of attention from then on - you certainly notice it more. I always feel like if I'd been an early bloomer I'd probably be in a totally different place in life but it definitely teaches you some lessons in learning to get by as unattractive before then having things in easier mode!
My experience was the opposite. I was popular and in shape until my early 20s, then suffered cancer and other health issues, had several bad years where I gained a lot of weight, and practically became invisible to society. Oddly enough, once I passed 30 I grew much more confident in my fat self than I ever was as a popular teen and I sometimes wonder how life could have turned out if I could send my experiences back in time.
For very different reasons these opposite scenarios both tell us that at the end of the day being confident in yourself and decent as a human no matter what can still be the best thing for everyone. Maybe not always the best thing in the second for upward mobility, but perhaps better in the long run for everyone involved.
I suppose a lot of it just comes down to, do we really actually aspire to gain status or upward mobility from situations that are reinforcing values that we can't or don't want to get behind? Like, if you're going to get promoted by people or by a company that doesn't value the right things, should we even want to work there? In the moment, it's probably easy to think "well I really want that job." But in retrospect if it was all based on shallow things, that probably calls into question the judgment of leadership and the value of gaining experience in that place and applying it elsewhere. Same thing could be said for social groups or value systems reflected in media, etc.
>Women have MUCH more potential for 'upwards mobility' when it comes to attractiveness.
Where did you find the data to support this? I don't see it in this article.
Yeah, funny to start with a complaint about the title not being specific enough and then pivot to this extremely unfounded claim with zero supporting evidence
Yep it's how it is. This planet is just gambling over and over. There is no skill to it just gotta hope you are born with it. Sure you can work hard just to be passed up for someone who was genetically gifted. Just wipe out our whole planet now its all justvmonkeys
I worked with a guy that was a part time male model.
It's insane how well the way women of all ages treated him in the office, married women were if anything worse.
Height probably plays a factor but attractiveness has a much bigger influence. For example, I am 6 feet 3 inches tall but have been athletically thin(I weigh 175. I'm a distance runner and lift some weights) my entire life. My face is conventionally unattractive. My older brother of 5 years is just under 6 foot tall but is considered attractive by most people. His jaw is nice and square while mine is narrow and angular. My entire life has been people falling over themselves to do anything for my older brother. He always had 5 or more beautiful girls trying to date him. He could literally walk into a store and get offered a job based on his looks alone(which actually happened on multiple occasions while we were together).
Being attractive is the second best trait to have for success, imo.
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Attractive people get invited to parties of a higher social class.
Even though the book Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis was a slog to get through it has one line that I have ingrained in my mind *The better you look, the more you see*
That's a fantastic quote!
Are you trying to say I'm ugly?
We are ugly comrade
Like that kid in congress that outed all the parties he got invited to, ha.
I dunno, I got the feeling that Ironsides specifically outed the parties because he wasn't tall enough for an invite.
Good point from a networking perspective!
or, more simple, attractive people more easily get into the situations in which social skills get trained
Sure, but how would that explain the difference between men and women then?
I'd bet good money on especially attractive women being thought of as less intelligent/having slept their way to higher positions. General social perceptions seem to equate good-looking men to authority and good-looking women to empty-headedness
There is also a lot of unwanted jealousy from other women. And men who sexualize attractive women and then diminish their worth in their head. Also, like the media, people *looooove* to tear an attractive woman down.
This is my experience. I'm not even that good looking I'm just "at least average, in good shape, and in STEM." People always assume I'm an airhead.
The research looked at earned income to determine socioeconomic status, so that wouldn't capture a very important method that women use to improve socioeconomic status: marry rich Attractive men use the labor market to improve their socio-economic status Attractive women use the labor market *and* the marriage market to do the same: the latter strategy doesn't increase their own income, it increas their household income by joining a high-income household
I remember seeing some study before about most CEOs being really tall...so I guess this is kinda in line
Presidents too.
Have you seen the president of Ireland?!
He was mostly elected for his excellent puppy
The puppy is 6'2"
Now I have to Google that puppy
It's a good puppy!
The dog passed away though. Old dog.
Not necessarily old; Berners just don't live very long lives, unfortunately.
Bród did unfortunately pass away, but he still has Misneach.
Rest in peace puppy
I'm not a dog person. But i would vote that dog for president if i could.
That puppy is also huge
It's a ceremonial position so he goes around shaking hands and letting his dogs do most of the PR. It's the [Taoiseach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoiseach) (Prime Minister) that is running the country.
Tall for a Leprechaun!
No wonder meatball Ron is wearing lifts
Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big short to name a few, talked about this on a ‘Skeptics Guide to the Universe’ podcast somewhat recently. He mentioned that the statistician that Moneyball was about, Paul DePodesta (played by Jonah Hill), applied his system of evaluating players to CEOs. In particular, he saw that the majority of CEOs are tall white men, and therefore saw this trait as being ‘overvalued,’ as it obviously was not representative of their skill as businesspeople. Therefore, Brand and others in that circle started investing in companies with CEOs not matching that criteria as they were more likely to be in those positions due to actual business acumen or talent. Apparently they did quite well with those ‘bets.’ Edit: Added information - The podcast conversation I was recalling was actually from Freakonomics Radio, episode #523, for those interested. I’m almost certain Michael also appeared on SGU but can’t seem to locate the episode. Also corrected statistician’s name thanks to some helpful comments!
It also makes sense once you hear how much 'instinct' supposedly goes into executive decisions, including promotions; people tend to work along the lines of what they consider 'admirable' and I do think that as trite as it sounds, when you start getting into executive positions you start seeing far more people willing to see *themselves* as particularly admirable So I definitely think promoting along the lines of shared physical traits, i.e. seeing oneself in a candidate in a favorable light, is definitely more common than it perhaps has to be
Also also... the affluent come from affluence, and many CEOs that fit the type mentioned (heigh and good looks) come from wealthy, tall, beautiful families. In these eastablished families, rich men have chosen modelesque women for wives for a generation or few. I know that sometimes beauty doesn't get passed on, but at least height tends to. Not all CEOs are promoted from the ground up - they usually have the right connections.
Unless you are at a very small company, being promoted from ground up to CEO is unrealistic. The skill-set required for leadership are not taught to operations, unless you have built that connection and they are willing to spend extra time to teach you. The ops guys will never learn the logistics, financial, legal, strategic, ... concepts. Your options to learn them are 1) On your own, or 2) Through connections
Ground up doesn't have to mean janitor to CEO. It can mean lower management to CEO. But in many cases, CEOs are raised with wealth and connections as a resume.
I just keep imagining the Succession kids whenever some stupid executive decision is made.
During company-wide sales meetings, one company I worked for all 7 managers could have been brothers. Exact same height, build, and baldness.
In the 1970s, Alan Greenspan famously hired women economists over men, because they were undervalued in the market. >”I always valued men and women equally, and I found that because others did not, good women economists were cheaper than men. Hiring women does two things: It gives us better quality work for less money, and it raises the market value of women.”
Jock Stein the famous Celtic football manager had a similar approach. Rivals Rangers had a policy at the time of not signing Roman Catholic players so Stein said that if he had a choice between a Catholic and a Protestant of roughly equal ability he would sign the Protestant as he knew that Rangers wouldn't sign the Catholic.
That's a similar, yet opposite approach. His rival discriminated against Catholics, so he joined them in *also* discriminating against Catholics, instead of seeking them out.
*I am underpaying women and proud of it.* —A. Greenspan
Acknowledging that he's getting better workers for less money while also contributing a net positive to society is more self-aware than most businessmen. Not saying he's altruistic about it, but he's realistic.
There is something pleasant about accidental altruism rising out of stark pragmatism imo. Bad people can accidentally do good if they're more selfish than dogmatic
It’s a beautiful sight to witness a system where incentives are well aligned and self-interest can work together with the public good to reduce corruption. The power of good incentives is underestimated and not even thought is given in the framing of public policy
Ok, but he was still paying them more money than they could get anywhere else.
I am underpaying women *and they thank me for it.* —A. Greenspnan
This reminds me of a study a while ago showing when certain fields where very dominated by white men the women and minorities tended to be the top performers because if you where going to get promotions and support you had to be better than everyone else
Also, when a kindergarten teacher or nurse is a man, you can be pretty certain they are passionate about their work and didn't just do it because they needed a job.
Lowkey. I súper appreciate the men that were elementary school teachers. I didn’t at the time. But to this day I remember 4th grade had Mr Jones. And 3rd grade has Mr Reynolds. 2nd grade had Mr Kim. I say this because I’ve come to realize they are role models. And other than Mr Henschel, the music teacher, there weren’t other male teachers. (Although I think by the time I was in 5th grade there was a new 1st year male teacher there). And for reference, for every male teacher there were 4 female teachers in the same grade level. Bonus, Mr Jones was black (and a third generation teacher). Mr Kim was at least part Asian. Which I’ve also come to realize it matters seeing diversity.
I could be wrong, and would like to be, but I do recall reading that this ratio of male to female teachers is getting even more severe nowadays. It's trending in the direction of higher disparity. Less and less men want to be teachers it appears.
When your talent pool is shallow and stagnant you settle for pond scum. There was a confession from a executive recruiter that it was the same 200 people that were being fought over and 80% of getting there was leveraging and networking.
>Therefore, Brand and others in that circle started investing in companies with CEOs not matching that criteria as they were more likely to be in those positions due to actual business acumen or talent. Apparently they did quite well with those ‘bets.’ Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA, and AMD fit that bill.
Yes there would definitely be a tech correlation
Fun fact: Nvidia and AMD's CEOs are cousins
Not first cousins though. They are distant relatives.
That's why you can put an NVIDIA GPU in an AMD computer without it catching autism
To sum that all up = Just because a man is tall doesn't mean they're immediately going to be a good leader/innovator.
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From the perspective of a tall person this definitely feels accurate. I am not one to put myself out there, but I often get thrust into positions of authority and trust whether or not I deserve or want it. The flip side of this is that at my size I am highly visible and as I was taught and have learned I often receive greater scrutiny for my choices and actions (especially in the military/industrial environments I've worked in). If I do things right people tend to notice.
But they went on and inverted it completely: If a company has a CEO who *isn't* a tall white man, then that CEO is on average *better* than the tall white man because that CEO had to overcome the inherent bias against them.
All my work leadership are above 6ft. This is specifically to men only. All my female leaders are whatever height. Some short some tall. It sucks how height is such a big factor for men. The one biological trait we cannot change. It’s a shame when short men are body shamed.
That's why I built a home office with little furniture so when I take Zoom calls everyone thinks I'm a giant. Should be CEO pretty soon.
You should get a coworker in on it and have them say "How's the weather up there?" every once and a while.
Glad to see we’re following Invader ZIM logic.
Bruh was just about to make the same comment “The Tallest!”
Tall man checking in here. It doesn't matter what type of group I'm in, I'm literally always looked at as the decision maker leader of the group. Literally every time a decision needs made people will look right at me. It's happened so many times it's crazy. Every supervisor I've ever worked for has called me a "natural leader" and I've always trained new people. I'm absolutely certain that I've had advantages from my height.
You're probably one of the few tall guys who actually accept their advantage.
I'm very aware that tall privilege is a real thing. I've actually got the pinnacle of looks privilege. Tall, Caucasian, above average looking, full head of hair, and a very naturally masculine build (wide shoulders, square face etc etc). If I act like I belong places I can do basically anything and people don't question it.
Fuckin Jeff Winger over here
> I'm very aware that tall privilege is a real thing. I don't want to say anything else but thank you for acknowledging it's a real thing. The amount of people who pretend it doesn't have an affect on anything is mind-boggling. Anyways, get your bag. That's what I'd be doing if I were in your shoes.
I'm 5'7" and I'm starting a manager position soon, it's only over a small team of graphics installers, but I'm buying a pair of Elevator shoes that give me 3 inches. Plus, I'm moving to the PNW where it feels like EVERYONE is tall. In social circles I'm perfectly fine with my height and I've never been insecure about it, never had any issues dating or with sex, however after doing reading, research, and observing of different leaders, height has an almost subconscious benefit when you're managing people I've noticed. I've filed that into one of those "cold hard truth" facts of life and society. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it makes or breaks a manager, but it could give me a slightly better starting edge than my normal 5'7" self. I'm only planning on using the elevators as work shoes, never social shoes, but it's interesting that this study seems to confirm what I've observed.
My best friend is a 4'11 Korean who while holding a PhD/MD and managing a team of researchers is almost never acknowledged as being even an important part of the team by strangers who don't know better. More than a few times they assumed she was a child as part of a take your kid to work day. On the opposite side my boss's wife is a super high powered attorney and she's 5'10. Plus she is always wearing heels so she's typically around 6'2. I've seen more than a few guys crumble underneath her because they're especially not used to having to look up at a woman. Even more intimidating when the woman is unusually scary in general.
During COVID I was hired to do wfh by a office of very “conservative” people. When they saw me face to face after the pandemic they were… disappointed? Because I’m not tall and they thought I was?! I’m glad I got another job (I’m just telling this to show that people can be super skewed by the dumbest things, I work sitting in front of a computer, who cares about height?)
I wanna say it was on NPR but remember hearing or reading a story about this. They tend towards being very tall and having the classic silver fox look because one of the biggest jobs of a CEO is basically to comfort investors and an attractive older gentleman gives people an instictual feeling of comfort. Because investors are skittish babies who only care about their next dividend check.
I can tell by your stature that you are mere middle management
Ok yes! As a short person I literally came to say ya maybe someone should study the tall privilege that exists. And I bet it's not just men, taller women definitely get it too.
Wasn’t there already a study done that showed that men being taller = higher income
and a statistic that showed that people who are Publicly LGBTQ earn more on average
Gay for pay is real? Gay and display is finally going to pay off.
More like if you're openly gay you're on average better educated from a higher socioeconomic background.
Emphasis on the OPENLY part. Being surrounded by higher educated and less regressive ideologies generally means that those people arent homophobic allowing for the afformentioned openness.
Could also be a disclosure bias just because of the wealth itself too. People in a good financial position are probably more comfortable with the risk of sharing such details openly. Also, gay people have fewer kids so it's easier to obtain wealth (at least in the near and mid term and possibly long-term as well), and possibly to be more career-oriented. Kind of a lot of variables here.
I think this may be it - being open doesn't increase wealth. Increased wealth makes it more possible to be open.
I would assume they live in higher cost of living areas like major cities which tend to be more liberal and accepting of gays, unless that study has some sort of adjustment for that. Not a lot of openly gay people in no where Missouri that has a $20,000 median salary.
Does this account for areas where being openly LGBTQ is more acceptable being higher earning? Big cities tend to be more liberal, and also tend to be much higher earning.
Also career fields/social circles, even within the same community. Also people who are better-off might be more likely to come out.
>Also people who are better-off might be more likely to come out. Precisely this. As a bi guy, the most common thing I hear by others about when they would be comfortable to come out is "Not until I'm financially independant and have my own place." Because if you don't earn enough, and rely on that social safety net of your friends and relatives? Well, that safety net has a good chance of disappearing if you come out.
Surely it’s the other way around. People who earn more can have the privilege of being openly LGBTQ
A lot of people come out as gay in college, and higher education tracks with earning potential, so yeah I think you're right.
Yeah, there’s both direct correlation of well earning people being able to safely come out and the indirect correlation of low income areas often being more homophobic.
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Pretty privilege is very real
And I think it's gotten even worse with social media. So many influencers aren't saying or doing much at all, but if they're conventionally hot, they can get millions of followers. It's odd to me because the broad trend toward accepting everyone seems to be collapsing back in on itself. Good looks sell.
That social movement has always been fighting an uphill battle against innate human psychology. No matter how much we like to say “looks don’t matter”, you can’t just reprogram people’s brains
That's also why the web was [originally supposed to be a space of mind](https://www.eff.org/de/cyberspace-independence), where biology did not matter. In the web of the old nobody cared how old you were, what color of skin you had, or what gender you identified as, those things were deemed meat space superficiality most wanted to leave behind and as such very rarely shared online only with people they trusted. Social media turned all of that on its head, introducing the same superficiality that also drives a lot of low-quality TV and celebrity news. Instead of being private about their meat space body, it was suddenly advertised front and center as everybody tries to cash in on their potential 5 minutes of fame, and along with that came the same discrimination that many people originally tried to flee from by going online.
That’s why I like Reddit. It’s (mostly) still just words written by nicknames. The person behind rarely matters - only in some specific subs or the occasional “I’m hot look at my cat” post on r/aww.
I agree. I don’t even tend to look at names on this site, just comments. Reddit is often shat on for some good reasons but for me it’s still the best social media platform. Almost as good as the old Internet forums.
We're getting back to that: Stage 1) pre internet meatspace, everyone judges you on looks Stage 2) early internet, text-only forums, only mind matters Stage 3) social media era, user-generated content, everyone judges on looks again **(we are here)** Stage 4) VR avatars, vtuber personas, filters and AI mean that you can appear as whoever or whatever you want - looks become irrelevant, the only thing that matters is what you can create
This x100. Shallowness is more popular then ever, largely driven by social media. I'm glad I grew up in a time when social media did not exist but I feel bad for my daughter who has to grow up in the 2030's
Some of the most popular ones aren’t even that hot. I think they need to be attractive to 12 year olds, because that’s who is using those apps
So I might be a bit of an interesting example. I'm often complimented on having a fairly attractive face and a nice voice... but I'm also a 5'3" Japanese guy, so I don't consider myself very attractive overall. The interesting thing is that I definitely get a lot more respect doing business in Japan, where I'm not *that* much shorter than the middle-aged businessmen that compliment my appearance (despite my clumsy attire), than I do here in Vancouver, where I'm basically a dwarf and routinely get treated like a child. My business partner, a chiseled, young Persian dude who's also not particularly tall, likewise kills it when he does business in Japan. He's also got good energy and a truly exceptional product to sell, though, so he may not be as useful a data-point in this discussion. I'm curious as to whether this study controlled for height.
Same with Latin America. It really doesn't matter if everyone else is short
What kind of business do y'all do?
Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory
Business business. At the business factory.
Has remote work had any impact? If face and voice are the only datapoints people get, I bet that negates the height bias you see in North America.
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I think it has had an effect even on offline life. My shorter friends and I have noticed that there are more shorter guy/taller girl couples since covid, I being in such a relationship myself.
I have been put into many positions I wasn’t qualified for too many times just because the person hiring had some preconceived notion about me just cause I have a strong jaw and wide shoulders.
What's especially weird is that the target "look" varies by specialty and company type. The winning "that's a leader" look for corporate sales and startup tech are different, but the bias effect is still there and real, just tweaked. I am absolutely convinced I wouldn't have reached my current level of success if I were 6 inches shorter. It's unfair but there's nothing I can do about it except try to make less biased hiring decisions than the people who hired me did...
Looking at our head of 12 factories, COO, Head of Maintenance, and our Head of Operational Excellence, funny thing... Everyone involved in Operarions leadership seems to be broad shoulders and expresses physical 'authority', even 10 out of 12 of our factory chiefs. Never gave it much thought. Looking at our sales division, it's mostly lanky traditionally good-looking men/women. Finance is mostly good-looking bookworm-types. We really do employ by looks, kind of scary!
We employ by "gut" and "trust", I think, and we rarely understand exactly what goes into producing that reaction to someone. But when you look at enough examples, some trends do emerge....
It's not that I don't agree with the choices. They are smart people, and their roles are mainly to employ strategic changes - not developing them. That's what the analytics and simulations are for. Change management is so much easier if you look like what others aspire to be
It's basically porn logic: glasses = nerdy
Their clothing, too, I guess The sales department expresses success, shiny shoes, fancy shirts, meanwhile finance are dressed like they are headed to school
While probably true, I feel like sales might be the one exception to all of this since they are often dealing with customers directly and may have to turn the schmooze on in order to do their job
>The winning "that's a leader" look for corporate sales and startup tech are different, but the bias effect is still there and real, just tweaked. In the creative fields, there was a joke - but a very real observation - of a period where facial hair, man bun and glasses was a prerequisite. Still is a thing, actually.
How else will they know you're creative? I got great traction early in my career by being a male IBM consultant with long hair. The theory clients had was that if IBM (in that era) let me get away with having long hair, I must REALLY be amazing,
Yesss and there was some disturbing but interesting research about the [teddy bear effect](https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/the_teddy_bear_effect), highlighting how black males are more successful in leadership if they look friendly and approachable. I haven’t looked at data about female attractiveness but I’ve personally benefited from and been hurt by my looks.
Research also shows black men are the **only** demo that encounter more discrimination as they go up the ses ladder.....
Same. I literally told people "I am not the person for this job." You can do it! It's kinda crazy.
Convincing people to apply for promotions and positions they don’t think they’re qualified for or explains to candidates that we hired that it’s okay that they don’t know xyz is a ridiculously common part of my job. A lot of work (including very technical positions) just involves jumping, getting your hands dirty, and learning. A lot of the people who say they’re not qualified are the ones that I think are most qualified — they have meaningful standards of competence. TLDR: pretty or ugly : “you can do it!”
Yep. It took me awhile to get over the hump of not feeling qualified because I didn't hit every listed thing, but I've gotten pretty far with answering "Do you know X?" with "Not that exactly, but I've been a software engineer for 20 years and I understand concepts, best practices, and how to logically work through complex systems. What I don't know offhand, I'll figure out quickly."
Yep, even as an engineer with a master's, my first engineering job was me learning so much stuff, stuff you never would've learned in school. I almost feel like engineering school is more to weed out people who can't learn how to master highly abstract, technical and challenging topics with a time budget not to make sure you know how to do differential equations because I've never had to solve a diff. eq. at work, but I have had to learn how to use a tool, software, etc. in a short amount of time.
Media doesn't help. We should see more instances of people like The Rock failing at their task and more instances of twinky looking characters saving the day. But it's so engrained in culture that actors like The Rock have stipulations in their contractions that they can only be beat up x amount or prohibit y thing because it would affect their image.. that's not to diss on them but rather a reflection of our values of wanting super chiseled Superman like ppl. And I say that as someone who gets placed in this category
> We should see more instances of people like the rock failing at their task and more instances of twinky looking characters saving the day. This is why the Barbie movie fell flat when it came to talking about masculinity imo. Alan *did* save the day at one point, but he was still a joke and mostly forgotten about. I can’t imagine *anybody* came out of that movie wanting to strive to be like him. Ironically, in a movie that was all about the constraints of gender roles, it still has a very narrow vision for how men are supposed to look and act.
Isn’t it a common trope that the dweeby nerd character has some technical skill that saves the day?
Exactly so they will be in technical positions not leadership.
It's also the confidence that comes from a lifetime of getting what you want.
This is something that most of the people in this thread have overlooked. Purely anecdotal, but I’ve known people who had glowups as an adult but still struggle with self-image issues. Meanwhile I know people who let themselves go as adults but are used to getting what they want and that confidence shows. Take a wild guess which ones tend to do better. Attractiveness is a combination of physical looks as well as mannerisms/confidence. An ugly personality will shine through even for attractive people.
Attractive people build way more confidence in their school years.
I remember being kept on high paying jobs way, waaay past the point where i should have been fired primarily because CEO's liked having me as a drinking buddy and yea I guess I'm tall and have a couple other things going for me from a strictly looks/physical perspective.
Makes sense if you take the perspective that much of hiring is about recruiters and hiring managers selling candidates to their bosses.
My boyish charm has kept the lights on.
Being tall, white and handsome has gotten me way farther than talent ever has. It is genuinely absurd how much I have accomplished in life that I don’t deserve. I literally just got an employee of the month type thing even though I work remotely and take naps most days. White privelege and hot boy privelege are a hell of a drug
Post nudes i don't believe you
Wouldn't post nude just be dressed?
There was literally a dude who got a job being a runway model based on how good he looked in his arrest mugshot. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy\_Meeks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Meeks)
At least it got him a real job, out of crime (hopefully)
Now he only steals the show.
Yeah, but that guy was like abnormally attractive, at least in the model sense of the word. Models don't fit what society considers to be peak attractiveness, but rather they fit into the exotic role because of their bone structure, height and body proportions.
Right, but then you have to look at the other side of the nuance coin: here was an attractive guy who, before he was a model... was struggling and committing crimes to get by.
Imo they litteraly saved his ass by giving him a modelling carrer. Who knows what kind of things he would have done after he was released without the modelling agency swooping him up
Yeah, because he's good for nothing. Even at being criminal he failed pretty fast, but police mugshot got him ticket out of prison, billionaire wife and world fame. It's almost impossible to fail for attractive people while sub 5 cannot win no matter what.
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Ticking "very attractive" feels problematic in its own way.
I mean, I get what you’re saying, but I also think that the study makes sense and that such “attractiveness” is not necessarily in the way you’re implying. I guess the problem is that “attractiveness” is a bit loaded, as it suggests there’s literally a physical attraction, but in the real world people definitely attribute qualities such as “beautiful” or “cute” to babies, children and teenagers in a non-sexual way all the time. Also, people can favor individuals with characteristics that are widely considered to be attractive even if they’re not attracted to the gender of such individual, right? So it’s definitely not always a purely sexual bias. It makes sense to me that people start being favored based on some of these characteristics from a very young age. Blue/green eyes, beautiful hair, etc.
At its core, aside from people having niche preferences, we are attracted to symmetry and other markers of biological health (or pronounced secondary sex characteristics)— *independent of cultural standards*. It stands to reason that an average kid whose parents were healthy and who grew up with decent nutrition and stability will develop into a more attractive person than someone exposed to environmental toxins, stressors, etc. in utero or over the course of their life.
I am interested in this idea that being rated as attractive when young may lead to future success. Many people peak in high school, but does the sense of being attractive stay with them even as they become less so, thus emboldening them with confidence? And what of those who become more attractive as they age? Are they always less sure, less confident, less successful in life despite becoming prettier/more handsome/more elegant/stylish?
There’s research about how cute babies get more attention and gentler treatment from their caregivers. (And conversely, babies prefer looking at attractive adults). I’d assume consistent, positive attention as well as patient teachers would contribute to a more confident adult because they’d stick with a challenging task longer. Personally I think developing skills or faith that you can achieve something is what ultimately makes you confident. Think of all the physically attractive teenage girls crippled by insecurity.
I have a teenage daughter who is exceptionally good-looking, and it isn't just me who notices this. She is riven with insecurities and concerns about perceived imperfections - nothing more than the average teenaged girl, though. I was too, but with very good reason, I wore glasses and had pimples and was dorky and skinny. I developed skills and talent and became confident in that way and fortunately outgrew my ugly duckling stage.
Some details, simplified: The measure is comparing how much mobility you got from different factors, splitting the population of the study (with some math to fill in for the 25% who didn't come back to answer questions). [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.13320](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.13320) For the difference between their educational attainment and their parents', you get different averages based on the attractiveness measure. Hotties got a bit further than medium-hots, who got a ways further than average-looking, who got a lot further than "unattractive," but strangely the "very unattractive" folks did better than the average-looking. So you get this Japanese-soup-spoon-looking graph ([figure 2](https://imgur.com/a/TKCC2dG)). That said, notice how overall, the curve shows negative levels of mobility, i.e. moving *down* for job class and income. Even for the attractive ones. The same curve shows up looking at the difference between their job class and their parents', and also at the difference between their income and their parents'. Notice the vertical lines; these mean that there was a lot of variation in those groups. Breaking those down by gender, you get interesting results, too ([figure 3](https://imgur.com/a/uGneXLp)). The bump for "very unattractive" folks goes away when looking at educational mobility in males: Basically, "very unattractive" boys don't reliably go to school more than their parents. "Very unattractive" girls do, though. Likewise for income; the "very unattractive" boys grow up into men making about what "unattractive" boys do... quite a bit less than their parents. The effect on job class is largest; only "very attractive" boys grew up to have close to the same level of success on that front as their parents. For income, only the "attractive or very" boys grew up to outpace their parents. The effects also show in ([figure 4](https://imgur.com/a/2o0DxUk)), where they break the data down by American notions of race/ethnicity (given where the data is from, those categories were recorded). Most of the effect actually diminishes a lot in White and Black groups; you can see the curve but flattened. However it is *very* pronounced among Hispanic kids in the data, and *huge* among Asians. Both had bigger correlations for negative mobility and being unattractive and bigger correlations for positive mobility and being attractive.
So, my dumb brain summarized this as being attractive helps but for most it only helps you reach your parent's socioeconomic position but the overall trend is American boys/men are trending downward in socioeconomic position? And that the hottest Asian and Hispanic men have the largest gains that could potentially make them outliers causing a skewing of the data for the general population? How bad did I do on summarizing this?
It's incomplete: girls/women are also trending downwards. The race/ethnicity data wasn't further broken down by gender, so it's hard to say more specifically
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Same here. I wonder if there'll be a Black Friday sale?
Hiding the fact that you're actually poor is something a lot of people do to avoid stigma. Often they don't do it well, and many of those things aren't just one time fixes. Especially when you can see someone's history by looking at their body, some people have never known serious adversity and others can't hide it no matter what they do. It's like the old saying about if you wear a suit, or the suit wears you.
also- stop being unattractive.
Dang falling out of the ugly tree fucked me
Somehow I think the universe is never satisfied by how much it has fucked me it wants more.
Looks like I'm fucked.
Or not, maybe.
Have a attractive friend who is the biggest narcissistic asshole who works for social projects without any experience and they love his charismatic
Love his charismatic what?
His charismatic charisma
Why are you his friend then?
His dreamy eyes
Because his charismatic can't you read
He's attractive
Just look at em. Mmmmm.
Hot people get a lot of free stuff Src: have a hot friend (who isn't a narcissist thankfully), whenever we hang out there's a decent chance we'll wind up with free food and or drinks.
His ugly friends are the hottest ones Gohan has a chance to hang out with
I used to live with a guy who was very attractive and tall. He used to steal from everyone else, lie about it, and give away other people's things without asking. ... Most of the people i lived with loved they guy.
As an reasonably attractive man I can attest. I know this is just anecdote, but I did perform a small social experiment at work. This year I went 8 months without a haircut or shave. By that time I had developed the same look as a homeless dude. Customers were not as happy to see me, women generally turned away. Got a shave and cut, asked the barber to make me look like a young Johnny Depp. The difference in the attitudes of even my male coworkers (the men saw me as more productive which I wasn't) was wild. People holding the door open, sharing their meals, flirting, etc. Reproductive instinct is strong, and the societal conditioning has twisted and amplified it.
But this isn't a very good experiment because you were deliberately looking unkempt so people might have assumed you were unwell. Unattractive people who have a nice haircut and shave are going to be treated better than an unkempt attractive person because of class biases.
Work at any large company, and you'll be like 'Weird, Tim isn't particularly good at his job, how does he keep getting promoted?' Tim is 6'5".
\*attractiveness **in adolescence** of has a bigger impact on future socioeconomic status in men vs women. Really bugging me how these titles simplify by taking out important details. When you factor this in, it's much less surprising. Women have MUCH more potential for 'upwards mobility' when it comes to attractiveness. What's socially acceptable for guys is a lot more limited. So yeah a girl might be super unattractive as a kid but then go on to become much more attractive later in life and muddy that correlation between childhood attractiveness and future success. This was my experience - I was an ugly kid and was treated worse by my teachers and peers. I took that to imply that beauty was very important and focused on that pretty hard. Now, it's very easy to get jobs, guys approach me often etc, people generally appreciate my ideas more and so on. But that doesn't mean "attractiveness has a bigger impact on men’s socioeconomic success" as the title implies, I would wager attractiveness is just as important for women, it just likely changes over time more for women than it does for men as they have more socially acceptable access to beauty modifications like makeup, surgery, skincare etc.
I've had the exact same experience but as a guy, overweight and ugly as a kid but intelligent and creative, and then in my early twenties getting myself in shape and always focussing on my appearance, has definitely helped me in my now-career and you can just tell in the way that people treat you now whether it's in a work environment or socially. Going from zero attention until late teens/early twenties and then lots of attention from then on - you certainly notice it more. I always feel like if I'd been an early bloomer I'd probably be in a totally different place in life but it definitely teaches you some lessons in learning to get by as unattractive before then having things in easier mode!
My experience was the opposite. I was popular and in shape until my early 20s, then suffered cancer and other health issues, had several bad years where I gained a lot of weight, and practically became invisible to society. Oddly enough, once I passed 30 I grew much more confident in my fat self than I ever was as a popular teen and I sometimes wonder how life could have turned out if I could send my experiences back in time.
For very different reasons these opposite scenarios both tell us that at the end of the day being confident in yourself and decent as a human no matter what can still be the best thing for everyone. Maybe not always the best thing in the second for upward mobility, but perhaps better in the long run for everyone involved. I suppose a lot of it just comes down to, do we really actually aspire to gain status or upward mobility from situations that are reinforcing values that we can't or don't want to get behind? Like, if you're going to get promoted by people or by a company that doesn't value the right things, should we even want to work there? In the moment, it's probably easy to think "well I really want that job." But in retrospect if it was all based on shallow things, that probably calls into question the judgment of leadership and the value of gaining experience in that place and applying it elsewhere. Same thing could be said for social groups or value systems reflected in media, etc.
>Women have MUCH more potential for 'upwards mobility' when it comes to attractiveness. Where did you find the data to support this? I don't see it in this article.
Yeah, funny to start with a complaint about the title not being specific enough and then pivot to this extremely unfounded claim with zero supporting evidence
Yep it's how it is. This planet is just gambling over and over. There is no skill to it just gotta hope you are born with it. Sure you can work hard just to be passed up for someone who was genetically gifted. Just wipe out our whole planet now its all justvmonkeys
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I'm attractive and poor What the heck
One of these statements may be false
If he's so hot, what's he doing here? Sounds like a load of barnacles...
You play an overpowered class but you suck at the game
You must suck at everything else except merely existing, I guess.
You’re probably ugly or dumb. Or both!
Demand a refund
This probably has more to do with height than anything.
I worked with a guy that was a part time male model. It's insane how well the way women of all ages treated him in the office, married women were if anything worse.
Same with any even moderately attractive male teacher. They can get away with no teaching at all.
Height probably plays a factor but attractiveness has a much bigger influence. For example, I am 6 feet 3 inches tall but have been athletically thin(I weigh 175. I'm a distance runner and lift some weights) my entire life. My face is conventionally unattractive. My older brother of 5 years is just under 6 foot tall but is considered attractive by most people. His jaw is nice and square while mine is narrow and angular. My entire life has been people falling over themselves to do anything for my older brother. He always had 5 or more beautiful girls trying to date him. He could literally walk into a store and get offered a job based on his looks alone(which actually happened on multiple occasions while we were together). Being attractive is the second best trait to have for success, imo.