Having Beauty and Brains Lead to Higher Pay, Study Confirms
Posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 and is filed under Career, Political & General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Those closest to us may downplay physical attractiveness by stating, “It’s the inside that counts.” To some, beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but a new study confirms that having both beauty and brains lead to higher pay in the workplace.
“Little is known about why there are income disparities between the good-looking and the not-so-good-looking,” said the study’s lead author, Timothy Judge, PhD, of the University of Florida. “We’ve found that, even accounting for intelligence, a person’s feeling of self-worth is enhanced by how attractive they are and this, in turn, results in higher pay.”
The study looked at 191 women and men between the ages of 25 and 75. They answered questions and had their pictures taken, which were rated based on their attractiveness. The researchers found that physical attractiveness had a huge impact on how much people got paid, how educated they were and how they evaluated themselves. In essence, the people who were rated as “good looking” made more money, were better educated and had more confidence within themselves. For example, the study points out that from an early age, attractive people receive more encouragement in academics and they are judged more positively. Attractive people also have more positive interactions with others and receive more attention.
Good-looking people tend to think more highly of their self-worth, which in turn led to more money. And the stigma of being unattractive can lead to external constraints.
“We can be somewhat heartened by the fact that the effects of general intelligence on income were stronger than those of facial attractiveness,” said Judge. “It turns out that the brainy are not necessarily at a disadvantage to the beautiful, and if one possesses intelligence and good looks, then all the better.”
The researchers also warn employers to make an effort not to subconsciously favor attractive people. One way of doing this is to judge potential employees by more objective means like personality and ability tests. “It is still worthwhile for employers to make an effort to reduce the effects of bias toward attractive people in the workplace,” said Judge.
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