
The Teddy Bear Effect - helloworld
https://harvardmagazine.com/2019/01/robert-livingston-harvard#
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KMag
It's a very interesting hypothesis, but I hope that either the journalist
misinterpreted the study, or I misinterpreted the journalist with

> In fact, he found that the more cherubic a black CEO’s face, the higher his
> salary—and even his company’s revenues.

I hope the study controlled for firm revenues when evaluating the effect of
facial features on salary. It's difficult to both simultaneously control for
revenues and also attribute causation on revenues. I can imagine several
plausible mechanisms (maybe a teddy bear face reduces power struggles within
the C-suite) by which the face affects revenue and this in turn drives salary.
I have no doubt that the salary differences remain after controlling for
revenues, and there's some bidirectional causality, but the journalist's
phrasing suggests to me a direction of causality that may not be warranted.

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starbeast
I am light skinned and look much younger than my age. I have noticed over the
years that I seem to not be allowed anywhere near any kind of management role.
Although I will be trusted with great responsibility to actually research,
develop, build and deliver, I have not generally been allowed to define
projects or suggest strategy. I am either at the sharp end or nowhere, it
seems. I suspect that my only way to be anywhere near being in an executive
position is if I start my own business.

edit - of course it might be nothing to do with appearance, I definitely have
some negative character traits. Though if it is character traits, very similar
traits don't seem to hurt the men with stubble and prominent chin clefts in
their careers.

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simaracode
Start by being a leader without being a manager (manager are made from leaders
in individual contributor roles), ask for stretch assignments when some leader
is OOF, ask for shadowing to a respected middle manager and ask for advice.
And final piece of advice, ask point blank (not aggressively): What do you
think I need to be a manager? What do you think I’m missing.

~~~
starbeast
Thanks for the advice. I think also some of it might just be that I have
mainly had jobs for smaller companies which have a relatively small percentage
of management positions available compared to larger organisations. So as they
tend to only have a handful of people in the middle between the executives and
everybody else, there are just less management positions there to start with
and they tend to either go to the existing friends of the executives or
professional managers hired from outside.

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sudhirj
This doesn’t seem surprising, given the reverse has long been known - in any
supposed meritocracy, height, a deep voice, facial hair all tend to correlate
with (or cause?) authority. I’ve experienced that personally - I look older
than I am, so people look to me for advice even before they establish my
credentials or competency.

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11thEarlOfMar
I'd be interested in also seeing the the boards of directors who hired the
CEOs. That would enrich the conversation.

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sandov
>He says some people misunderstand the aim of his research; he doesn’t suggest
that African Americans undergo plastic surgery to look more baby-faced, or
wear glasses if they have 20/20 vision, or make an effort to speak softly.
He’s not warning mature-looking black men away from C-suite roles. “I think we
should focus on dismantling the hierarchical structures and systems that keep
people out and produce phenomena like the Teddy Bear Effect,” he explains. “I
want people to realize that we don’t live in a meritocracy, that we are judged
by different standards. A quality that could be an asset in one group could be
a liability in another.” And because people make many choices and decisions
“outside of awareness, intent, or control,” prompted by cues they often don’t
notice consciously, Livingston says it might be helpful to change hiring and
promotion practices to avoid such blind spots involving physical appearance.

And how did he come to the conclusion that these effects and psychological
biases are undesirable and we should find mechanisms to avoid them? The
journalist either skipped it, or Livingston jumped to state his opinion
without explaining himself.

I could also interpret the data presented in the completely opposite way:
these psychological biases have helped us choose people more apt for these
positions and we should create an AI that chooses people based on these facial
characteristics, but well, as long as I don't provide a rationale, I'm just
spewing bullshit, as the second part of this article does.

I'm sorry for the diatribe, but I'm a little tired of these articles trying to
push their political agenda.

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praptak
> I could also interpret the data presented in the completely opposite way:
> these psychological biases have helped us choose people more apt for these
> positions.

You mean that baby-like facial features do actually make black men more
competent in decision-making roles?

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ve55
I'm not voicing agreement with your parent comment, but for a better
understanding more data is needed than just broad correlations. Without
additional information you cannot accurately pinpoint where causalities begin
and end as well as why and how they exist to begin with.

As long as people perceive a stimulus in a certain way (even if they have no
rational reason to), it will have an effect that cannot easily be removed. The
decisions that a CEO makes are important, but how others perceive them are
also important to the very end, not just in the hiring or promotions
processes.

~~~
praptak
> As long as people perceive a stimulus in a certain way (even if they have no
> rational reason to), it will have an effect that cannot easily be removed.
> The decisions that a CEO makes are important, but how others perceive them
> are also important to the very end, not just in the hiring or promotions
> processes.

Yup, this is plausible. It's also compatible with what the author says: “I
want people to realize that we don’t live in a meritocracy, that we are judged
by different standards. A quality that could be an asset in one group could be
a liability in another.”

Unless of course you define meritocracy to include being on the right side of
people's biases. The problem with this definition is that it is close to
making every promotion decision meritocratic by definition.

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starbeast
>The problem with this definition is that it is close to making every
promotion decision meritocratic by definition.

This is pretty close to what Michael Young was warning about when he coined
the term in his 1958 satire, 'The Rise of the Meritocracy'. Here's an article
by him on the subject -
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment)

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geeWow
Is there anything that anybody can do right to make anyone happy about racial
differences?

Can anyone not break the eggshells? Maybe what we need to do is just keep
dumping money into this problem, until there’s no more money left?

Then everyone gets to sing Bodak Yellow, act like Cardi B, Queen of the
fucking universe no matter how beautiful or ugly, smart or dumb they might
just coincidentally be. That way, everyone is just born perfect and
circumstances have no affect on our lives.

Don’t gotta dance, wear red bottom shoes, you can get ‘em both, you don’t
gotta choose.

