
Being Really, Really, Ridiculously Good Looking - guimarin
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/48869654882/being-really-really-ridiculously-good-looking
======
rthomas6
Until this perception of attractive people being more trustworthy, smarter,
etc. changes (it's probably not going to change), how do we incorporate this
information into our lives and careers? My opinion: lose weight. Or rather,
reduce your body fat percentage. It's not as hard as people make it out to be.
Look at the hot or not composite index. Notice the correlation? The numbers
are inversely correlated with their body fat percentage. If you are wearing
great new clothes, are clean, are groomed, and are 30+ pounds overweight,
you're going to look less attractive (and therefore less successful and
trustworthy) to most people than someone who is wearing average clothes and is
in decent shape. And I'm not talking about see-your-abs shape, though of
course that's even better. I mean just getting to a healthy weight. It seems
to me it's one thing that a lot of people with desk jobs overlook or fail to
take seriously, that can mean a huge increase in quality of life in a lot of
different ways.

~~~
bherms
I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately we're in a country (assuming US) where
everyone wants handouts and an even playing field, regardless of their
lifestyle choices. People demand their offices install ramps for mobility
scooters when they're morbidly obese and it's discriminatory not to oblige,
but try arguing your work should open later because you drink too much every
night. Overeating and copious alcohol consumption are one and the same, IMO.

It's also easy for others to assume everything they don't have was given to
others or comes naturally. Out of shape people give me hell all the time for
being in excellent physical condition, but they don't know about the 10 miles
of running every day and 6 hours of training I put into wrestling for most of
my life, or that I run and lift weights daily and watch what I eat. To them,
they're not willing to work on their body to have what others have, but are
willing to bitch about it. Granted some people are just born unattractive, but
it's amazing what a little focus on your appearance can do to change how you
look and are perceived. We can extrapolate unattractiveness out a little bit
and look at appearance as well. Would you be fired from an office job for
dressing like a bum, smelling like body odor, and looking disheveled all the
time? Most likely. Is that discrimination? I would argue it's not.

~~~
ahoyhere
> Out of shape people give me hell all the time for being in excellent
> physical condition, but they don't know about the 10 miles of running every
> day

My major exertion this week was going to the doctor. I rode in a car, walked
20 ft, sat on a chair, talked, rode home, and had to go lie down and take
medicine. As my doctor remarked, "You look grey." Because I have a chronic
illness and nobody is sure what exactly it is or what to do about it. I've
been like this off an on, without much rhyme or reason, since 2009 when I came
down with mono for the second (yes second) time. I used to exercise every day,
before I got sick. Now some days, if I do any kind of exercise -- for mere
minutes! -- it'll knock me on my ass for days, a kind of exhaustion and pain
and fatigue you can't understand unless you've experienced it. This they give
the benign, cuddly title of "post-exertional malaise."

Luckily if somebody looks at me and thinks I'm fat because I'm lazy, I really
couldn't give a shit, because having your vitality ripped from you at 26
really gives you perspective on stupid things like _that guy's staring at my
fat ass_.

The irony, of course, is that you are guilty of what you claim others are
guilty of… not having a clue as to the private lives or struggles of the
people around you. Judging them based on appearance. Thinking you know them.

But if you, heaven forbid, develop a chronic illness and you're smart enough
to do your own research, you'll find that millions of people all around you
are suffering in silence. Of being told they simply must be lazy. Without a
proper diagnosis or any kind of medical help.

Oh wait. I guess those are handouts?

~~~
gregpilling
I can relate.. I also have a chronic illness, with the gloriously vague name
of fibromyalgia. I have had doctors tell me there was nothing wrong with me,
accuse me of being a drug addict, lazy, etc etc. What fun. Have spent since
2008 doing my own research (with generous amounts of help from my wife and
friends). I have discovered that I am in a club that I don't want to be in,
the chronic pain and fatigue club.

I have to plan what days I exert myself on, because I know that the next few
days will be spent in bed, unable to move. Gives me plenty of time to think,
haha. "you should exercise more" is the least helpful advice, which I get all
the time. People mean well, but they don't understand. It gives me an
opportunity to reflect on when I do the same to others, when I mean well but
don't understand.

~~~
ahoyhere
Yes, I have fibromyalgia too. I consider it a non-diagnosis (like chronic
fatigue syndrome, which may or may not be the same thing, but which I (also?)
have). It doesn't tell you causes it or how to get better, or what it really
_is_. So.

On most days, I'm much better than I described above. What really helped me is
the protocol in the book _From Fatigued to Fantastic_. If you haven't read it,
haven't tried his approach to fixing sleep and other imbalances, I CANNOT
ENCOURAGE YOU MORE to check it out. The trazodone alone changed my life. Plus
the magnesium, the B vitamin supplements, (sometimes) the adrenal supplements,
heavily supplementing electrolytes with electrolyte pills (that's my
addition)… these took me from being non-functional, unable to discuss facts or
details or make decisions, or go further than the sofa, to being able to go
out, see people, do things (with limits).

This week I've started naturthroid to support my normal-testing thyroid. So
far it seems to be working. I have hope that it will stop the "crashing."

Hope you feel better.

------
jameshsi
What I find interesting as well is that being attractive is not all roses, and
sometimes it can work against you: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr>

Hedy Lamarr, credited with the US Patent for frequency hopping, was met with
disbelief simply because people thought she was too beautiful to create such a
profound intellectual contribution.

Many actors/actresses find themselves unable to break out of certain roles
that match their look and caricature. In day to day life, we make assumptions
about a person's personality based on how they look. There's a lot of "work"
we all need to do to break out of the societal mold that's shaping other
people's perception of our personalities if left to first impressions.

~~~
jiggy2011
Weirdly enough I did once have a woman find it difficult to believe I worked
in IT because I was "too handsome for that". I've also seen comments on
technical youtube videos that say stuff like "Dude has pale skin and a
neckbeard, you know he's legit!"

I wonder if this is one of the reasons we don't have more women in IT, if
there is a public perception of IT people = Ugly. The last thing many women
want is to be associated with ugly.

------
cousin_it
Everyone concerned with this problem might be interested in reading Ted
Chiang's excellent science fiction story "Liking What You see":
<http://www.ibooksonline.com/88/Text/liking.html> . It examines what would
happen if everyone could choose to disable their natural reaction to beauty,
and how that relates to morality.

~~~
edanm
Huge upvote to this. It's a really excellent story. In fact, Ted Chiang's
short story collection is some of the best Science Fiction I've read in years.
That story specifically is a great one (not the best), and I think of it every
time this kind of article crops up.

------
RivieraKid
"America has no law preventing companies from using attractiveness as a hiring
criteria, regardless of whether the job is exotic dancer, salesman, or
software engineer. It’s pretty much okay from a legal standpoint to
discriminate based on looks in America."

This law wouldn't make much sense. We could as well make a law preventing
companies from using intelligence as hiring criteria. Imagine a boring job in
a factory, where having above average intelligence wouldn't make you more
productive. Is it discriminating to hire someone only because the boss likes
him because he's intelligent? And what about discrimination based on smell or
sense of humour?

~~~
vacri
A guy I knew did too well on his aptitude test to become a tram driver here in
Melbourne. The problem as seen by the recruiters is that in being too bright,
he's likely to get bored sooner and leave. Sure, he himself might absolutely
love the job and stay for decades, but the recruiters are playing the numbers
game here - tram drivers are not a keystone position - and they find that
there's more churn with really bright people.

~~~
lutusp
That's a good point, and it's often quoted to explain the fact that Ph.D.
graduates often make less money (or have higher unemployment rates) than
professional degree holders in the same field. The assumption is that the
Ph.D. holder will jump ship at the first offer of a job at his educational
level, so he's less reliable as a long term employee.

------
JabavuAdams
I recently realized that this is embedded in our language. My 4-year was
confused by the phrase "good-looking". She assumed that it meant people who
look like they're good.

By four, she's already internalized that attractive people are good and
unattractive (by local standards) are bad. Scary.

~~~
yathern
To me it sounds like she hear the term "good-looking" and interpreted as
someone who looks like they're good. Not internalizing some societal idea
about attractive people.

There are many defining visual characteristics that are anthropomorphically
indicators of "good" or "bad" people, that don't necessarily have to do with
attractiveness.

------
ChrisNorstrom
Evolution wise, this is because people like in others, what they wish they had
for themselves. Likewise, people hate in others what they dislike about
themselves. We celebrate the beautiful because we wish we too could be
beautiful. We mock the ugly/short/gay/fat/skinny/weak because those are
qualities that we ourselves do not wish to have. If all of society punishes
those with these traits, people with these traits will be less likely to
reproduce and pass these traits on to future generations. Nature is as always,
brutal.

But because we humans have emotions we try to hide these discriminations and
pretend we don't have them.

I always thought it was interesting how women with self-image issues are
comforted on talk shows and told "honey you are beautiful just the way you
are!" in one episode then "oh my God you look so much better!" after they get
a makeover in the next episode. Not to mention the irony of women in the crowd
(who will spend hundreds of hours each year putting on makeup, doing hair,
bleaching, & plucking) clapping to the tune of "you're beautiful just the way
you are".

My angry bitterness comes from the fact that my whole life I've been lied to.
I was a cute kid but after puberty it all went downhill. I was the first to
realize it. I was hoping the world around me would keep it's promise of
treating me nicely because after all, "it's what's on the inside that counts".
Yet, it was all a lie. I've had friends tell me I was ugly, I've had friends
tell me they initially didn't want to be associated with me because I was
ugly. I've had people in public say to me (as I'm walking by) "Damn dude,
you're ugly". And if I choose to get cosmetic surgery some day, I'll have a
whole new group of people calling me "shallow". Why? Because I want to look
nice? God I'm just so sick of this bullshit. I don't hate myself, I hate the
world that lied to me. People who say one thing, then do another.

The same people who call plastic surgery recipients as "shallow" are the same
ones who lie to themselves and refuse to acknowledge how important it can be
to look nice and feel good about yourself. How happy the millions of people
who get surgery every year feel when they have a nose straightened out or a
wrinkle removed or hollow cheeks filled.

People tend to believe lies that make them feel good rather than accepting
truths that make them feel bad. I'm glad I live in 2013 when I can change the
way I look so I can have a better life instead of lapping up all that "it's
what's on the inside" bullshit so many people keep spreading so they can look
empathetic and modest in front of others.

My Point: I'd like 3 things to change in our society:

1) No more lying. No more "We're all beautiful" rhetoric. No everyone is not
beautiful. That's bullshit. Let's be honest. A few people are beautiful, most
are average, many can be unattractive, and some are apparently repulsive
enough to instill feelings of negativity in others. Beauty can also be
subjective so there's a bit of give here and there.

2) To be more understanding towards people who are unattractive by removing
the stigma that comes with being unattractive. Aka don't treat us differently.
Example: All my friends are outcasts, people rejected by others because they
were unattractive, too fat, too skinny, too black (Nigerian descent). Despite
me admitting that many of my friends are unattractive themselves, I was still
their friend. I was never embarrassed to be their friend or be seen with them.

3) To not look down on people who want to better themselves through cosmetic
surgery. Cosmetic surgery is still looked down upon by many people. If you
take a leave of absence for 2 weeks and come back with a different face your
co-workers will respond negatively. To redefine oneself is what makes humans
human. Stop judging cosmetic surgery by looking at extreme examples like Dolly
Parton, Joan Rivers, and Michael Jackson. Those are extreme edge cases. Walk
into any plastic surgeons offices and ask for their before/after books. Most
surgery is meant to leave the patient looking natural not unrecognizable.

For instance: <http://www.drrichardjoseph.com/photos/jaw-surgery.php> Are they
shallow for looking better?

~~~
clicks
What...

Okay, having just followed the link in your profile and looking at your
picture, dude, _trust me_ you're not ugly. I actually honestly think you're a
handsome guy, judging purely by appearances.

But anyway. You know, I've noticed that people who fixate on appearances tend
to be irrationally harsh. You'd be surprised how big a part confidence and
charisma plays in the overall attraction people feel for one another. You
don't need to spend any dollar on surgery, just work on your confidence, be
cheerful, and learn to carry yourself well.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
1st rule of being ugly: Every ugly person has at least 1 really good picture
that hides all of their flaws or is easily photoshoppable to hide flaws. Use
any combination of lighting, shadows, cropping, facial hair to get this
effect.

2nd rule: Find that picture and use it for everything.

3rd rule: People will be confused when they see you in real life and realize
you look different from your picture. They will be disappointed. So you have
to work really hard to try to match whatever level of attractiveness you have
in your picture. If you're a guy and you've never put on makeup, you may need
to learn.

If you think this level or worrying is too much and obsessive, I'd like to ask
you this. If the way people treat you changes depending on how you look when
you leave the house, you too would "worry about it".

Again, I'm not devastated that I'm ugly. I'm devastated that people treat me
differently because I'm ugly. Especially after all the "everyone's beautiful
in their own way" rhetoric I've heard my whole life. There's lots of people
who are super successful, rich, and happy with families and they're ugly. What
angers me is being treated differently because of something that I cannot
control.

~~~
bored
Fortunately you're a guy and can elicit the same positive reaction by being
confident, funny and charming.

~~~
illuminate
Confident, funny, charming women don't elicit positive reactions from sane,
well-adjusted males?

~~~
ahoyhere
I'm a woman who would hardly be considered "traditionally attractive" and it's
always worked for me. People's opinions of your looks change based on how they
view your personality.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
Couldn't agree more. Actual personality and personability go much further than
looks. It's just important to have that confidence and ease about you. Which,
granted, may be hard if one's grown up thinking they are ugly. But once you
get the tricks of smiling, reading others, and conveying a positive
personality, the world opens up. Big time.

------
crag
" America has no law preventing companies from using attractiveness as a
hiring criteria, regardless of whether the job is exotic dancer, salesman, or
software engineer. It’s pretty much okay from a legal standpoint to
discriminate based on looks in America."

My problem with this is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So having laws
preventing companies hiring based on looks is ridiculous. I mean, how would
you know what anyone thought during the hiring process? I doubt anyone would
say "you're ugly as shit so we aren't hiring you".

Not to mention, what you consider "ugly" I might not.

~~~
jiggy2011
It's only subjective to a point. There are many things that are almost
uniformly considered attractive by the majority of the population.

There was an AMA from somebody who did research on this on reddit a while
back.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1cstrm/i_did_research_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1cstrm/i_did_research_on_facial_attractiveness_for_years/)

It says in there that it's usually around 30-40% subjective.

~~~
cadlin
I looked through that thread and what struck me was how small the body of
research the guy draws from is. Maybe he is only citing a small sample of the
research, but there seems to be a lot of conclusions drawn from very few
studies. Especially on something as subjective and political as human
attraction.

The top answer in the reddit thread discusses this
([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1689917/pdf/1038...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1689917/pdf/10380676.pdf))
study. It says that women prefer the odor of more attractive men. The
conclusions from that study are based on the odors of 6(!) different men.

And the t-shirt the men wore to capture the odor are washed, frozen, and then
heated in a bottle. The women then smell the bottle and make their judgement.
The study doesn't bother to explain why these actions don't change the odor of
the t-shirt (which they might not, but that doesn't seem obvious to me).

There are other problems with the study, but I'll stop there.

I understand that all fields of science have to start somewhere, but this
seems closer to phrenology than particle physics.

------
mikecane
>>>“In one study, men who saw a new-car ad that included a seductive young
woman model rated the car as faster, more appealing, more expensive-looking,
and better designed than did men who viewed the same ad without the model. Yet
when asked later, the men refused to believe that the presence of the young
woman had influenced their judgments.”

I've been wondering why in China launches of products are usually accompanied
by young good-looking women holding the product.

EDIT to add: I also find it to be a very annoying practice.

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
Pascal: “Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the
process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight, and are not
used to seek for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are accustomed
to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters of feeling,
seeking principles, and being unable to see at a glance.”

~~~
mikecane
If you're using that to defend exploiting women, forget it.

~~~
beachstartup
if you're paying the women, but taking the mens' money, who exactly is being
exploited here?

~~~
illuminate
Why only one?

------
ashwinaj
I'd like to see a study in other regions than North America. Does it apply
elsewhere?

------
danielpal
Readability note: Theres a really annoying iFrame in top right (join Tumblr),
fixed position that makes it impossible to read the blog and follows you.

Screenshot:
[https://twitter.com/danielpalacio/status/327525758065070080/...](https://twitter.com/danielpalacio/status/327525758065070080/photo/1)

There's no way to close it. Is this something that Tumblr adds?

~~~
rohin
Rohin from Priceonomics here. Tumblr added this new button to our site this
week I believe. We'll figure out some way to change / remove it; it's
annoying.

------
chipsy
As the article establishes, beauty in the traditional sense mostly means
"average."

To some extent I think you can take more control over your appearance by
searching for an identity that goes beyond traditional elements - taking an
artistic approach to one's fashion, makeup, outlook, etc. Music subculture has
done this numerous times since the 20th century, and more recently queer
culture has been deconstructive of many of the traditional attitudes towards
beauty. Those ideas are deliberately positioned against the mainstream, yet
have an influence on it over time - you can get away with a far more
outlandish appearance in a modern urban area now than 30 years ago.

As well, we're going to keep adding corrective measures over time.

So I see society heading towards a "meeting in the middle" in some respects -
creating all permutations of attractiveness.

~~~
jacoblyles
> beauty in the traditional sense mostly means "average."

I'd imagine that this is true for females, but that males would benefit from
being above average in some ways (i.e. height).

------
papaver
like the porno for pyros song goes, "cursed to be born beautiful, poor and
female, there's none that suffered more." there are definitely advantages to
be born beautiful but there are also several disadvantages. its too bad the
article didn't dwell on the negative effects as well.

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
Saying that it's tough being beautiful is one of those formulations along the
lines of, "Oh, it's _such_ a burden having all this wealth. How I envy the
simple, carefree lives of the poor."

------
etvmueller
Imagine a world where professional sports teams recruit the least talented
players, and companies seek out the bottom of the class engineers, while
everyone cheers how outstandingly ugly the models are because advertisers only
want the most ugly to represent them, above the noise of the least gifted
warbler singing on the radio.

There are many ways to be outstanding, why should the pursuit of the
outstanding in some areas be any less socially acceptable than in other areas?

~~~
scarmig
Because a job where you sit in front of a computer all day doesn't require you
to not have acne or be taller than 5'2 (if you're a guy) or whatever.

I'm sure there's some model with epicycles and epicycles of logic explaining
how having prettier programmers (or whatever) make all the programmers they
see over the water cooler more productive. But there'd have to be actual
evidence of that.

~~~
etvmueller
With regard to the theory that attractive workers make other workers more
productive, I do not know if that is true and I am not arguing it. And I also
would not argue that sitting in front of a computer all day requires you to
have acne or be less than 5'2".

If you had to hire one of two people, both equally qualified except that one
was much more physically attractive, which would you hire ( in a vacuum where
there is no legal oversight )?

We are encouraged to accommodate differences to such a degree that I am
concerned that we reflexively penalize representatives of the ideal, in favor
of representatives of ever greater divergence from the ideal, and to what
purpose? If we cannot help being born who we are then some will just be more
attractive than others. Rather than letting them coast through life on their
looks, we should be encouraging them to develop their other abilities. Perfect
facial symmetry for example may indicate a beautiful mind.

------
nazgulnarsil
Is it just me or is the 7.5-7.9 the most attractive on that grid?

~~~
svachalek
I thought that was interesting too. I think perhaps it's something to do with
the nature of the averaging process, where a bunch of faces averaged look
better than the individual faces up to the point of being "good" looking, but
exceptionally good looking faces have more to lose than gain.

For example, I've read that for women, the more contrast the better (which is
why makeup works) and it's likely you lose a lot of that in the averaging
process.

------
incision
I'm surprised there's no mention downsides to being an attractive man. I think
they certainly exist, but perhaps the net is positive?

~~~
Odin9
Straight porn. They don't want attractive men, it makes male viewers feel
inadequate.

~~~
jiggy2011
Not that I'm the best to judge, but male porn actors seem to be mostly in
pretty good shape.

~~~
beachstartup
these days they're all young and fit and well endowed. but the camera is never
focused on them or their faces, like in the old days.

the ron jeremy days are long gone.

~~~
illuminate
He was young and fit in the seventies. He's just stayed around in that
business long after his expiration date.

