Do attractive people really make more money or are more successful? Have you heard of this?

Two words, Bill Gates.
Some more words, he basically looks like a Picasso painting & well….......$$$$$

@ucme – Exactly and of course, reason why I was shocked when I came across this idea or statistic. It never occurred to me. I think he’s handsome for his age though, beauty is in the eye of the beholder :)

Donald trump is fugly.

I have met some pretty attractive street kids, but if you are talking about the upper middle class, they do have more money to spend on cosmetics, dental care, nice clothes etc, but it’s a put on kind of beauty, and has nothing to do with genetics.

On average, definitely. It’s easy to think of notable exceptions, but that in no way negates the trend.

Here’s a good paper out of University of Texas on this. From the summary:

“Plain people earn less than average-looking people, who earn less than the good-looking. The plainness penalty is 5–10 percent, slightly larger than the beauty premium. Effects for men are at least as great as for women”

It is true in a statical sense. Another mark for success is having a symmetrical face. It is believed that this has to do with natural selection. You pick people who are healthy over people who are not; the fact that appearance is a minor indication of health notwithstanding.

It is an instance of the Halo effect. It applies to both men and women, and can even extend beyond human beings. Note that things like this are matters of statistical trends, not absolute rankings. That is, finding a few exceptions does not disprove that the effect does not exist. Its operation may be subtle, after all. Less attractive people may still succeed, and even outperform more attractive people, but it will typically take them longer. Alternatively, their successes may be downplayed by others, while the successes of a more attractive person might be played up.

According to this book, attractive people do have an advantage. However, I’m sure most of us can point to examples of successful people who are not all that attractive. Usually, people in the latter category are very confident and have good social skills, i.e. know how to schmooze. So being good-looking isn’t the only path to success.

I believe that there is an unconscious bias to view more favorably those whose features are more symmetrical, unblemished and those who are taller. However, having these attributes does not guarantee success and lacking them does not prevent one from becoming successful. Attractiveness in some instances may actually limit one’s motivation because acceptance and praise are received with little effort on their part. Conversely, those without such advantages may assert themselves more and achieve success through their efforts.

“Do you guys think this is true?.... Anyway, just wanted people’s opinions.”

If the study is conducted scientifically, then opinions on whether it is true are irrelevant. That is, if studies, multiple, peer reviewed studies indicated better looking people or tall people or thin people or “fill in your positive subjective adjective” people earn more or are promoted more, then why would anyone doubt it?

While being good looking isn’t always necessary, for every one “good looking” job candidate there are 69 “not good looking” job candidates who wish they were better looking.

Yes, psychological research has proved this. They also get lighter jail sentences and better service in general.

I’m attractive and I don’t make a lot of money, which means I’m now ugly :/

There were some studies done (don’t ask me to find them) about 20 years ago that correlated height with being appointed a headmaster at an independent day school in the US. Tall (and usually lean) men got the jobs and hence the nice salaries.

@gailcalled Yeah, and for some reason the percentage of men over 6 feet tall in positions of leadership in fortune 500 companies is much larger than in non fortune 500 companies.

Yes, it’s true. If you look up my past postings on this, you’ll find me citing stuff all over the place in earlier years. It’s even worse than this. Beautiful people also do better academically.

Although, when you think about how evolution works, it kind of makes sense. We select for survival traits. Success and intelligence and beauty are all traits that enhance survivability, so it makes sense you’d find them together.

It doesn’t seem fair, but it helps explain why people spend so much time trying to look more beautiful than they are or stronger or whatever.

Understand that this is just averages. There is variation, so there are successful ugly people. I’m not sure how many successful stupid people there are, however.

The interesting thing, though, about this, is that if the correlation is true, on average, that means that smarter people are probably more likely to also be good looking and tall and whatnot.

What can I say? Life isn’t fair.

They say that beauty is only skin deep, but it turns out that is not true. At least, not according to the tests. If a person is beautiful on the inside, it is likely they are also beautiful on the outside, and vice versa.

Well. There’s an upside to this for me. Maybe my self perception all these years has been incorrect….....

Nawwwwww

Not true. Just look at politians. Many of them are uglier than sin and yet they get votes and plenty of money.
Just look at this Forbes list of the top 100 and there is only a handful of good looking people. Of course when your that rich, nobody cares how good looking you are. But my point is, I’m sure they were ugly most of their lives and they were still able to be extremely successful. (At least financially)

Wow. I dunno about the politicians you see, but the ones I see tend to be better looking than most. They are also taller.

Pretty people tend to have more doors open to them but that will only take them so far.