Why good-looking people are more successful in business
Business Insider recently ran a list of the 50 sexiest CEOs in the world, which is precisely as insulting a feature as you’d guess it is.
For instance, the rundown’s no. 12 entry is Jamie Dimon, the JP Morgan Chase boss. If it’s not enough that the 56-year-old earned a $23 million pay package last year, does he really need to have that head of hair, too?
In any case, all the Business Insider list did, surely, was make us feel down about ourselves, though perhaps things are about to get worse.
According to a new book, as well as an accompanying study, good-looking people really are better suited for professional success.
By numbers in the new book, Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, there’s plenty of fire to the smoke that good-looking workers reach loftier professional heights than others around them.
*Bing: How to get the job you want
The book, by University of Texas at Austin economics professor Daniel Hamermesh, shows that attractive people earn an average of three-to-four per cent more than those with below-average looks.
“Good-looking people are more appealing as potential sex partners,” adds Dario Maestripieri, a pscyh professor at the University of Chicago in explaining the so-called pleasure of working, and reward, good-looking people. “And (so) other people choose to interact with them, to spend time near them, talk with them, buy insurance from them, and hire them as employees.”
Why good-looking people succeed isn’t entirely due to their looks, but the by-products of them. Hamermesh argues that better-looking people tend to have personality traits that better suit them to professional success, like high self-confidence, which, of course, often comes directly from their good looks.
But while all this might seem dooming for those that consider themselves unattractive, perhaps the news gets worse: not only do better-looking people climb the corporate ladder more easily, but they also seem to get a better crack at jobs in the first place.
Researchers at Rice University conducted a study alongside those at the University of Houston, whereby job interviewers were asked to describe interviewees whose physical looks ranged in appearance.
Their findings? The interviewers could hardly remember certain traits of so-called unattractive people – those, defined here, with scars, blemishes or other disfigurements on their face – leading them to be less likely to get the job.
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: SP | Oct 15, 2021 3:50:04 PM
Basic human Psychology. We're attracted to more 'attractive' people. Thus better looking people are more likely to have positives attributed to them and less likely to have negatives attributed to them.
Best way to get a job, move forward in a job, claim successes and fob off failure on less attractive individuals.
Additionally when one thinks that most HR employees are young women looks are going to be critical when it comes to deciding who gets called back.
Life is unfair. Sometimes it's unfair in your direction, other times the Britney Spears of the worlds win. Meh.
Posted by: Western Guy | Oct 17, 2021 7:21:18 PM
If there was a best comment award you would win SP. Summed it up well and hit all the points.