One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.
> When education is in-person, attractive students receive higher grades in non-quantitative subjects, in which teachers tend to interact more with students compared to quantitative courses.
I wonder how much of this is less about attraction and more about social skills. Granted, higher attraction affords more opportunity to develop those skills, but I have met plenty of charming people who were not conventionally attractive.
Even if the data is truly representative and unbiased, we should also not believe conclusions that draw so heavily on interpreting correlation. One could just as well conclude that male intelligence and beauty go hand in hand. Or that men have a better relationship with the teacher. Or that the effect of female beauty fades with distance. Or that COVID had an effect on make-up style. The confounds are endless.
An alternative story could be that the women’s presented appearance online may have changed more than men’s and that real appearance changes could weaken the correlation between the paper’s stored photo-based beauty score and what instructors actually saw live. Maybe woman changed grooming effort more than men, or the effects of fashion trends that explicitly drove the woman towards less attractive styles etc.
if that mismatch increased more for women than men, the estimated “beauty premium” for women could fall even without any change in teachers’ discriminatory behavior. The paper just assumes the attractiveness stayed constant during the period, but seems to have had no data to verify this.
Attractive females might also have different behavior in remote teaching. Attractiveness directly affects how people behave and feel. This might also be different for males vs. females.
I'm sure that attractiveness does play a role for grades, it's just not nearly as simple as the paper puts it.
There are a lot of potential explanations, which is why these kinds of studies are unfortunately not that helpful and often cause questionable media coverage.
In the past they would stare in pure awe at my guaranteed impeccable looks.
Now they ask me damned question to calculate the speed of fluids
in different pipes through the Bernoulli's principle. And ChatGPT
only helps so much here ...
Also, I think there must be a pretty big difference between female and
male, because even if a male student is attract, if I am a male teacher
and interested in females, would I wish to prioritize on looks, if the
underlying grading is instead done on e. g. testing knowledge and skills?
Why would looks even factor in here? Such a system would be flawed from
the get go.
My first job during and out of college back in 2003, we were entirely remote. We hired exclusively over the phone which resulted in a mix of people that were completely diverse in their backgrounds and at the same time truly qualified to do the work.
The company went on to grow quite successfully until it was acquired 6 years later. I feel that zoom and video conferencing allows some of that "appearance" factor back in. Based on my experience though, if I had my way, job interviews would be exclusively audio only.
People that have used to be fat, and then lost a lot of weight, will know how brutally different people will treat you. Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.
Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bias against fat people, against "unattractive" people, etc.
This also shows in the classroom, work, etc.
Of course, actually being conventionally attractive will come with its own perks. People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.
I've experienced this personally while losing weight. Some people will argue for the confidence thing, and it's a factor I'm sure, but there's a palpable difference in treatment. Also the trauma/trust issues that come from being seen as 'less than' don't resolve over night, and it takes some time of that palpable change to help build the confidence.
Interacting with anyone is a risk. They might take any form of attention to a level that forces you to set a boundary, or uncomfortably accepting the boundary already being crossed, turning a positive intent into a a net-negative interaction. If you're attracted to someone, there are a lot less boundaries. If you find someone unattractive, a lot of other people probably do to, increasing the risk they're attention starved, and more likely to make it awkward. Most people feel that risk, regardless of their own attractiveness. "Confidence" can help signal they're less likely to make it weird, but it's certainly no guarantee.
That is probably true. I remember I felt really bad when my high school teachers were openly flirting with students during class.
But there is another side to the coin. If you are attractive, a lot of the nastier people out there will try to manipulate you and gaslight you just to be closer to you all the time. Some people will be cruel and nasty to you just because they know you will sexually reject them. Some teachers will be mean or passive aggressive towards you because they are attracted to you and they know they can never be with you.
It is actually very dangerous to be attractive but not to have the social skills to handle the way people react to it. Many attractive people grow up with these social skills because they grown up as attractive children and they get used to it, but for some people that suddenly become attractive because they lose weight or another reason it can be very challenging. Similarly for people that are just born introverts and don't have the social skills.
You obviously have never had to deal with a disability. I would swap with a fat person every day. Reading your "complaint" makes me seriously sad, because what you perceive as a problem is just the tip of the iceberg. Its like someone complaining about the lack of icecream while others are being beaten up in brought daylight.
I wonder how often it is unintentional or somewhat polite. As a kid I got into this habit of not really looking at obese or disabled people because I didn’t want to seem like I was staring at them like some of my slackjawed peers might. I think to an extent this bleeds over into adult life. Obese or disabled people might think it is malicious but the behavior might really come from good intentions at least to some degree. A boring dystopia sort of situation IMO.
> People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.
This was my first thought about why the move to online works for men but not women. When I was attractive, people intuitively thought I was competent as well. I could speak with authority on topics not knowing more than the average and people would believe me.
Fo women this might sometimes even be the other way around - more beauty is associated with less intelligence.
I don’t know how widely this observation has been made, but relatedly it is very hard to be a very attractive person. I’m very much glad to be average.
I’ve known a few very attractive people close up, and their lives are difficult. One example: you are presented with so many partners it can be very difficult to choose, and hard to discern who actually likes you as a person vs is just attracted to you. How can you pick a partner who is going to be a good match and faithful? And when you’re in a relationship, it’s harder to stay faithful when other people are throwing themselves at you and you suffer FOMO.
I remember this study! It caused huge controversy in Sweden.
The phd student who conducted it trawled through students' Facebook pages and took their profile photos (without consent). Then he had a jury of 74 teenagers rate the photos on a scale from 1 to 10. Then he tried to correlate beauty with grades for distance or in-class education. De-anonymizing the data was trivial so everyone could pretty much see how the jury had rated each profile photo. And research data is public.
It was a seriously weak study with questionable methodology and a too low effect-size to draw any conclusions anyway. So no reason to get alarmed if you are ugly. :)
I remember in college there were always small groups of students chatting with professors after class or going to office hours. Many profs would drop pretty big hints about upcoming exams. I guess it was a mix of enjoying the attention, pitying weaker students, and wanting to reward "participation". Always felt a bit unfair to me.
I don’t think it’s that simple. My assistant professor friends build relationships with students and help them work on topics and weaknesses. They get to know students and how to help them on problem areas.
For deeper courses they may help them pick topics to write about and sources to read.
Having that context for the ongoing feedback from grading and mentoring is valuable. Depending on the work it simply might not be possible to do anything blind.
Even without names, handwriting and writing styles are obvious. Even in an office setting I can always tell who wrote something as small as a sign or a note by handwriting or word choice alone.
When you complain about having to interact with AI when applying for a job, remember that AI could be the most fair and unbiased recruiter...as long as companies want to...
I guess it all depends on your perspective, I found the findings to be anti-red pill. Women with attractive faces lost their grade advantage in remote learning and men with attractive faces did not.
It suggests to me that good-looking men are socially valued for several reasons that are robust to distance education, but good-looking women are socially valued for their bodies if they are in proximity, the same way we value objects. Very limiting and frustrating.
If anyone in the red pill camp is looking to reexamine their perspectives in good-faith, "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation" (Tannen) is a good start.
As an attractive person myself that studied engineering in several countries of Europe and some years in the US I don't believe there are many opportunities for you to take advantage of your attractiveness. Most examinations were in written form.
I have huge doubts about the study. In cinema, theatre, sure, you need physical presence, but engineering... I don't believe Von Newman would have needed presence to impress other people.
Another very important thing is that there are very important differences between sexes. The most physically attractive man in the world without the proper attitude and without leadership and success is nobody.
I am what is called a sigma male. I was never interested in power, dominating others, being the boss. Women prefer ugly and short people if they are leaders to tall and beautiful man that are not social.
In fact, if you get uglier as you age but get more successful, you will receive way more attention. If you command a group of people, run a company or are a big boss, women will get in love.
Also, if you are tall and beautiful, men will get envious of you.
It is hard to believe research like this means anything while research in real science fields tends to be so nuanced and hard to make conclusions about.
This only serves as a tool for people who are trying to find a basis for their beliefs.
55 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 59.3 ms ] threadI wonder how much of this is less about attraction and more about social skills. Granted, higher attraction affords more opportunity to develop those skills, but I have met plenty of charming people who were not conventionally attractive.
if that mismatch increased more for women than men, the estimated “beauty premium” for women could fall even without any change in teachers’ discriminatory behavior. The paper just assumes the attractiveness stayed constant during the period, but seems to have had no data to verify this.
I'm sure that attractiveness does play a role for grades, it's just not nearly as simple as the paper puts it.
There are a lot of potential explanations, which is why these kinds of studies are unfortunately not that helpful and often cause questionable media coverage.
In the past they would stare in pure awe at my guaranteed impeccable looks.
Now they ask me damned question to calculate the speed of fluids in different pipes through the Bernoulli's principle. And ChatGPT only helps so much here ...
Also, I think there must be a pretty big difference between female and male, because even if a male student is attract, if I am a male teacher and interested in females, would I wish to prioritize on looks, if the underlying grading is instead done on e. g. testing knowledge and skills? Why would looks even factor in here? Such a system would be flawed from the get go.
The company went on to grow quite successfully until it was acquired 6 years later. I feel that zoom and video conferencing allows some of that "appearance" factor back in. Based on my experience though, if I had my way, job interviews would be exclusively audio only.
Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bias against fat people, against "unattractive" people, etc.
This also shows in the classroom, work, etc.
Of course, actually being conventionally attractive will come with its own perks. People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.
Evolution made us this way for survival reasons, and it's mostly pushing us towards being healthy. And whatever your opinion, it will not change.
But there is another side to the coin. If you are attractive, a lot of the nastier people out there will try to manipulate you and gaslight you just to be closer to you all the time. Some people will be cruel and nasty to you just because they know you will sexually reject them. Some teachers will be mean or passive aggressive towards you because they are attracted to you and they know they can never be with you.
It is actually very dangerous to be attractive but not to have the social skills to handle the way people react to it. Many attractive people grow up with these social skills because they grown up as attractive children and they get used to it, but for some people that suddenly become attractive because they lose weight or another reason it can be very challenging. Similarly for people that are just born introverts and don't have the social skills.
This was my first thought about why the move to online works for men but not women. When I was attractive, people intuitively thought I was competent as well. I could speak with authority on topics not knowing more than the average and people would believe me.
Fo women this might sometimes even be the other way around - more beauty is associated with less intelligence.
Its sad, but it is what it is. And why its sad? Because this uneven treatment is sometimes cause of big evil in the world.
I’ve known a few very attractive people close up, and their lives are difficult. One example: you are presented with so many partners it can be very difficult to choose, and hard to discern who actually likes you as a person vs is just attracted to you. How can you pick a partner who is going to be a good match and faithful? And when you’re in a relationship, it’s harder to stay faithful when other people are throwing themselves at you and you suffer FOMO.
I could go on, but you get my point.
The phd student who conducted it trawled through students' Facebook pages and took their profile photos (without consent). Then he had a jury of 74 teenagers rate the photos on a scale from 1 to 10. Then he tried to correlate beauty with grades for distance or in-class education. De-anonymizing the data was trivial so everyone could pretty much see how the jury had rated each profile photo. And research data is public.
It was a seriously weak study with questionable methodology and a too low effect-size to draw any conclusions anyway. So no reason to get alarmed if you are ugly. :)
For deeper courses they may help them pick topics to write about and sources to read.
Having that context for the ongoing feedback from grading and mentoring is valuable. Depending on the work it simply might not be possible to do anything blind.
Even without names, handwriting and writing styles are obvious. Even in an office setting I can always tell who wrote something as small as a sign or a note by handwriting or word choice alone.
1. This should have a 2022 tag
2. This is ripe "red pill" fodder and many of the comments here are "red pill" coded.
It suggests to me that good-looking men are socially valued for several reasons that are robust to distance education, but good-looking women are socially valued for their bodies if they are in proximity, the same way we value objects. Very limiting and frustrating.
If anyone in the red pill camp is looking to reexamine their perspectives in good-faith, "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation" (Tannen) is a good start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
I have huge doubts about the study. In cinema, theatre, sure, you need physical presence, but engineering... I don't believe Von Newman would have needed presence to impress other people.
Another very important thing is that there are very important differences between sexes. The most physically attractive man in the world without the proper attitude and without leadership and success is nobody.
I am what is called a sigma male. I was never interested in power, dominating others, being the boss. Women prefer ugly and short people if they are leaders to tall and beautiful man that are not social.
In fact, if you get uglier as you age but get more successful, you will receive way more attention. If you command a group of people, run a company or are a big boss, women will get in love.
Also, if you are tall and beautiful, men will get envious of you.
This only serves as a tool for people who are trying to find a basis for their beliefs.