On the Psychology of Attractiveness

According to a survey by Guildhall University in London taken by 11,000 33-year-old people, unattractive men earn 15% less than attractive men. Unattractive women make 11% less money than their attractive counterpoints. According to a joint survey by economics professors from Texas University and Michigan State University, “plain” people make 5-10% less than people of average looks. While “average” people make 3-8% less than people considered attractive. According to Dr. Gordon Patzer, who spent 30 years studying physical attractiveness, people are more likely to be kind to attractive people. And he even found that babies will focus more intently on attractive faces than unattractive faces. He found that attractive people are judged to be more talented, kind, honest, and intelligent than their unattractive counterparts.

Now, forgive me for not giving a proper introduction. I discussed this with my muse before hand, and I found that for me to write about something like this, it would make me seem bitter about being unattractive. So I decided that I would lead off with empirical evidence. Other than that, it’s hard to disagree with the common sense that good looking people just have it better. As Jim Gaffigan once said, “If an attractive person smiles to you on the subway, you think to yourself, ‘aw, they’re nice’. If an unattractive person smiles at you, it’s creepy.”

I suppose there’s really nothing to argue. Anything else that I can say makes it personal. So I guess that’s where I’ll go. It really bothers me that such a trivia thing holds such weight in the life of a person. And it does. Sure, a few plain looking people are ridiculously successful. Let’s say there are one million alive right now. That’s one million out of seven billion, a small percentage.

Another thing that bothers me is the study that Dr. Patzer did. He says that attractive people are judged to be more talented, kind, honest, and intelligent. I’m talented at a lot of the activities I participate in. I wouldn’t say I’m kind, but that has come from years and years of cynicism and disdain for most people who treated me like crap. For me, it has always depended on how someone treats me. Honest, well I have no personal qualms about being dishonest. I lie because it’s fun. I tell the truth when I have to. Admittedly, it’s probably not the best idea. And intelligence… I won’t bother.

My point, which may be between the lines, is that people who judge others based solely on attractiveness are just bad people. Luckily for me though, they don’t go on the internet much. Because they’re the type of people who make me prefer the internet to the outside world that they chastise me for not seeing more.