Bad News: Ugly Correlates with Dumb
“This brief research note aims to estimate the magnitude of the association between general intelligence and physical attractiveness with large nationally representative samples from two nations. In the United Kingdom, attractive children are more intelligent by 12.4 IQ points (r = .381), whereas in the United States, the correlation between intelligence and physical attractiveness is somewhat smaller (r = .126). The association between intelligence and physical attractiveness is stronger among men than among women in both nations.” (link)
Lacking a compensating trade-off between looks and smarts, many of us will have to make do, as Elwood Dowd recommended, with being oh so pleasant. Also, those who selected a looker for a spouse weren’t so shallow after all.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
Rameumptom
January 20, 2011
Didn’t need a special study to find this out. Just need to look at one of those emails you get weekly from friends concerning the shoppers at Walmart, where you can tell the people in the photos are NOT that bright and not that good looking….
S.P. Bailey
January 20, 2011
So were all the pretty girls at my high school just acting dumb?
Lon
January 20, 2011
For the most part, yup. They learned it in elementary and junior high. They were plenty smart but knew how to play the system to get more for less.
twiceuponatime
January 20, 2011
I recall once, in high school, I was on the academic team (we did academic decathlon, knowledge masters, etc. etc.). For one competition we had to watch a certain boring movie. I was the only guy on the team. All the women were way smarter than I was as well as gorgeous.
Anyway, during the movie, they started talking girl talk. At one point they referred to me, saying that they had gotten so caught up in conversation they had forgotten I was there. They made me swear never to repeat what I heard them talk about. Well, it’s been over 20 years, and I’m anonymous here, so what the heck:
Their entire conversation revolved around becoming “sluts” during and after college (they used the the term “slut”). They all agreed the thing to do was make sure they stayed attractive, and then just sleep around with really rich men until finally settling down with a rich guy.
G.
January 20, 2011
Pretty dumb. One’s marriage value declines with the number of sexual partners. Biology 1, Feminists 0.
Patricia K.
January 20, 2011
Maybe I’m being unintelligent (I’m no looker), but wouldn’t the validity of this research depend on how physically attractive the researchers involved were or were not?
Lon
January 20, 2011
The big thing here is that both being attractive and smart are products of the same thing, a solid, safe upbringing. It’s not that looks causes smarts OR that intelligence is sexy. It’s that having a safe, protected and provided for upbringing from invested parents is going to lead to both.
As example: tutors and braces.
G.
January 21, 2011
The researchers undoubtedly argue that the causation arrow goes the other way, Patricia K.: since the study is smart and engaging, we can conclude that the researchers are Greek gods and kiloHelens.
Bookslinger
January 23, 2011
re: tutors. There’s a difference between educated and intelligent. You can be one without the other. There are plenty of trained monkeys out there with college degrees of all sorts. (Said the man without a college degree.)