If You’re Beautiful, So Are Your Grades

2009 July 23
tags: , , , ,
by Grace Boyle

I just threw up a little in my mouth, but numerous studies have shown that good looking kids receive better grades than the not so good looking ones.

Newsweek wrote an article, “The Link Between Beauty and Grades,” and they talked about the phenomenon known as the attractiveness effect. It’s actually called that.

Science Says So

Sociologist, Michael T. French of the University of Miami has released a paper on “Effects of Physical Attractiveness, Personality and Grooming on Academic Performance in High School“, to be published in the August issue of Labour Economics. They found three factors that affect students’ GPA in high school: attractiveness, personality and grooming.

chubbiesadGrooming and presenting yourself is associated with a statistically significant GPA. However, grooming has the largest effect on GPA for males and having a “very attractive personality” with females is most important. Specifically:

  • Physical attractiveness alone boosts GPA for both genders.
  • Nevertheless, physical attractiveness was a weaker predictor of grades than grooming (for boys) and personality (for girls).
  • That suggests that teacher bias plays a significant role in what grades students get. Teachers reward some physical and personality types and penalize others.

But Why?

A study by Carl Senior and Michael J.R. Butler found that “when someone is viewed as attractive, they are often assumed to have a number of positive social traits and greater intelligence.” They call it the ‘halo effect’ which often affects the outcome of job interviews.

My problem is how do looks have anything to do with your performance in school? Literally. Plus, who judges beauty and attractiveness? I’ve pointed out someone who I think is beautiful and a friend completely disagrees with me. Furthermore, I think personality heightens one’s level of beauty, which would be intelligence too.

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I understand grooming and that it could deem inappropriate for the teacher, but brains and intelligence are brains and intelligence. Personally, I am baffled. The study concluded “that students may be able to ‘trade-off’ different personal traits in order to improve their academic grades and that this trend may turn out to be very effective for the future success in college, the labor market as well as for a family formation.” Sweet, trade in your personality for another ‘better’ one to get ahead in life.

Help me out on this one. Have you seen discrimination based on looks in school or in the workplace? Why do you think this happens? Please share your stories-we can hash it out and understand this.

Photo Credit: Retro Comedy and Oddee

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  • http://topolk.blogspot.com/ TOPolk

    I don't understand why attractiveness would have any affect on a person's grades, but I can understand how/why it would affect them in the workplace. While it's not fair, I would understand why a company would hire an attractive person over an unattractive person for a role that involves a lot of public interaction. The article you linked to made a good point about it adversely affecting their bottom line, and fair or not, I have to agree with them.

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @TOPolk I know, but the study shows over and over how teacher's (much like employers) look and react to a person's looks when giving out grades. I think it's subconscious. I do agree that holding yourself to a certain regard of cleanliness and appealing to the public would be important for a job that has a lot of public interaction. Thanks for sharing, I'm really interested to hear everyone's opinion.

  • http://www.owlsparks.com/ Carlos Miceli

    Is this really surprising? It’s terrible, sure. Awful. Plain wrong. But it doesn’t surprise me at all.

    I don’t remember seeing this on my high school years, but I’m sure it happened. Like I always say, life is not that we like it to be, life is what it is. We have to stop pretending that rationality rules our lifes. After reading so many studies like this one, my only conclusion is that humans are really dumb, even if we don’t like want to believe it.

  • http://ryanstephensmarketing.com/blog/ ryanstephens

    Is it much different than 30% of American CEOs being 6'3″ or taller? (Source)

  • http://www.owlsparks.com/ Carlos Miceli

    Is this really surprising? It's terrible, sure. Awful. Plain wrong. But it doesn't surprise me at all.

    I don't remember seeing this on my high school years, but I'm sure it happened. Like I always say, life is not that we like it to be, life is what it is. We have to stop pretending that rationality rules our lifes. After reading so many studies like this one, my only conclusion is that humans are really dumb, even if we don't like want to believe it.

  • http://www.intersectedblog.com/ Jamie

    My initial reaction to this was much like yours, Grace. A total gag moment. Then, once I started thinking about it, I began to realize that much of my success has come in moments of feeling attractive and confident. I even have started to notice that I feel less productive when I don't get ready in the morning for work, even though I work out of my home and don't even see anyone most of the time!

    I wonder if that's what's going on here. Maybe it's not. Maybe teachers are subconsciously giving bias to good looking students and that's, well, kind of terrible, really.

    But I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's because people who take care of themselves, present themselves well, and feel confident, come off as attractive. But the end user (the teacher, the interviewer) just thinks, “Oh, they seem really competent.” And, maybe they even acknowledge that the person is attractive, but they probably don't think about WHY that person is attractive.

    So, maybe that's wishful thinking, because I'd hope that not every aspect of our culture, even including the education system, isn't so shallow and superficial. But, what do you think?

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @Ryan It probably isn't much different, however, that's a statistic of 30% and the 70% can easily be any size. This is an assertion that is biased, in my opinion at least.

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @Carlos Humans are dumb, but we're also very smart. We've got a whole range out there.. Sigh, this is so difficult but this kind of discrimination exists and is very real.

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @Jamie You bring up a good point that presenting yourself and exuding confidence goes far and bodes well. I believe that much is true. However, even if you didn't present yourself well and your intellect was sharp, you aced the test, etc. you should STILL receive that deserving A. Right?

    I think taking care of yourself is also different than physical beauty. I'm okay with the grooming piece in the workplace, school, in life really…but judging and discriminating against your grades because of the way your face looks, that's straight up bogus to me.

    What do you think?

  • http://www.lifewithoutpants.com Matthew

    Looking over the idea of beautiful people having an easy ride – You tend to do your best when you feel the best about yourself. That's my takeaway here.

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @Matt I think your point is true if you take a BIG step back. Everyone does their best when they feel the best about themselves–but the part that interferes is the person who is grading, judging or hiring. That outlier judges what their best looks are like. Someone could feel great about themselves and be really smart, but if they weren't outwardly “good looking,” their grade could be compromised. That's where I have a problem…

  • KM

    I was quite surprised by this study, it's disappointing to say the least. Oddly enough though, I've experienced the opposite to be true too. When I was in high school I received a bad grade in a physics class, and when I went in to talk to the teacher about why I'd received it and what I could to improve he said “pretty girls don't do well in physics.” I felt that being somehwat attractive prevented me from getting a better grade. Just my own personal experience, I know, but I think it goes both ways sometimes.

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @KM Woah, I can't believe your teacher said that. I do think there's a stigma between the sports and social activities you choose plus how 'attractive' you may be with your grades. Thanks for bringing up this experience on the other side of the fence!

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  • http://www.lifeschocolates.com sameve

    This is an unfortunate discovery, but not entirely surprising. Physical appearance shouldn't affect success, academically, professionally or socially, but it does. This may seem far fetched, but this makes me think of what happened when I went to certain bars in college. I could be standing at the bar for five minutes trying to get a drink, and the muscled, tan bartender would look straight at me a few times and still ignore me. When my blonde friend would go up with me, we'd get served right away.

    I know bartenders are different than teachers, at least I hope so, and many people would say that's just a fact of life and something that happens at bars. But, that doesn't make it right. Brunettes and redheads are paying customers too.

    You obviously put a lot of work into researching this post, and it's a great one. Thanks for sharing this info!

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @Sam In general, you're right. Looks and attractiveness affects many areas of life: socially, professionally and in the classroom. It doesn't mean it's fair and it doesn't mean that it happens EVERYTIME. Thanks for sharing :)

  • http://www.twitter.com/leslieforman Leslie Forman

    I discussed this story with the Chinese patent attorneys that I tutor in English. They were all pretty appalled by it, and didn't think it would be true in China. They think that Chinese teachers like students who score well on exams, not the other way around. The educational system here is more test-oriented than America's. However, in the working world they are far more explicit about the role of appearance. I think that my looks have contributed quite a bit to the jobs I've gotten in China, and it would be much harder if I were either Asian-American or African-American. I recommended that a hospitable and helpful Chinese friend look for jobs at hotels, and she said she was too short to work at a hotel. Apparently they only hire tall girls.

    The New York Times covered the same story in this thought-provoking little article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/education/edl… )

    Thanks for the great discussion!

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @Leslie Thanks for your inquisitive response. This is really interesting, especially from a cultural standpoint. I wonder if this is indicative of the U.S. to judge more by looks, because of our media culture?

    Thanks for passing along the NY Times article. This topic and study has shown quite a rise across my blog and others I pass it along to. Thanks for stopping by, Leslie.

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    @Leslie Thanks for your inquisitive response. This is really interesting, especially from a cultural standpoint. I wonder if this is indicative of the U.S. to judge more by looks, because of our media culture?

    Thanks for passing along the NY Times article. This topic and study has shown quite a rise across my blog and others I pass it along to. Thanks for stopping by, Leslie.

  • tabletarp

    Hi. Normally I don’t like to bring posts back from the dead, but this has stirred school memories of certain mindless girls using cleavage and skirts to intimidate weak men. One in particular simply had to tear up in order to receive “secret” second chances on tests and other such rewards her peers never reaped themselves, though most certainly deserved it more. 

    although many (men) seem to argue it takes savvy to use feminine charms to get what one wants, and superficially it appears to be true, i have only witnessed poor results given to the girls who employed these tactics…perhaps a pretty face = good genes = intelligence, but it’s not a girl’s *face* the teacher is looking at when HE waives a detention slip or tardy. Frankly, a male teacher is most likely looking right down her low-cut top at her tits, because who, in a male dominated and “sexually liberated” contemporary schoolboard, would stress the importance of at least maintaining some kind of dress code when there’s nubile teenage bodies bursting all over the place, not to mention it’s fracking difficult for a girl in 2011 to find a nice shirt that covers most of her sternum? Anyway, it’s sex that’s being used to control these weak-minded “intellectuals” who have reign over our children, and the children who use their developing curves tend to ignore their developing minds seeing as how they don’t really have a need to use it. 

    there is a revamp of the education system necessary. whole generations of children have been educated by bitter bigots, criminals, and pedophiles against the will of their parents who had no clue, and who can’t do anything about it because of the monopoly the teacher’s union has and how anyone with tenure is, essentially, untouchable. this study reaffirms this opinion for me, and thank you for sharing.