Being attractive has tremendous benefits during the course of our lives.
Like it or not, sometimes looks work better than intellectual potential. They make us more likable and well-received, which increases our chance to succeed on certain professional and personal levels.
If you still don’t believe that appearance has a lot to do with prosperity…
Here are 10 science-backed reasons why good-looking people are more likely to be successful.
1. Attractive people are more likely to get a callback for a job interview.
It turns out that being beautiful has amazing perks when it comes to progressing in your career. In 2013, Italian researchers observed that by sending out 10,000 resumes, changing nothing but the name, address, and photograph. Attractive women got an invitation for an interview 54% of the time. As for men, the ratio was 47%, which is also quite impressive, having in mind that the average callback rate was 30%.
2. Good-looking employees have great social skills that help them get paid more.
In their work “Why Beauty Matters,” Markus M. Mobius and Tanya S. Rosenblat write:
“Physical attractiveness raises social and communication skills, which in return raise an employer’s estimate of the worker’s productivity.”
Their observation is supported by a study by the American Economic Association(AEA). The AEA research concludes that developing your children’s noncognitive(social) skills while raising them predicts better their earnings in the long term than focusing mainly on their intellectual ability. Even without scientific backup, it is common knowledge that attractive people are better at handling social interactions than others.
3. Physical attraction makes workers seem more competent.
People are simple creatures. If we find someone attractive, we tend to believe they are better than others in various terms. When it comes to comparing professional skills, we are no different. The Harvard community has acknowledged that in an article analyzing the value of beauty. Illustrating the process of companies hiring workers based on their photos, the researchers have found that employers were ready to give 10.5% higher paychecks to good-looking people.
Their conclusions regarding over-the-phone interviews were quite similar. If you sound engaging, you are more likely to land the job.
4. Makeup makes women look more reliable.
Wearing makeup doesn’t only make you look more appealing. It also increases the trustworthiness you emit. According to a 2011 study, well-groomed women appear more attractive, able, easygoing, and dependable.
“When inferring trustworthiness, likeability, or competence from an image, we are influenced significantly not only by the attractiveness of the inherited phenotype but by the effects of the ‘extended phenotype,’ in this case, makeup.”
5. Attractive employees have higher confidence, which positively affects their salaries.
In many situations, we consider someone’s appearance as a significant factor regarding their general personality. As per research published in APA PcycNet, “physically attractive people were perceived as more sociable, dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, intelligent, and socially skilled than physically unattractive people.” This undeniably increases these individual’s levels of confidence. Therefore, they have a better chance of succeeding in the professional world.
6. Beautiful women have a significant advantage while negotiating with men.
Negotiations work better for you if you are physically attractive. This fact surely doesn’t surprise anyone. However, Zhejiang University School of Management’s researchers have studied the matter in depth. The examiners have played the Ultimatum Game with 21 men. The participants were asked to accept offers from 300 women. It was revealed that the men were more likely to accept unfair proposals from women they find good-looking compared to those classified as unattractive.
7. Appealing female students get better grades.
According to a 2015 study, women’s appearance turns out to be an important factor dor their academic performance. Going through 77,067 students’ ID pictures, researchers have asked volunteers to rate their level of attractiveness on a scale from 1 to 10. Comparing their beauty points to their grades, the examiners conducted that the female students who were viewed as more appealing had higher grades on average. However, the theory was not confirmed for male students.
8. Good-looking politicians are more likely to get elected.
Research handled in 2019 regarding the 2016 midterm US elections states that attractive candidates got a better voting score. The authors of the study explain:
“Our study thus lends additional support to the idea of a beauty premium: even when controlling for many relevant covariates, attractiveness still exerts an influence on House candidate’s electoral performance.”
9. CEOs with good looks get better profits for their companies.
A team of experts from the University of Wisconsin analyzed the effects of CEOs’ appearance over shareholder value. In their study called “Beauty is Wealth,” they discovered that with attractive managers, there was a significant boost in the stock prices after the company has been positively advertised on TV.
10. Appealing educators are better accepted by students.
Apparently, attractiveness affects our educational system as well. Better-looking teachers have greater chances to be well-accepted by their students and to actually teach them something. This was proven in a 1988 piece that reveals that pupils believe they would learn the most from “the nicest, happiest, and prettiest teachers.”
After all these scientifically-validated facts, it is safe to say that being beautiful is not a superficial quality. It is actually one of the keys to success.
Do you agree with the listed findings? What are your thoughts on the correlation between attractiveness and success? Let us know in the comment section!
