I'm talking about ugly/good-looking, fat/fit, skinny/strong, tall/short... etc.
Do you think physical appearance plays an important role to define hierarchies inside organizations and can decide who has the upper hand in debates?
Coming to grips with the hidden influence of my own physicality has been a long term struggle for me. I realised over a long time that the fact that I was over six foot, male, white, bearded, broad and articulate meant that people inherently saw me as significantly more capable and tended to defer to me in a multitued of situations. This wasn't something that naturally gelled with the way I viewed my own competencies, but it's also really, really, really hard to get people to stop doing. Basically I have a significant 'self discrepancy gap'[0] between 'Own Actual' and 'Other Actual' that I constantly need to work at. Years of experience have taught me that these kind of gaps are pretty common in our industry.
Yes it exists and think it's incredibly important for people to be aware of the power of their own physicality and not to abuse it.
Short guys have it extremely tough. No marginalized group would ever recognize the struggle of short guys. It’s a tough life, extremely tough to match, tough to get people to pay attention professionally (at first), and just tough to not make people subconsciously infantilize you (“Aw cute!” “Impressive!”).
I think the fact that most people would not seriously consider short guys as a marginalized group is proof itself of how marginalized it is. It’s hard not to be resigned to it. The biological marker that associates height with (physical and mental) fitness is just too strong.
At the end of the day, we are all blessed to have an opportunity on this mortal realm and we all have to move on and live life, but sometimes I wish that more people had the same empathy that you’re showing.
Same height/experience, though as someone in my mid 40s I feel like society has gotten worse about it, possibly because younger people are that much taller now. But for instance I was promoted to management in my early 30s.
I’ve mostly been remote for the past decade so it’s hard to quantify what things would be like now.
Right. The issue is more of first impressions... generally speaking, on a day to day basis, yeah, you feel it. This is going to be much more of an issue for someone for instance in sales.
Around people you spend time around it's pretty easy to lance that perception if you carry yourself w/ confidence, make good eye contact, say smart things, etc.
I'm tall but some of the best people in my life have been short. I do remember one boy in school who was short and I think his combative nature was a result of how others treated him and his interpretation of that. He had a hard time.
My shoulder doctor is short but a godsend for diagnosing and fixing my shoulders worn out from bad swimming habits.
I don't quite get the "physical fitness" thing b/c someone who is short can be in excellent shape. On measures of sheer mass and strength such as football, bench press or reach (e.g., basketball) perhaps they don't score as high. But for example, the short guys can usually run your ass off, come back and laugh at you while you can barely breathe. So there are sports where they excel.
We had a short guy in high school who could play basketball like Bob Cousy: he could beat the opposing team almost by himself! He was unbelievable. But his dad wanted him to help run his service station so we just had him for a few games.
Honestly, it seems that men get more of their problems from social aspects of their fathers than they do from their physical aspects (e.g.,physique).
When you're short, perhaps you should get into sailing: You can buy a much cheaper boat! When you're 190+cm (~6'3"+) most boats under 33 feet or so will not have enough headroom. At the same time, longer boats get exponentially more expensive.
As a short person, it is a small disadvantage but not impossible to overcome with significant force of personality and fitness. As disgusting as it is, it is not unreasonable to look at yourself compensating in this way and realising that everyone has something to fix. Very few people are born perfect, and even if they are that doesn't help you get where you want to be.
I'm not hand waving it, I literally did it. It is not easy but also not some terrifying abyss. I think in such scenarios it doesn't help people to present this as a really big problem, they are helped with the reality: It is something to do if you want to do it. If you do want to, you can. It doesn't require a significant lifestyle change, just regular exercise time (even once a week makes a big difference in most people). It's effort and it's not fair, but it is eminently available to almost everyone.
Edit: I'm sorry, I glossed over the "force of personality" part. This might take you a few years to get right, but since it boils down to "be more assertive" the only way to get better is to consciously work at doing it. It is the same as building any other habit.
Well either you overcome it or you don't. Focusing on how hard it is doesn't move the needle. Even getting people to acknowledge your struggle does nothing.
Pointing it out / getting people to acknowledge it actually does the opposite: Folks will focus on your perceived shortcoming more and most of them won't turn that into constructive change. In effect you're just making it worse.
Agree, I have been in the industry for long enough to see that they are discriminated against. One thing which can counter the effect of height is humour - people who are funny and extrovert can get over this to a large extent (I guess this goes not only for professional relationships but personal ones too).
I wouldn't say no one thinks about this issue, but I agree its typically dismissed as not serious.
I think society thinks its important to socialize men in particular to "listen to authority without complaining" and this not-so-subtly tells certain men that if people don't treat you with respect then its your problem, not theirs.
One thing I hate about the contemporary American political landscape is that its all in on the false dichotomy between personal responsibility and a well conceived society. Both things can coexist and in fact require one another.
In fact, even though republicans love to talk about "personal responsibility," in a free market it is one of the least required things: the market tells you what to do with yourself on pain of penury. Its really in a society where conventions like social welfware can be abused where people's personal responsibility, character and civic virtues really matter.
> the market tells you what to do with yourself on pain of penury
The market isnt some ethereal thing that magically coerces people to do things. The market is made up of other people, all of whom are also exercising their personal responsibility to look after their self interests. Game theory is the best way to look at this.
Incredible that the same thing could be said with lots of perceived "inequality" but in such case "systemic forces" are the cause and personal responsibility is to be avoided.
You pretty much describe me. Except I am very confident, have over 35 years of software engineering experience and am touching upon 50 years old. I recently joined a very large games company with a great reputation for diversity, inclusion and all that jazz. I was very happy.
I've been successful in my career (I think) because I've (often) used my physical presence and all the advantages it gives me to give the floor to quieter voices, marginalized opinions and I really feel like my teams have been great teams because of that. When you enable great people, great things happen. I was looking forward to that just being the norm.
However, at this company I found myself marginalized and discriminated against. I think because of my age, maybe because of my social class or maybe because of all the accidental advantages I have. I don't know and I don't really care.
Anyway I left them.
So it can swing both ways, just enjoy the ride. Good luck.
Yes, we're in an interesting time where the advantages you have in person are disadvantages on paper, in regards to hiring priorities, diversity drives, HR policy, etc.
I share a lot of these characteristics and while I don’t think I’ve actually been discriminated against, internally I feel like it’s inevitable and it makes me incredibly self conscious. More than anything I just want to be invisible. Remote work is pretty helpful in this regard.
I have those same physical traits, and this comment was helpful. This has been really frustrating as a junior developer, it's just impossible to get any critical feedback or have someone take a mentorship role. I've been in so many dumb situations where someone more experienced or knowledgeable should have just told me I was doing something dumb.
I am certain it is a net positive without trying to abuse it, but I've been thinking about it a lot since graduating. Everyone just treats me really well and places a lot of completely unwarranted trust in me.
>This has been really frustrating as a junior developer, it's just impossible to get any critical feedback or have someone take a mentorship role.
I've had a situation where I was asking a tall/attractive/charismatic acquaintance for technical advice and he stoped me and said something like "Why are you asking me for advice, you are way more experienced than I am". It's not that I shouldn't have talked with him about the technical matter, just that it was funny that I slid so naturally into the 'underling' role.
segue into something like "Well, I really need another look, another perspective, someone else's eyes on this b/c I think I'm missing something here, and I knew you'd be a good person to ask. I value your input."
And a warning: in your situation you may not know if "you are way more experienced" than he is (he may just be stroking your ego to divert you). I've been in the same situation where time revealed the other guy was hoarding information to his advantage. I talked him into a bit of a reveal.
One tall man's story: IIRC he had been a football player in college. He loved sales but found his size was a problem. He came up with a ruse: upon entering an office where he sensed the target customer was uneasy with the salesman's size, he "took a dive" - he literally fell down! Chaos would ensue as everyone rushed to help: gather his glasses, dust him off, retrieve pen and briefcase and such. He would apologize for his clumsiness and somehow the incident would always cement the bond between him and his customer.
Please use your powers to support and amplify others if you can. I have the opposite experience where I’ve dropped out of multiple lead roles because getting anyone to listen to me or acknowledge my decisions required a huge battle every single time. (Then I leave and they hire a consultant who looks like you to tell them the same things…!)
Working remote via video chat must the great equalizer haha…
In reality I think people working remote haven’t worse off.
While I think height does play a role, as a slightly below average height male I’ve personally never had an issue dominating / being defaulted to after brief interactions.
While this trend / tendency does exist and imo is extremely strong genetically (looking to the “alpha”), a few words can shake that tendency in most rooms.
I think being better groomed, fit, etc probably plays an overall larger role in terms of projecting competence.
Being confident and speaking with conviction in statements likely outweighs everything
Very - you can predict success to some extent based purely on people's yearbook photos:
> Here the authors find that inferences of power from photos of the faces of the managing partners of America’s top 100 law firms significantly corresponded to their success as leaders, as measured by the amounts of profits that their firms earned. More interesting, this relationship was also observed when judgments were made based on photos of the leaders taken from their undergraduate yearbooks, before they began their careers or entered law school. Facial cues to success may therefore be consistent across much of the lifespan (approximately 20–50 years).
So it's likely that people's abilities can influence their appearance. There was a lot of evolutionary pressure to develop abilities to judge people based on appearance, so we would expect humans to be really good at it.
This result isn’t surprising at all though, compared to financial success. Obviously athleticism would be physically visible on the face (and probably be considered more attractive).
Testosterone levels. I know a cleft chin develops with high T. I’m sure there are other more subtle diagnostic traits. Probably more stereotypically masculine traits like heavy brow ridges.
Because I think Vitalik Buterin probably has low athleticism and I think Ben Tameifuna probably has high athleticism, and a headshot of the former could be a school's star cross-country runner where the latter could be the school's star beer drinker.
I once worked with a short, over weight white guy, late 30 or early 40 who moved into a client facing role. It was a disaster. Although he dressed well, he had the body type that clothes just didn’t fit him well. He would always look disheveled and frumpy, his shirts would not stay tucked in. He was very capable but the (east coast) business bros at the client would not take him seriously and openly mocked him. He went back to a technical role.
It was sad and I learned a lot about human nature from witnessing it.
Building a wardrobe of clothes that fit is the kind of "hack" that is blindingly obvious, but I think would rub HN readers the wrong way.
It feels deceptive, because nothing about your inherent skills or personal qualities have changed. But short of changing your body, face or racial background (none of which should impact a career negatively to begin with), changing your wardrobe probably has the highest and quickest ROI.
Many people, especially "east coast business bros" see being overweight as akin to an addiction. Just like any of us would have reservations about working with a using opioid addict, many have reservations about working with overweight people. They feel it either means the person is incapable of hygienic care, or (worse) they don't care about social standards.
From an "east coast business bro" perspective, looking presentable is a simple problem-solving exercise.
Obesity can be tackled with diet and exercise, and if off-the-rack clothing doesn't fit well, one can get bespoke shirts made by a tailor. A person who presents themselves as not being able to manage this task is treated accordingly.
Note that this isn't related to some congenital trait, it's all about the choices the person makes for themselves.
I kind of agree with you, actually. I think when it comes to clients, you should be presenting yourself in such a way that's most likely to sync with them. If your client is a bunch of grizzled/cynical old-school IT guys then you should approach them differently from how you would treat a room full of young type-A finance bros.
It's probably controversial to say, because we _want_ to be better than just animals, but the hard truth is that we are still animalistic in every sense and physical appearance plays a fundamental role in absolutely everything in life.
Being good looking, tall and physically fit is the biggest privilege in life. You don't need to be Jeff Bezos rich, if you look good you can pick and choose partners as and when you wish. You can live out some of your craziest fantasies because women/men will do things which they wouldn't do in normal circumstances. Married people will cheat because they want a taste of you, people will be extremely inviting to you even they don't know you, people will give you the benefit of trust, they will be extra friendly, at Christmas parties people will seek conversations with you which will increase your social score at work and help with promotions because popular people are more likely to get given extra opportunities and responsibilities and so forth. In short, if you are good looking you will be able to experience things in life which so many people will never even dream of. Things that you'd think only happen to filthy rich people or in movies will all of a sudden happen to you even when you didn't look for it. Doors just open and you will be able to either say yes or no to those chances in life.
I am not saying it is good, as mentioned, we try to be better than this, but the facts speak against it.
This was posted on HN a while ago and I really enjoyed this read:
"Tall" is something that comes out of the genetic roulette, and there's little you can do (see the recent article about men going through painful leg bone extension procedures).
However, "being physically fit" is under your control (for the vast majority of people) and you can tip the scales quite a bit on "being good looking" if you make the effort.
This is such a defeatist attitude of "oh pretty people are just different and they get all these things they don't deserve" that comes up on these threads constantly. Especially if you exclude students, the vast majority of folks reading this have more than enough time and money to eat well, work out 5 or 6 times a week, and buy nice-fitting, well-made clothes. From a professional standpoint, that's all you need to do.
Very, very few people are incapable of doing the above on software engineer salaries. People that make a lot less and have less free time manage to do it, you can too. Height and bone structure are about the only two "attractiveness" things not within your control, so control them. I am not conventionally attractive, I wasn't popular in high school, I had a beer belly in my 20's and rarely had dates. Eventually I got my head out of my ass and started eating right, started working out, spent a little bit of money on my clothes and just all around gave a damn. The difference was staggering, both personally and professionally. It's amazing the different a good haircut, a fresh shave (or maintained beard), and a reasonable body fat percentage can make.
In my own experience, confidence and charisma are more useful. Of all the men I've met who were preternaturally talented at attracting women, they all had that in common but only one of them had the looks and height to match what you'd expect.
Being male can sometimes be dispiriting in that you have to constantly justify your worth, but the silver lining is that there are multiple avenues through which you can do so. By contrast, the world is cruel and unforgiving towards women who do not or no longer meet the beauty standard and there's only so much that can be done.
In any case, adopting the 'blackpill' mindset isn't helpful in the slightest, even in a scenario where it accurately describes reality, which isn't the case. All that you describe exists in some form but it's not nearly as dramatic or immutable. Nor are other privileges all that impotent and fair either. There's never been a better era to be born smart in a developed country, for instance.
>dustedcodes says:< Being good looking, tall and physically fit is the biggest privilege in life.
It is good up to a point. Much of your list consists of sexual behaviors. So being good looking also implies that you will have sex earlier with more people who have STDs and pass these STDs on to others possibly for the remainder of your life, try risky behaviors earlier, fall under the sexual tutelage of mentors, elders, peers etc.
Being good looking can especially be a curse for women. Most of the very attractive women I've questioned revealed they were molested or assaulted at early ages. Many were severely damaged mentally (from depression to full-blown schizophrenia).
Putting on my philosophical hat for a minute, I would say that while humans have put in lot of social structures to counter evolutionary tendencies, they still slip through in all our interactions with other humans.
Incredible how in this threads the comment to such fundamental truths are dismissive. People really want to be more than animals to the point of lying to themselves.
No, but it is a sense we use constantly: people instinctively avoid unpleasant odors. It's one of our most basic environment assessment tools and it's always active: we smell things to assess all sorts of properties, but chiefly "is this toxic/a biohazard" is pretty well coded into us.
Forcing someone to consciously suppress that impression upfront is fighting against some pretty basic "am I safe?" instincts.
Smells also let us know when people are sick or signal a good match for mates, but deodorant is us covering up all signals without considering those other possibilities.
When is the last time smells helped you avoid a toxic human?
tbh it depends. in IT if you are handsome other people will be jealous and they will also think you are stupid or not as smart as them because of your appearance.
Good looking people have always an edge.
Tall people always appear more competent than their shorter colleagues.
These are biases. They can be overriden by the experiences of people in a community quite easily, but towards unfamiliar people these biases can be quite strong.
Curiously, as I've gotten older I've found that "weird" looking people who are also confident enough to some degree are almost always far more interesting in terms of personal pursuits / interests than "pretty" or conventionally attractive people. Maybe this is a personal bias - but in time being attractive impresses me to a similar degree as someone driving a flashy car - sure it's pretty looking, but I don't ascribe that to real success or depth of intellect.
Dating pretty people in New York quickly illustrated how dull most "pretty" women are. The one thing I'll never understand is how shaving my head actually increased my perceived attractiveness with women - admittedly I'm a weird somewhat unattractive person.
It matters. If you are tall and good looking, it helps.
BUT…
Amongst the vast majority of the most capable, successful, and broadly well-respected people I have worked with, their status has had little to do with their beauty. I am thinking of folks that are not “attractive” in any conventional sense, yet their wits and competence and heart makes them so.
In certain professions, the effect of beauty is outsized. I hardly need name these; look for shallow aesthetes and cameras. In technical professions that value actual competence, I have found that it doesn’t matter (much.)
I have a classic British accent. When I started teaching in foreign universities, I found that in meetings people would stop and listen to what I was saying… even defer to me. In the UK, I was just another Brit, is a sea of Brits, and thusly ignored.
I've witnessed very competent and attractive female colleagues get discredited for their appearance, every comment implying that they fucked their way up to their position, or being unable to be close friends with any male coworker for the same reason.
But all in all dressing appropriately to your body, being clean and well groomed is a positive for everyone.
Kind of the classic story, my wife is Lithuanian. We first tried living in Sardinia but the job market in Sardinia is terrible, so we moved to her country so she could even more chances, and because I'm an Engineer for me finding work is easy in every country.
Here in Lithuania Engineers are paid very well and are in high demand. For "very well" I mean compared to the average salary in the country, obviously you will get less money compared to UK or Germany. Cost of life is way cheaper than UK or Italy, both food and rent/mortgage is less than the other two countries
I'm not a big eater of Casu Martzu, so I don't know if getting is hard, but my parents usually ship me some homemade cheese without problems, I believe they could ship also Casu Martzu without problems ( I don't think customs check what type of cheese is being shipped )
Not an answer to your question per-say but I believe there is a strong correlation. Anecdotally I've seen traditionally good looking people get promoted far more often even for technical non-sales roles.
I've actually become a little obsessed with this idea (stopping shy of being unhealthy).
To the point where I lost 25 lbs (through diet and exercise over 6 months), wear nicer cloths (even on Zoom meetings), and whiten my teeth. And it may be a placebo effect. It may just be increased confidence. But I think I've seen results from it.
I'm lucky I have a starting point that was already good (but not great) by US societal standards (I'm average height, male, was only slightly overweight, in good health, and my body responds well to exercise for someone almost hitting 40). But some people may not be lucky.
Edit: For context, I'm a technical founder (CxO). I think the effect may be more limited if you are, say, a junior software developer where technical and soft skills may be enough to differentiate you and run you up the ladder. But at the very competitive higher levels it often boils down to who they board/execs/principals/investors like more. And looks, unfortunately, play a role.
Being in shape is an honest and almost unfakable signal of work and personal discipline, which has knock on effects to your credibility in any discussion.
It may be worth asking what the quality of the assumption that we don't have control over our appearance is. Consider someone who just doesn't take care of themselves, and what beliefs and choices their consequent appearance is the effect of. There is a contra- effect as well, where in some environments, being physically repulsive is a signal of power. Government and academia spring to mind.
In tech we have a natural suspicion of shiny looking sales and marketing people, but when you examine that closely, it's because they live and die based on the actual revealed desires of others, where in tech power is independent of desire, and power comes from outsmarting, defeating, and overpowering others intellectually or politically. There is a conflict addiction among "nerds," where we have to tilt at machines and objects instead of people to get our adrenal hit because other people don't really tolerate that aggressive need from others very enthusiastically. Since we prevail based on intellectual domination, we don't index on physical appearance as much, but people who prevail based on actual desire necessarily do.
In the thousands of co-workers I can remember, I would say the main strategy of people who prevail in discussions, but who have neglected their physical appearance - is disagreeableness. It either originates from some quirk that causes them to miss social cues, or it was learned behaviour where they realized they didn't need to make themselves appealing if they were persistent. There is also a cliche about PhD's being like this, where a great number have been trained to be weirdly combative based on their recieved authority, while lacking the normal signifiers of success like basic physical fitness, collegiality, benevolence, charisma, wit, charm, and ultimately other people just attribute their uncanny ignobility to their institution.
We have tons of data from social media sites, chat apps, and online forums where it would be plausible to rank text-based charisma (pure ideas) and physical attractiveness as judged by an algorithm, and we could find out empirically whether there is a strong correlation, but I don't think we need to. Appearance is an evolutionary strategy, and I would say, yes it is very influential because we listen to people based on it because it's a signal of how invested they likely are in certain values.
I think law students and lawyers are nerds of a sort. We like disagreeable people like a blade enjoys a whetstone. Abrasive, sure, but helpful in honing our skills and ideas even if it demands care and persistence.
With the self-awareness that one is sometimes the blade, sometimes the whetstone, I think there’s a place-for and value-in all types.
If you are more beautiful (or at the very least more trained) than the person next to you, folks will listen to you more. Your natural looks influence that, but focusing on that won't help: You cannot change that. Going to the gym is something you can do.
You will not have debates in an organisation. You will have popularity contests. Sometimes those are judged on the merit of what you say, but usually they are judged on how much what you say appeals to the other listeners.
If I consider my own biases, I would consider a fit, well groomed person to be more competent. I believe this bias is based on fact that if someone is fit also means he/she is disciplined and well groomed is meticulous and these traits would transfer to other aspects of work also. Now, I understand that lot of things like age, genetics, ... make up for some of the signal that I am reading, but that is the nature of biases.
A lot of what makes attractive men's bodies look "attractive" is in the bone structure. They look fit without actually having to be fit: height, rugged face, wide shoulders, barrel chest, narrow hips.
It will be interesting how much of a shift we'll see with more work from home. Do the same effects carry over in calls and async communication? Will "more video calls" mean attractiveness plays a larger role? Will doing voice calls weaken that (or focus it on the voice alone)?
Absolutely, in a major way. There are piles of studies showing all kinds of pay discrimination based on physical characteristics. The meritocracy is bullshit. People hire tall sexy people. You really think the workplace is all that different from Tinder?
I believe this is a subject that is not talked about enough. First because of a) If you haven't experienced it or paid close attention it will go over your head and b) People don't like to openly talk about 'pretty privilege' because they think the mere act of talking about it will inherently catalogue them as 'ugly'.
I have firsthand experience on this since I grew up with a brother who is objectively hot, and of course hotter than me. And Im not talking 'yea hot' im talking 'way better looking than models' hot, we literally couldn't go anywhere without a girl approaching one way or another, and thats crazy to say about a guy.
Since a young age i realized our social interactions always tended to gravitate towards him, and understood as I was already seeing, he was going to get better opportunities, and would have to work way less for the same objectives. What I did was I started taking advantage of it. p.e, when we were younger i used to bring him to work with me wherever I was working, cause I knew the reactions he provoked on people. So whenever we worked at the same place I never got fired bc usually the manager was either in love with him if it was a girl, or wanted to be friends with him if it was a guy. I admit it was funny seeing the same reactions on people every single time they met him, and their behavioral changes towards me, and thats just a small example.
What im saying is life is mostly unfair. The best we can do is work with the cards we're dealt towards the best we can do.
I'd say that physical appearance affects yes, and I'd add that your name is also part of that physical appearance impact.
If you have a commonly accepted name (like "John"), your life will not be hard nor easy. If your name is a mixup of your parents name or something just invented on the spot, you'll life will be harder. You may ease it up by adding a nickname.
If your name is not a common one, but accepted in previous generations (like "Anastasius" or "Manfred", "Vincent", etc.) it'll be seen as a bold choice by your parents and impact positively your life.
Here it is asked whether appearance makes any difference in professional setting, but comments seem to be diverged from the question. Young people seem to exaggerate the role of their appearance, it might make a slight difference when you first trying to find a job, but after that all that is left is your experience and talent. I can't imagine getting fired for being ugly or landing (and then staying at) a job for being attractive.
> I can't imagine getting fired for being ugly or landing (and then staying at) a job for being attractive.
You're looking at it the other way around. You wouldn't get fired for being 'ugly', but you could be treated less well than your co-workers, or not be offered a pathway to a higher-level job with better compensation.
One attribute that I haven't seen mentioned yet is voice. A man with a deep voice absolutely will get more attention than their peers, while a high and/or nasal voice (male or female) can be a significant handicap. A bit of training can help, but to a large extent these are innate and immutable characteristics that can effect career (and romantic) trajectories.
Some languages or accents within languages make this problem worse or ameliorate it. It's better to be high-pitched and British than high-pitched and American.
Owner/user of Classic British ascent and former drama student. When I was taught elocution, we were told to begin and end each word distinctly to the following/preceding words. This impacts positively of the 'readability' of speaking. This 'clipped' delivery is the distinguishing feature of the classic British received pronunciation (RP) accent.
The acceptability of accents is heavily influenced by pop culture, which is perhaps why a high-pitched British accent may seem OK, because of the compensatory cultural value of the Britishness.
A Russian accent will not be treated as generously in the English-speaking world, after years of bad-guy one-liners being the reference point. Same goes if you have a Middle Eastern accent, or an Indian accent.
I'm sure there are many people for whom those are The Worst, but in my direct experience the worst reactions tend to be associated with accents within the US. Try speaking with a Texas accent in Brooklyn, or vice versa. Yikes.
Out of all the above adjectives, the ones that are "actionable" are skinny/strong and fat/fit.
I made an effort to improve in those areas and I feel the results.
Simple things like people looking away if you look back at them, abusive bosses shouting at my colleagues but never at me, or reining in a couple of misbehaving 8 year olds with a determined look.
It's probably just me (I'm probably neurodivergent in some way) but in discussions like this people keep using the word "attractive" and I honestly have no idea what they mean by that word.
If you showed me two photographs of people and asked me which looks more "intelligent", which looks more "wise", which looks more "honest", which looks more "friendly", which looks more "approachable", or dozens of questions like that, I could have a go at answering the question. But if you asked me which looks more "attractive" I would have no idea how to answer.
Would I understand the question if it were phrased differently, or is the concept itself something that I have for some reason never acquired?
Does anyone else have this problem, or is it really just me?
(Sorry if this is a little bit off-topic: of course the original question doesn't use the word "attractive".)
There's two meanings to attractive... One is you like them physically, another is 'a lot of people would like them', or more prosaically, 'a lot of people would like to have sex with them'.
You can see who other people are attractive (either famous or around you), and infer from there.
> There's two meanings to attractive... One is you like them physically, another is 'a lot of people would like them', or more prosaically, 'a lot of people would like to have sex with them'.
OK, that makes sense. Perhaps I can't apply the second criterion because I'm too uninterested in who other people want to have sex with: see my reply to rchaud.
But I seem to have a problem with the first criterion, too. Lack of imagination, perhaps? I can't/don't think about having sex with someone unless I've already done it or have come quite close? Or perhaps I'm just non-visual? (I'm a bit face-blind.) So if you were to show me a selection of women of child-bearing age with no obvious signs of ill-health and ask me which I'd most like to have sex with then my reply would be either (1) none of them, because none of them is my wife, dur, or (2), in a different era or parallel universe, all of them, in any order, and then I can perhaps tell you which I prefer, because, as far as I'm concerned, a large proportion of the female population tie for first place when it comes to looks. (Though only a tiny proportion of them have a really nice voice: I'd probably find it a lot easier to pick a favourite voice from a set of recordings.)
So I hope I'm never a subject in a psychology experiment that requires me to rate how "attractive" people are from a picture. In most cases I just can't do it.
> Everyone else is using 'attractive' here to mean "attractive according to the beauty standards of the dominant culture in which I live"
OK, that makes sense, and if that's what they mean, perhaps it explains my problem: I've never taken sufficient interest in other people's ideas about beauty. I can take a casual interest in what other people look like, and I can care about what other people think about some specific questions, but what other people think about what other people look like is a bridge too far for me!
I would imagine you have some concept of this, for many, symmetrical features is attractive. There are other more obvious factors too, e.g. a chubby face (typically due to high body fat percentage) would be seen as less healthy/desirable/attractive.
Attractiveness describes the perception of success (friendships, health, career etc) based on physical appearance and the likelihood of passing these traits to offspring.
Male taste in men and female taste in men are not the same. Straight men and most gay men think muscle bound manly men with chiselled jaws are the hotness. Lots of women like KPop androgynes. Lots more men be ‘mirin a guy who has big muscles than women.
Even taking this into account, it's still possible to determine or sense the attractiveness of most attractive competitors. At least to the point where sexual attraction cannot be the sole criteria
I'm kinda glad to read these comments, because they mostly align with my perception. The popular opinion among my circle of friends and relatives is that appearance doesn't matter for men: it is all hard-work and grind. It is exhausting to make people see that all else being equal, physicality play a non negligible role.
On average and in statistics - absolutely. The effect has been measured by numerous studies. But studies use large numbers and actively try to eliminate other factors, which is why I would caution against using this on a personal level to try to explain certain outcomes. Remember this thing about statistics: on average Bill Gates and any one of us are billionaires.
I think a lot of people are using studies like this to justify some shortcomings in their life when you can easily look around the people you know and see hugely varied outcomes regardless of looks. And good looks can be a career trap too, especially if you actively rely on them.
And one more thing: by far one of the most important physical appearance factors is youth. Which goes away for the best looking. And it also clearly shows the importance of other factors as we don't have a world full of 22 year old CEOs.
I'm sure it has a role, alongside other features such as charisma and confidence.
Of course the effect is subjective and varied, but oftentimes I've found that people that claim a decision being down to appearance to be those that blame their computer when their code doesn't run :)
My own experience is that confidence trumps everything. There are people who really don't know that much (in multiple fields, not just Dev) but they are either completely un self-aware or they don't care and simply portray rock solid confidence.
Perhaps some fields demand this like marketing where certain sorts of marketing are hard to quantify/value objectively so you need to show confidence so that the department keeps its funding!
People who are by their own admission lack confidence will not enter situations where the probability of rejection is high. Confident people will enter a greater number of these situations, and will continue to enter them even if they were rejected previously.
I'm in my late twenties but look about four years younger, I'm in good shape but I'm also bald and have supposedly a "weird" face. I'm sure if I was forced to go back to an in-office environment I'd encounter progress issues because of my appearance.
While at FAANG I actually started to wear makeup to mask the dark circles I naturally have under my eyes - for better or for worse I also have an expensive skincare routine now.
Undeniably I look weird - I really worry about this going into the future.
I suggest you have a gander at Marc Andreessen's photo for the New Yorker (or was it Vanity Fair), and ask yourself if you look weird by comparison. I can almost assure you that you don't, at least not in comparison to that pic.
Looking weird in public is a form of fronting for people like Andreessen. "I have so much money your opinion means literally nothing to me because I will never need anything from you".
Beside all those mentioned, I've seen people with loud and sharp (not high pitch sort of) voice getting an edge (sometimes unfair advantage) in many professional settings.
And in any loud, crowded room (say at a conference, or a pub/bar after work), women and quieter men will struggle to be heard at all. Men with loud deep voices will dominate the conversation automatically. This probably has more impact on professional development than people think.
Unfortunately voice is just another factor that comes to genetics. I've been training to lower my rather high-pitched voice and voice projection for years now, albeit without much to show. Guess I hit the limit of my genetic potential.
All things been equal (which they never are) then physical attractiveness is probably a slight benefit to the attractive person.
Similar to the statistical correlation with tallness (though again whether that's a matter of taller than average people doing well because they are taller or because physical height is correlated with better diet/socio-economic group as a child etc).
This stuff is always so blurry because of confounding factors and inability to control for other factors.
Last year a few months after confinment I went on vacation and while I was having a break in a too expensive restaurant in the Geneve airport something weird was going on but I couldn't tell what. An hour later it hit me, all these people around me were good looking and outright elegant. Most of them were doing business.
A lot of studies shows that indeed good looking people does have better odds in the traditional success game.
Not exactly where you were going with this, but yes, absolutely: the way you present and thus perceive yourself absolutely affects how you behave, which in turn affects your performance, as well as how others see you.
Sexism and racism....are huge areas of concern...whereas tall men and good looking people are treated much better than short men and ugly people...our morality, in the West, is inconsistent and arbitary..
There's a limited amount of energy and time available, and fixing problems is difficult and uncertain. If we wanted something more consistent, we would probably have to pull a Peter Singer and donate the bulk of our resources to the most unfortunate. I don't think we really want a less arbitrary system even if we could define it!
That would open up a Pandora's box, honestly. Even if the goal were 20% consistency, short or ugly people would definitely not make the cut compared to helping people in the third world or other potential targets of redistributive justice. Our entire economic and social edifice is built on certain other countries being poorer and less energy intensive.
Now if the goal is simply to be a bit more mindful, that would be doable i.e. avoiding unnecessary remarks about height the way we avoid saying hurtful comments in other contexts
I have some ideas, anecdotes and personal experiences on the topic (as I'm traveling a lot as a digital nomad and I tend to talk to people wherever/whenever since I solo travel).
I'm sorry that I can't make this comment razor sharp (also in brevity, it's tough to do). The reason I'm sorry for that is because I know that this is a sensitive topic and I might step on some toes. I don't intend to, but it might be a bit inevitable. Some people might think that speaking from personal experience is not enough. And yes, it's definitely biased, but I am noticing I am learning a lot more about European/western society (as a Dutch person even) than I was in the past 10 years simply because I talk to a lot of people.
I'm currently traveling a lot and in daily life I see a huge difference to how people treat you when attractive. In The Netherlands I'm at best average in attractiveness (I've asked for brutal feedback from multiple people, and I'm averaging 6 out of 10). However, in other countries I'm seen as slightly more attractive because I'm about 190 cm, which is 6.23 feet/inches (whatever you Americans use). Dutch people are one of the tallest if not the tallest in the world. So I'm more common there. Already in Germany, I'm seen as more attractive due to my "language skills" (Dutch people speak better English than Germans, on average, I definitely do; combined with some conversational German/Italian and some basic French). And I do notice the difference. And I'm beginning to get a hunch that in Southern Europe I'm even seen as more attractive since they're a lot shorter on average.
All of this is based on how I interact with women. I've noticed that men don't really act that differently around me. I've been in Lisbon and Berlin recently and met all kinds of people. But yea, I'm seeing my own "pretty privilege" (however marginal) in the dating market. People treat me differently whereas I stay the same.
And I'm definitely hearing stories of how very stereotypically attractive women are getting whatever they want (even if they don't want it). I'm also hearing how stereotypically attractive women are more prone to having experienced sexual violence. So if you think they have it easy: I'm not going to compare, I'm not going to judge. I know too little, but what I do see is that less stereotypical attractive women seem to talk less about having experienced sexual violence (again, I might be biased, my sample might be biased, something else might be off - it's just my personal experience and it does beg the question to formulate a hypothesis and investigate if one would be an academic feminist/psychologist, provided there is no research on it).
But looks influence stuff in daily life so hard that it must have a strong effect in corporate culture as well. This is especially the case since men are the assertive sex when it comes to the mating game, and men are holding more economic/political power than women.
Humans are not robots. We can't keep our emotions fully hidden or suppressed. Biases will leak out, whether we're aware of them or not. So logically speaking, yes, it will have some effect. A more interesting question would be more: how much of an effect? Will it have more of an effect for women? If you have a female boss/male subordinate will it have more of an effect (if the male is attractive)? There are a lot of variables here that might influence the strength of the effect.
With that said, I've also experienced how much pure "inner beauty" can do, from both my side and other men/women. It can do a whole lot, especially when presented with positivity and optimism. My experience is that a lot of charisma can be trained. Like, I don't think I'll ever be wildly charismatic. But compared to my untrained self, I'm an order to two order of magnitudes better, and it has definitely helped me to make my inner world more relatable to other people. Knowing how you present yourself in a: 1 on 1 conversation, group conversation and presentation... It's important and has little to do with personality and looks (other than that the personality and looks need to be incorporated with how to present yourself, but in all look/personality variations - communication skills in being relatable and pleasant to be around with is a skill - even the most hardcore pessimist can be relatable and pleasant to be around with by using his/her pessimism as very creative playful humor, for example).
Just ask yourself how much 'inner beauty' one can develop after a lifetime of rejection.
>But compared to my untrained self, I'm an order to two order of magnitudes better, and it has definitely helped me to make my inner world more relatable to other people. Knowing how you present yourself in a: 1 on 1 conversation, group conversation and presentation... It's important and has little to do with personality and looks
Do you think people would care as much about your inner world if you weren't tall?
> Just ask yourself how much 'inner beauty' one can develop after a lifetime of rejection.
A lot right? I have been rejected at least thousands of times. You get desensitized and go after what you want.
Before I got any date, it was first 3 years of pure rejection. Some people don’t have the heart and courage to carry on. But when you get through that period, not much is stopping you.
And I don’t think that would matter much, except for the first 5 minutes. I was highly fantastical in my speech when I showed my inner world. People mentioned I should try writing fiction.
> I'm currently traveling a lot and in daily life I see a huge difference to how people treat you when attractive. In The Netherlands I'm at best average in attractiveness (I've asked for brutal feedback from multiple people, and I'm averaging 6 out of 10). However, in other countries I'm seen as slightly more attractive because I'm about 190 cm, which is 6.23 feet/inches (whatever you Americans use).
Thank you for an interesting self-assessment. While you're closer to the the average reported height there, I would think that height, as a desirable trait tops out at around 6'7" (~200cm) as back problems or bumping into doorframes becomes more likely.
And given what you've said about yourself, what height, build, and features are considered attractive in the Netherlands? Any notable differences between the men and women there in traits they find desirable whether stated or actual? What about along the along the lines of age groups and marital status (i.e. single, in a relationship, married, divorced)?
Who would be a common example of the "societally attractive" 10/10 in the Netherlands?
What emotional traits are considered desirable(e.g. stoic, relaxed, agressive, etc.)?
How "loose" are the people in Amsterdam? Popular culture stateside exaggerates it out to be a libertine utopia with an unlimited supply of sex drugs, but from what I've read through first- and second-hand accounts, many of them tend to be "shy" (at least relative to Americans) or "friendly, but reserved".
If you have to be 99.9999th percentile at what you “do” to overshadow those, how trivial is it?
I do not foresee a future where an American political party nominates a 5ft3in (1.6m) man as a Presidential, or even Senate candidate. Similar for playing professional level sports, or lead actor in movies.
Tom Cruise is 60 years old and got famous during a time a when average height for upper socioeconomic classes was lower. Is there any example more recent than him?
If he was auditioning for his roles today, I doubt he gets them. Especially because actresses are nowadays just as tall or taller with heels, why bother having to do all the work to make the actor look a little taller than the actress, when you can just hire another actor.
>Sports will lean towards whatever physical characteristics benefits the sport.
Of course, but in many popular sports, being taller and bigger makes you so much faster and stronger such that if you are first percentile in size, no realistic amount of talent will give you an advantage.
I mentioned Tom Cruise because he's one of the biggest action/movie stars ever. We don't really have actors with that much pull anymore, and it's why I didn't mention someone like Kevin Hart or Jessie Eisenburgh or one of the Francos (I forget which). Someone like Robert Downey Jr. is ~5'9". Sure, he's older, but also the lead in some of the biggest action movies in history.
For sports, I think it's better to look at the reverse. Not every 7' person makes it to the NBA or is even good at basketball. But, there are plenty of relatively smaller players in the NBA who do well and some are even super stars. The classic example was Mugsy Bogues, but Steph Curry is 6'2" in sport where height is so important.
Pick a sport where height isn't necessarily a dominating factor like the NHL and there are plenty of players under 6'.
There are players under 6ft, but not 5ft 3in players.
It is not a hard cutoff, but the probability of success with a certain height can decrease exponentially as height decreases.
Kevin Hart is not a leading actor either, he is the comic relief. In the movies I have seen, Dwayne Johnson is the lead actor. For example, Kevin Hart would not be Captain America, or even Black Panther. In fact, I think one of the Captain America movies showed the guy being short before he was enhanced and turned into Captain America.
You would not be able to sell a 5ft 3in actor as the fantasy escape for who people who want to fantasize about who they could be or the leader they would have.
Yes it exists and think it's incredibly important for people to be aware of the power of their own physicality and not to abuse it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discrepancy_theory