The downsides of being beautiful

The downsides of being beautiful

Can you be too beautiful? It is hardly a problem that most of us have to contemplate - as much as we might like to dream that it were the case.

Yet the blessings and curses of beauty have been a long-standing interest in psychology. Do those blessed with symmetrical features and a striking figure live in a cloud of appreciation - or does it sometimes pay to be plain?

Combing through decades of findings, social psychologists Lisa Slattery Walker and Tonya Frevert at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte have reviewed all the evidence to date - and their conclusions are not what you might expect.

At the most superficial level, beauty might be thought to carry a kind of halo around it; we see that someone has one good attribute, and by association, our subconscious assumes that they have been blessed in other departments too. "It's one of many status characteristics that we can identify very early in our interactions," says Walker.

To psychologists, this is called the "what is beautiful is good" heuristic, but fans of the sitcom 30 Rock might recognise this as "the bubble". Jon Hamm's character is remarkably incompetent, yet manages to live in blissful self-delusion thanks to his good looks. As a doctor, for example, he can't even perform the Heimlich manoeuvre, but somehow managed to drift through medical school thanks to his natural charm.

According to the available evidence, the bubble is a reality. In education, for instance, Walker and Frevert found a wealth of research showing that better looking students, at school and university, tend to be judged by teachers as being more competent and intelligent - and that was reflected in the grades they gave them.

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