Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517652200283X

by jdthedisciple • 4 months ago

360 471 4 months ago

sciencedirect.com

Mistletoe• 4 months ago

I wonder why the beauty premium remained for males after the switch to online but not in females?

jdthedisciple4• 4 months ago

Perhaps some other (hidden) premium that only shows in males, like a confidence premium?

CodeyWhizzBang• 4 months ago

The article says:

Why is beauty a productivity-enhancing attribute for males in non-quantitative subjects? Generally, it is difficult to disentangle the reasons behind why beauty improves productivity (Hamermesh and Parker, 2005). However, relative to other students, attractive men are more successful in peer influence, and are more persistent, a personality trait positively linked to academic outcomes (Dion and Stein, 1978, Alan et al., 2019). In addition, attractive individuals are more socially skilled, have more open social networks, and are more popular vis-à-vis physically unattractive peers (Feingold, 1992). Importantly, possession of these traits is significantly linked to creativity (Soda et al., 2021). In our setting, the tasks faced by students in non-quantitative subjects, for instance in marketing and supply chain management, are likely to be seen as more ”creative”, and significantly contrast the more traditional book-reading and problem-solving in mathematics and physics courses, the latter presumably perceived as more monotonous. Together with the large use of group assignments in non-quantitative courses, these theoretical results imply that socially skilled individuals are likely to have a comparative advantage in non-quantitative subjects.

dude250711• 4 months ago

I guess even attractive males have to work hard.

One gender still has to approach, the other gender still waits to be approached.

tokai2• 4 months ago

Because its a small study with a biased population.

threethirtytwo11• 4 months ago

It's easy. For women the core of their power anthropologically lies with beauty. They are judged by it and the core of their power stems from it. That is why there is a beauty industry that centers around women and none for men. That is why women "care" about beauty much more than men. They know that beauty = power.

Women rely on beauty for success much more than men. It is not just in terms of "grades". Even in engineering jobs you can see it, a beautiful woman can get armies of male engineers to "help" her. I literally saw one female engineer get 2 male engineers to spend 3 weeks on a project for her just by virtue of the fact she's a woman.

And she's not even aware of this. Like she thinks people are just "nice". But men are not conditioned to ask other men for this kind of help and we can't expect 2 idiots to spend weeks on a "favor" for someone else.

We live in a world that tries to deny this reality with "gender equality" but these cultural ideas fly in the face of millions of years of biological evolution.

Now that being said. We very much expect that the grades of women should go down when not in person to a degree MUCH MUCH more than men. That is completely is expected. The question now is, why was there even a correlation of better grades and beauty among men in the first place? Why did that correlation exist when men do not rely on beauty? That is the anomaly here.

I think part of the answer is clear. Beautiful men do not rely on beauty for success. They never did hence why when you removed it as a factor the success rate did not change. What's going on I suspect is even more controversial: Beauty correlates with intelligence. This is not an insane notion. We already know that height correlates with intelligence, but it is likely beauty does too.

Edit: I looked it up, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

And it looks like my guess was true. This is indeed what's going on.

mschuster912• 4 months ago

That is why there is a beauty industry that centers around women and none for men.

Oh us men also have a beauty industry - or, I should rather say, an attractiveness industry. We just get sold different, and arguably far more pricier, things... luxury watches and cars, tailor-made suits and shoes, grooming, gym memberships.

And similar to how women got anorexia through unhealthy beauty standards for decades, that comes back to bite us men this time with "looksmaxxers" [1]...

Clavicular attributes his looks to, among other things, taking testosterone from the age of 14 and smashing his jawbone with a hammer to supposedly reshape his lower face - neither of which is recommended by health professionals.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx28z4zypkno

atmavatar• 4 months ago

And she's not even aware of this. Like she thinks people are just "nice".

Social graces require that she play it off as people being "nice", but I guarantee you she knows precisely what's going on. Women aren't stupid.

She may have even deliberately cultivated this relationship, but that's not something a rando internet person like I can determine.

circlefavshape3• 4 months ago

For women the core of their power anthropologically lies with beauty

Physical attractiveness is a social asset, and it's a more useful asset for a woman because men are affected by how women look more than the other way around - that's all fair enough ... but "the core of their power anthropologically lies with beauty" is a bizarre framing.

aurareturn• 4 months ago

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

StefanBatory2• 4 months ago

And a side note from me as a Pole - online I see many Americans speaking about how cruel Gaokao is, but... It's America that's outlier. I had the same style of exam in Poland to get to uni, and it's the same in the entire EU, and rest of the world. So I have no idea why Gaokao is singled out.

christophilus• 4 months ago

We have the SAT and ACT, and those are objective. The wealthy still pass disproportionately due to better tutoring specifically oriented to those tests. It’s Goodhart’s law.

coliveira• 4 months ago

Because they want to say that China is bad. When, as you say, US is the outlier in inventing strange ways to admit kids to college. I'm from Brazil and the entrance is exam is similar to China, there is a single exam and the note is used to determine which college you can go.

mystraline• 4 months ago

Its basically anything that sticks by saying "China Bad, USA Good".

alistairSH4• 4 months ago

The US has plenty of exams, starting in early primary school. All states have Standards of Learning (SOL) exams every few years on the main subjects. Then, starting in high school, you have a combination of Advanced Placement (AP) subject exams (college level, often granting college credit) or International Baccalaureate (IB) exams, Scholastic Aptitude (SAT) or American College Test (ACT), SAT2 subject exams, and probably a few I've forgotten.

The SAT or ACT are technically the only ones "required" for college, but most of the elite schools expect AP or IB (which tends to give the students a year or two of calculus, a fourth year of foreign language, and some deeper dives into other sciences or social studies).

But, because it's split across so many tests, there's no single "score poorly and your life is ruined" exam.

poulpy1232• 4 months ago

I don't know how this exam is in China and Poland, but from what I've seen about the south Korean one it is much harsher on the students than the french one, even in my time

pezezin• 4 months ago

I am currently living in Japan, and it seems that they follow the American style exams. I don't know if it is a result of the post-war occupation, or it was already like that before WW2.

Back home in Spain we follow the same style of a single national-level exam that you mentioned though.

tokai2• 4 months ago

and it's the same in the entire EU

That's not true.

arjie2• 4 months ago

Everyone has a tendency to support the system they went through. I've done it numerous times for standardized tests and I went through them. I think the information value of a person who was certified capable by system X recommending system X is probably low.

After all, if you flipped the script and the US used standardized tests and you were then told that China uses a committee of experts that will certify incoming applicants' stated political positions, race, and cultural background in order to "craft a class" (as an admissions officer calls it in SAT Wars) with a carve-out for the children of those who have already attended, you would be informed of the need for meritocracy, the tendency towards nepotism, and the obvious racial biases that will affect individuals in such a system.

Likewise, you would doubtless be informed that the East's more holistic look at the total student is a superior form of student selection since it is driven by a Confucian focus on the gestalt human rather than on the reductive metrics of the West.

What is interesting to me is to hear from those who have succeeded in some system but nonetheless wish it were different.

storus• 4 months ago

Your single exam performance doesn't forever assign you to a class of people, you still have an opportunity to redo the exam next year or to be successful even without a degree. That's not possible in China nor Korea. Even in Germany flunking a class might ban you from ever retaking it at any other German university.

keiferski4• 4 months ago

Don’t wealthier families hire tutors to prepare their children?

That’s what happens in the US with the SAT/ACT.

I think you’d need free, universal SAT tutoring available to everyone in order to be more meritocratic.

chii3• 4 months ago

merit doesn't mean equal wealth spending to obtain a result. And it's not black and white.

Someone rich spending a lot of money to obtain tutoring doesn't necessarily make their score higher, and there's also diminishing returns. Someone poor who do not afford private tutoring can also receive good score due to their natural talent and/or hard work in self-teaching/practicing.

universal SAT tutoring available to everyone in order to be more meritocratic.

and that is now called school isnt it? Everybody gets at least some minimal standard of schooling.

The fact is, meritocratic is meant to describe the opposite of nepotistic (or sometimes hereditary/aristocratic). Under a nepotistic system, no matter what you do, you cannot succeed without becoming the in-group somehow.

jostmey• 4 months ago

It could still be more fair than no standardized testing

prasadjoglekar• 4 months ago

Take it to it's logical conclusion. Free universal choice of schools rather than being tethered to your home address.

picture• 4 months ago

China has made for-profit extracurricular tutoring illegal since 2021. [1] Of course there can be under the table operations and discussion to be had about regionally biased gaokao difficulty, but I think it's worth recognizing gaokao being a real chance for upward class mobility, hence why it is so competitive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Reduction_Policy

CalRobert8• 4 months ago

At the very least, it's complicated. I went to an appallingly bad, fundamentalist religious high school (not my choice) that didn't offer extracurriculars, honors classes (never mind AP!) etc. and if I hadn't been able to do exceedingly well on standardized tests I could not have gotten in to the colleges I did. My parents did not pay for any test prep. I did learn and practice on my own though, which is how I know that evolution does not, in fact, teach that you can grow wings if you want them badly enough.

mgfist2• 4 months ago

Well nothing is truly meritocratic - even with free tutoring, kids will still have different genetics, different home environments, different upbringings etc..

Colleges in the US that removed standardized testing from their applications, in the pursuit of trying to be more meritocratic, found that fewer students from underrepresented backgrounds got in, not more. In hindsight (and to some in foresight) this makes sense because now schools leaned more heavily on grades and extracurriculars, both of which can be gamed by wealthy families far more easily than a standardized test.

tyjen• 4 months ago

Khan Academy was free and used to obtain 99th percentile SAT scores. Academic resources for success are abundantly available, but they require discipline, time, and effort.

mikkupikku8• 4 months ago

Tutors barely move exam scores, particularly if they're only hired for test prep. You can crush tests without cramming, tutors or any of that if you just pay attention in class and do all optional homework.

WarmWash5• 4 months ago

The actual problem is that we are not blank slates, and wealthy parents tend to be wealthy because they are more intelligent, and likewise give birth to predisposed-to-be-intelligent babies.

I always find it slightly ironic how mother nature gets so much reverence from ostensibly communal types, despite her being the most shamelessly power hungry entity ever conceived.

azan_3• 4 months ago

Don’t wealthier families hire tutors to prepare their children?

Effect of tutoring is greatly overstated.

Manuel_D2• 4 months ago

Of course candidates that study more have an advantage. But that doesn't make it non-meritocratic. That'd be like saying a marathon isn't meritocratic because some people spend more time training and conditioning.

Manuel_D2• 4 months ago

Sure, but tutoring involves learning and improving the skills at hand. Meritocracy doesn't mean equal opportunity, it means candidates are evaluated equally without regard to superficial characteristics like appearance. A meritocratic test will award higher scores to test takers that can read and analyze passages faster and solve math problems more reliability. Whether those test takers possess that ability innately, or built up that ability through loads of studying doesn't alter the fact that it's a meritocratic test.

Of course candidates that study more have an advantage. But that doesn't make it non-meritocratic. That'd be like saying a marathon isn't meritocratic because some people spend more time training.

steve19774• 4 months ago

I don't know this specific exam, but most of these can be gamed in the sense of learning to the test. So depending on what training resources someone has available (e.g. rich parents who can afford tutors), I'd consider them only partially meritocratic.

arjie2• 4 months ago

China also bans test tutoring as a commercial service. Without a doubt people will still be able to find tutors if they're sufficiently capable, but the scale of this problem should be vastly altered by that action.

xyzzyz4• 4 months ago

If this is the case, then why doesn’t everyone get the top a score? The answer is, of course, that it’s not so simple, and you can’t just learn to the test.

That’s just like with sports: anyone can learn how to train himself, and anyone can improve with training, but in the end, some people will end up faster, and some people will end up slower.

jimbokun37• 4 months ago

Can you learn to the test without actually learning the material?

everdrive• 4 months ago

is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities.

The road to hell is built on good intentions.

dsm4ck• 4 months ago

Oh honey

linhns• 4 months ago

Having worked in with Chinese people, they always say it's meaningless.

Avicebron2• 4 months ago

How many folks from China have you met that haven't passed/been to university?

rishabhaiover• 4 months ago

I strongly disagree. I've gone through a similar education system and it's soul crushing to not perform well in those singular events that define your career and identity.

pxc3• 4 months ago

Chinese education is also extremely constrained by the practice of "teaching to the test" to the point that the Gaokao indirectly stands in the way of innovation and reform in education. Schools doing interesting things to improve the quality of education are historically not very competitive on the Gaokao anyway (e.g., some unusual rural schools where students historically have bad prospects anyway and parents are overburdened or indifferent) or explicitly trying to carve something out outside the college track (e.g., private tech/entrepreneurship schools created by big tech companies).

There may be some good things about the Gaokao but having spoken to some (Chinese) teachers in China, it's also a limiting factor for education prior to university in a lot of ways, limiting the freedom of teachers and driving up risk aversion in parents.

(It's also effectively graded on a regional curve, which might be a good thing but isn't meritocratic in the straightforward way you suggest.)

maxglute3• 4 months ago

Or (some) western education is too unconstrained and have strayed from purpose.

Scope of gaokao = teaching the test is just teaching everything a well rounded student should know. it's not sats where you can cram a few test tactic sessions and get a few 100 extra points. At the end of the day, gaokao is there to beat knowledge floor/foundation into kids, and one would argue knowledge floor is very deep if you want to generate most bodies that can transition into technical tertiary. Like... if one want human capita pool to be launchpad for innovation, you don't make calculus optional to athletics or other extra curricular.

IMO useful perspective is PRC diaspora, who readily acknowledges they don't want their kids going through gaokao not because it's ineffective but because it's tough, and half the reason they immigrate is because their statistically mediocre kids can't hack it under gaokao, but with some east asian education rigour/pressure will still be top 5% students under western education.

bombcar15• 4 months ago

There are those who argue that the entire high school curriculum in the USA is formed and molded by College Board changes to the SAT (and similarly to the ACT).

It makes sense, if the SAT starts asking you do calculate epicycles, schools are going to add Ptolemy to the study, or look worse than those that did.

jimbokun37• 4 months ago

So what are aspects of being well educated not reflected in the Gaokao? How could those aspects be assessed as objectively and unbiased as possible?

raincole• 4 months ago

Taiwan and Korea have even "fairer" systems. In China different provinces got different test problems. Especially students from Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin get completely different ones. In Taiwan/Korea everyone takes the exact same test.

However I've never met anyone from these countries who have a high opinion of their systems. Personally I do think our standardized exams cause massive 'overfitting' issue (borrowed from machine learning). The exam is not as brutal as Korean one though.

YMMV.

h2zizzle2• 4 months ago

The problem is the high stress generated by the one-shot approach. There has to be a balance between the objectivity of a single test and practical concerns (like choking because you were sick or got bad sleep the night before).

Ultimately, the only "fair" outcome is an abundance of opportunity. The vast majority of people are worth something to their community and society. And even then, as long as there's enough food and shelter to go around, no one should have to justify their mere existence.

jimbokun37• 4 months ago

The systems may not be held in high regard, but their education systems produce workers responsible for great innovation, productivity and economic growth.

butILoveLife3• 4 months ago

As the other user posted, practicing for tests are extremely important. I grew up middle class, got an average score on my tests (but I did really well in math)

My wife, upper middle class, took entire weeks of courses and scored higher than me on everything. But I am better than her at math for sure.

crims0n• 4 months ago

When education is in-person, attractive students receive higher grades in non-quantitative subjects, in which teachers tend to interact more with students compared to quantitative courses.

I wonder how much of this is less about attraction and more about social skills. Granted, higher attraction affords more opportunity to develop those skills, but I have met plenty of charming people who were not conventionally attractive.

Foobar85682• 4 months ago

Who is your parents play a larger role than attractiveness.

master-lincoln• 4 months ago

A larger role for grading University students? Certainly not where I studied in central Europe. In which country do university tutors know the parents of their students?

shevy-java2• 4 months ago

Good point. Good looking people may have different social skills. Some may have horrible social skills; others may be great. That whole focus on looks is very strange.

dist-epoch• 4 months ago

Or maybe it's harder to justify a higher grade on objective tasks like math/physics/...

crocodile10203• 4 months ago

It's very sad people on this site still fall for this rhetoric.

Attractive people have advantage even without the social skills. We have all observed it. Don't cope.

h2zizzle2• 4 months ago

In many instances, attractiveness is tantamount to having social skills. It's not even a matter of developing a more sophisticated skillset; attractive people (and all the people who are subject to affinity bias) are just given the benefit-of-the-doubt more, and more consistently. This is where advice like, "Be yourself," and, "Don't fear rejection," and the idea that, "the only thing stopping someone from connection is their willingness to dare to try," come from: people whose attractiveness has preempted the requirement to really change or consider how they approach interactions.

retsibsi• 4 months ago

Granted, higher attraction affords more opportunity to develop those skills

I think this is largely a distraction from the direct effect. For any level of social skill, good-looking people at that level are perceived much more positively than others at the same level.

The question of the causal effect between physical attractiveness and social skill is interesting, though. There are plausible stories both ways, imo: your version, and the contrary one saying that pretty people coast on their looks and the rest of us have to try harder to be interesting or appealing in other ways.

(It's also hard to fully separate the skills from the looks, because the same behaviours that work for a good-looking person might backfire terribly for someone at the other end of the scale. Do we say those two people are equally socially skilled, or the pretty person is more skilled because they chose a strategy that works in their context and the other person didn't?)

ryandrake2• 4 months ago

the same behaviours that work for a good-looking person might backfire terribly for someone at the other end of the scale.

This was summed up well in the "Hello, Human Resources?" cartoon[1]

1: https://www.threads.com/@smiling__sisyphus/post/DN56r2hkRXs/...

jjk1662• 4 months ago

And attractive girls social skills go away when classes move online but other students' don't?

kjkjadksj3• 4 months ago

It is because on zoom no one would participate in the in class discussions really. Everyone seemingly checking out. In class some people are seemingly compelled to engage.

jimbokun37• 4 months ago

Then why would it change between in person and remote environments?

Pay082• 4 months ago

I think being charming is conventionally attractive. The teddy bear stereotype exists for a reason.

lapcat2• 4 months ago

I wouldn't place much stock in small studies like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

isaacfrond• 4 months ago

I wouldn't either. The difference for female and males reeks of the law of small numbers.

lapcat2• 4 months ago

It's comment catnip for HN though.

tgv• 4 months ago

Even if the data is truly representative and unbiased, we should also not believe conclusions that draw so heavily on interpreting correlation. One could just as well conclude that male intelligence and beauty go hand in hand. Or that men have a better relationship with the teacher. Or that the effect of female beauty fades with distance. Or that COVID had an effect on make-up style. The confounds are endless.

mikert89• 4 months ago

People underestimate how specific the genetic pools are that relate to high intelligence

eager_learner• 4 months ago

meaning what exactly ?

PeterStuer• 4 months ago

An alternative story could be that the women’s presented appearance online may have changed more than men’s and that real appearance changes could weaken the correlation between the paper’s stored photo-based beauty score and what instructors actually saw live. Maybe woman changed grooming effort more than men, or the effects of fashion trends that explicitly drove the woman towards less attractive styles etc.

if that mismatch increased more for women than men, the estimated “beauty premium” for women could fall even without any change in teachers’ discriminatory behavior. The paper just assumes the attractiveness stayed constant during the period, but seems to have had no data to verify this.

jdthedisciple4• 4 months ago

very important observation indeed, if that wasn't accounted for it means much less to me

loremium• 4 months ago

aren't online curses a lot text only which inherently is harder to communicate

davidhalter• 4 months ago

Attractive females might also have different behavior in remote teaching. Attractiveness directly affects how people behave and feel. This might also be different for males vs. females.

I'm sure that attractiveness does play a role for grades, it's just not nearly as simple as the paper puts it.

There are a lot of potential explanations, which is why these kinds of studies are unfortunately not that helpful and often cause questionable media coverage.

shevy-java2• 4 months ago

Can confirm!

In the past they would stare in pure awe at my guaranteed impeccable looks.

Now they ask me damned question to calculate the speed of fluids in different pipes through the Bernoulli's principle. And ChatGPT only helps so much here ...

Also, I think there must be a pretty big difference between female and male, because even if a male student is attract, if I am a male teacher and interested in females, would I wish to prioritize on looks, if the underlying grading is instead done on e. g. testing knowledge and skills? Why would looks even factor in here? Such a system would be flawed from the get go.

kxrm• 4 months ago

My first job during and out of college back in 2003, we were entirely remote. We hired exclusively over the phone which resulted in a mix of people that were completely diverse in their backgrounds and at the same time truly qualified to do the work.

The company went on to grow quite successfully until it was acquired 6 years later. I feel that zoom and video conferencing allows some of that "appearance" factor back in. Based on my experience though, if I had my way, job interviews would be exclusively audio only.

speedgoose• 4 months ago

Audio interviews are currently broken. People can use AI and many will do. Not necessarily for speech generation but to know what to say.

For research studies, we slowly revert to on premise physical interviews at work. If we want the ChatGPT answers, we don’t need another human in the loop.

mikkupikku8• 4 months ago

HR loves video interviews for precisely this reason. They understand their role in the company to use their social expertise to suss out bad vibes, and it turns into something like Mean Girls.

torginus2• 4 months ago

I think most 'attractive' people put effort into their appearances, which might appeal to management types who evaluate work performance. Also, imo the best way to get a management position in my experience isn't to work hard, or be knowledgeable, but to be the least objectionable pick.

This varies with country/company, with Euros usually being appearance focused, but in US companies, it's dudes in crumpled T-shirts all the way to the top (in engineering).

Seriously, it's so entertaining to sit in on an important meeting with a US vendor which looks like a college dorm party with an impeccably dressed guy or lady (from sales and/or management) who sticks out like a sore thumb.

mikkupikku8• 4 months ago

Best way to get a manager position is to be a few inches taller than everybody else. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but pay attention to how often the boss is taller than everybody else on the team. Not always, but far more often than random chance can account for.

(Incidentally, the best boss I ever had was barely 5 feet.)

ghaff7• 4 months ago

That is far less common outside of tech. Even within tech, I did throw on a blazer and tie when I interviewed for my last job. Totally unnecessary but any company for which that’s actually a problem it’s a red flag. I did start dressing down a bit for most of the developer-oriented conferences I attend for the reason you say.

JR1427• 4 months ago

if I had my way, job interviews would be exclusively audio only.

The problem just shifts. People with attractive voices would then have an advantage.

nemomarx3• 4 months ago

At least voice coaching / training is relatively accessible? A lot easier than some physical features imo.

And you could argue having a clear easy to understand voice is a job skill for most positions, I think.

lonelyasacloud• 4 months ago

Indeed, but more tractable for a person to address.

Aurornis6• 4 months ago

if I had my way, job interviews would be exclusively audio only.

Unfortunately, cheating is becoming rampant in remote interviews, especially for early career roles right now. I think companies are moving toward having final interview rounds in person because it’s such an effective tactic to discourage interview cheating.

Spivak• 4 months ago

Forget cheating, we get entirely fake people applying for our positions.

ghaff7• 4 months ago

Screens were voice calls for a long time. I’m a big fan of what’s normally the day of interviews be in person even if you take AI cheating out of the picture. I realize not everyone agrees. Zoom interviewing is mostly a COVID outcome.

hirvi746• 4 months ago

If one can cheat in an interview, then I am not certain the interviewers are asking the appropriate and necessary questions.

Spooky232• 4 months ago

job interviews would be exclusively audio only.

Have fun. If you do it in volume, you'll get scammed pretty badly. Both by luck of the draw, and scammers actively targeting you.

Spooky232• 4 months ago

job interviews would be exclusively audio only.

Have fun. If you do it in volume, you'll get scammed pretty badly. Both by luck of the draw, and scammers who will actively target you.

snarf21• 4 months ago

The best hiring advice is this: Take half of the resumes you receive and just throw them in the trash. You don't want to hire unlucky people!

HPsquared3• 4 months ago

Napoleon: "I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?"

xeyownt• 4 months ago

Best comment of the day :-DDDD

SkyeCA• 4 months ago

Attraction matters and it matters a lot. This isn't news, a lot of people just don't like to acknowledge it.

elevatortrim2• 4 months ago

I think there is an expectation that it should not matter, and there is a reality that it does matter, and there is lots of discussion because the expectations and the reality do not match.

ecshafer2• 4 months ago

Why is there an expectation that it should not matter? Is it just childrens shows? In many countries you have to put a headshot on your resume, that seems very overt that attractiveness / looks does matter. In the west there is a large idealism over practicality sometimes.

TrackerFF2• 4 months ago

People that have used to be fat, and then lost a lot of weight, will know how brutally different people will treat you. Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bias against fat people, against "unattractive" people, etc.

This also shows in the classroom, work, etc.

Of course, actually being conventionally attractive will come with its own perks. People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.

anon84873628• 4 months ago

Or as 30 Rock put it, attractive people live in the "bubble".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bubble_(30_Rock)

Revanche1367• 4 months ago

I feel this as a guy trying to lose weight very seriously this year. On one hand, I can lose weight but I will forever be short unless a miracle occurs lol. I’ve made my peace with being unattractive for the most part, the attempt to lose weight is primarily for health reasons.

TrackerFF2• 4 months ago

I went from being a scrawny guy in my teens, to a chubby/fat gamer in my late teens/early 20s, and then a fit athlete in my mid 20s. While I had envisioned much more interest from the ladies, my biggest surprise was how much nicer, kinder, and helpful random people were. And in a professional setting, co-workers and leaders just treated you more seriously - especially when it came to handing out leadership roles on projects etc.

zer00eyz• 4 months ago

I will forever be short

I'm 6'4" so not freakishly tall, but tall enough that people notice and for it to be a problem.

1. Im ever ones human ladder. About once a month someone will ask me to get something off a high shelf.

2. Shopping sucks. Wookie sized pants, Wookie sized shoes, Wookie sized shirts. It's a pain in the ass, I dont ever have anything trendy, and I pay more if they have it in my size.

3. Cars: There are some cars I just cant drive. For years I could walk into a Volvo dealer and NO ONE would talk to me. Why? Heigh notches at the doors and they just knew on my way in that I was never going to be able to be comfortable. And sports cars: forget it. In my youth a friend of mine got her father's Porsche: not a fun car to even sit in.

4. Little things, like flying, taking a nap on a couch, or laying in any sort of medical "bed" becomes a comedy sketch.

5. There are just a litany of things that arent fun that one would not think of: from wacking my head on every low hanging thing that jumps in front of me, to being "too big" for a lot of activities that I would otherwise enjoy (smaller sail boats as an example).

Would I trade height in for short, and the social stigma it comes with. Nope, you do have it worse in that regard. But the world isnt built for people outside the average...

kjkjadksj3• 4 months ago

Short guys have a vastly easier time getting jacked at least.

elevatortrim2• 4 months ago

I think being conventionally attractive gives you a lot more chance practice socialising and my observation is that, people who use that chance get so good at it, they remain very good at relationships even at old age.

butILoveLife3• 4 months ago

Ive seen the opposite in some people.

I know a ~55ish year old lady who is beautiful, but looks 55. I see her adjusting to her new reality and its painful. I imagine she used to be able to get away with being mean and sarcastic because she was so hot.

Now it just causes office fights. "I wont work with X" is something Ive heard.

The interesting part is that I originally only worked with her on the phone, so I always thought she was mean... Then I saw her in person and everything clicked.

moralestapia• 4 months ago

The difference between female/male is also abysmal.

CalRobert8• 4 months ago

I lost 100 pounds and as amazing as it was that everyone (not just potential mates but literally EVERYONE, even family) no longer thought I was lazy and was just… nicer to me - was honestly kind of depressing. And I was an active fat person! I often did 50+ mile bike rides when I weighed 280.

People aren’t much more sophisticated than our ape brethren at the end of the day.

There’s a decent anime exploring this on Netflix right now. “Lookism” https://m.imdb.com/title/tt22297722/

Aurornis6• 4 months ago

Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

I watched something like this happen in a friend, but as an outside observer I saw a different explanation: The period when he got into shape involved a lot of changes for the better in his life, including becoming more outgoing, motivated, and disciplined (necessary prerequisites for weight loss in the pre-medication era). He also bought a new wardrobe and replaced his old worn out logo T-shirts and cargo shorts with clothes more appropriate for an adult. He also started paying attention to his grooming and hair style instead of looking like he just woke up.

For a while he tried to explain it all by his weight loss alone, but over time he realized it was an overall change in everything about the way he carried himself and presented himself to the world.

I won’t deny that there is some stigma around being overweight from some people, but I’ve also rarely seen a person change only their weight. Now that GLP-1s are everywhere I do know a few people who slimmed down rapidly without changing anything else and expected things like their dating life to completely change but have been disappointed that little has changed socially for them. They do feel a lot better though!

ChrisMarshallNY• 4 months ago

I have a lot of respect for folks that successfully lose a great deal of weight. If I know someone did that, my estimation of them generally goes up, several notches. I'm no stranger to quitting stuff, but significant weight loss is still terrifying to me. I could benefit from losing 20-30 lbs, myself, and it's not been easy. Success has been ... elusive.

Maybe it's different, these days, with GLP-1 drugs (I have always called it "Gila Lizard Poison" in my head), but it takes serious discipline and grit to lose the weight, and keep it off.

That generally comes from massive personal change; both internal, and external. Quite difficult.

amelius6• 4 months ago

He also bought a new wardrobe and replaced his old worn out logo T-shirts and cargo shorts with clothes more appropriate for an adult.

I think the problem many __men__ have with that is that an "appropriate" wardrobe looks more uniform and less individualized, basically boring.

kapep3• 4 months ago

A data point, though my situation is not even about weight: I used to be skinny fat in my mid-twenties until mid-thirties - so basically still kind of slim but some belly fat and not much muscles. Kind of average, unremarkable.

After a breakup I started being more active again, I went bouldering once a week and gradually got into shape and then really athletic after about 2 years when I started going twice a week. My total weight didn't change at all. I dress just as good as before and have the same overall style. Of course most clothes simply look better on me, now that I'm more in shape. Same good job that I still like. I do go out a bit more. But overall I would say I really didn't change anything except getting more attractive from putting on muscles and losing fat.

It made a hell of a difference for dating. Before I felt mostly invisible but since then got approached in bars all the time, which rarely happened before. After some time I got way more confident - but when this stated I sure wasn't yet. Some woman even told me into the face that I lacked confidence after they approached me and realized I don't have the personality and/or confidence matching my appearance. They certainly only approached me because of my appearance.

The people only loosing weight are probably held back by other things. If they changed everything but their weight they likely wouldn't have more success either. I would say I had most things figured out already before and It seems I was held back only by having an average build. Just getting fit absolutely made the difference for me.

bawolff• 4 months ago

I won’t deny that there is some stigma around being overweight from some people, but I’ve also rarely seen a person change only their weight.

This feels like it could be a correlation vs causation thing. Its a lot easier to put effort in if you see it getting results. Is it that they suddenly put effort in triggering all this or is it the weighg loss made the investment of putting effort in return results where previously you'd need a much higher level of effort to see results making it only seem worth it after the weight loss?

Or is it the weight loss resulted in higher self confidence giving all sorts of knock on effects.

I think its really hard to tease apart cause and effect here. Would the same changes be possible without the weight loss or have the same results is kind of a hard question to answer.

wakawaka284• 4 months ago

For a while he tried to explain it all by his weight loss alone, but over time he realized it was an overall change in everything about the way he carried himself and presented himself to the world.

All of what you're saying is just looks. Clothes, posture, etc. all matter and we all know some exceptions to the rule, but people make clothes look good and not so much the other way around.

Now that GLP-1s are everywhere I do know a few people who slimmed down rapidly without changing anything else and expected things like their dating life to completely change but have been disappointed that little has changed socially for them.

Not everyone looks better if they slim down. And if you do it the wrong way, or don't update your clothes to not be baggy, or just plain have excessive expectations, it's going to be disappointing. Losing weight just gets you to the baseline of where you might not make people want to look away or find reasons to not like you. If you're short, then you'll still be short after losing weight. If you're ugly in the face, you'll still be ugly, if not more ugly. I know you're talking about men because even overweight women have lots of options. Dating is also nearly impossible for average men now. You shouldn't assume that weight doesn't make a huge difference based on a few examples of guys who can't get dates. Think of it more like not being fat is to make others not immediately blow you off for that one reason.

phil21• 4 months ago

I think there are too many variables to really control for well on this one. Obviously someone who does what your friend did is going to have many factors changing how people interact with them and it will accumulate into and even larger total effect.

I lost 100lbs very rapidly. The difference in attention and little social things was noticeable almost immediately. Same style of dress, moderately kept hair, but otherwise decent personal care on both sides of the weight loss.

What is interesting though to me is that I hit my goal weight right around the time some major life events happened and I pretty much was operating at the lowest self confidence levels I ever had in my life. I was less social and much more withdrawn than before.

I still would notice the “second glances” from folks I never got before, and even friendly greetings etc that were a bit weird at first to me.

I don’t think you can really translate these changes into dating success or whatnot without other life changes though. They just Lower the difficulty level - you still need to put the work in.

dghughes• 4 months ago

That reminds me of when I was undiagnosed with hypothyroidism only in reverse. In my late 20s I made an effort to dress better, no jeans or dirty sneakers, hair cut, gel, gym at least three times a week. Then all that started to slide, brain fog, stay at home, just no energy.

It took probably 10 years but finally I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I wonder if a lot of overweight people started out like me but were never diagnosed. At diagnosis I wasn't overweight but I have since gained weight just due to my metabolism now. I was always slim all my life now I'm on the low end of overweight.

So yeah weight can be a problem but so can other issues. It's difficult to be yourself when you have hidden weights you don't even realize are dragging you down.

jstanley• 4 months ago

I noticed the same thing after I started dressing smarter.

HPsquared3• 4 months ago

I find even something as simple as a haircut can have a massive effect.

WarmWash5• 4 months ago

Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident

Having been one of the people who experienced this (well the inverse, scarily skinny to lean and muscular), the confidence comes entirely from people in your life congratulating you, followed by strangers and new people just having a baseline positive glow towards you.

I don't know who came up with that line, it's repeated a lot, but I am almost certain it came from someone who never experienced the transition and soothed their ego by telling themselves it's all just a state of mind.

simonask10• 4 months ago

Both can be true: A person’s state of mind is affected by people around them.

helpfulmandrill• 4 months ago

I used to be fat, currently I'm not. A lot of people who hadn't seen me in a while congratulated me. After that I haven't noticed much difference TBH.

roelschroeven• 4 months ago

Same here. Afterwards I got more fat again, and again I don't notice a difference in how people threat me.

xyzelement• 4 months ago

This is a benefit. Being healthy and fit is objectively great for you. That your peers subtly nudge you in that direction is great. And in contrast, I feel horrible about "body positivity" - making you feel good about an objective problem that's incapacitating and killing you is a huge problem.

simonask10• 4 months ago

The problem with this stance is that the alternative (making people feel bad) will exacerbate the problem by contributing to feelings of hopelessness and ostracism.

The first prerequisite for making difficult changes is a supportive environment - not a judgmental one.

Melonai2• 4 months ago

I'm also quite anti "body positivity" as it is usually espoused online, especially in relation to weight, which is by far the main focus of the movement. It feels quite self-destructive, you accept that your weight is unchangeable (even though I would say that in 75% of cases, and probably even more, it definitely isn't), and try to feel "proud" of it, even though there are piles upon piles of quite definitive research which proves that being overweight is horrible for your health, and you essentially start preventing your improvement, by choice this time. You start eating more because now you decide that you actually like being fat, now thinking that that's who you are and always will be, and you should feel proud of yourself (which is quite silly all in itself), and you just end up in a worse state than before. Body positivity will not help you get healthier.

But, we also shouldn't forget that the idea of body positivity didn't just pop up out of a vacuum, it's inherently a reaction to the culture. And here I disagree with you, if your peers and society in general just slightly nudges you to be healthy then that'd be okay, but that's not really what happens from my experience. I used to be quite overweight, especially while I was a teenager, and it was tough. People didn't really treat me like a peer, everyone avoided me, and made fun of me constantly for my weight. Random people would tell me how fat I am (by the way, I wasn't even that fat, far from obese). And in the end it fucked me up quite badly, I had no self-respect, no confidence, and I didn't really want to live at that point. I managed to turn it around, I stopped eating properly for days, often just snacking on a package of nuts for an entire day, I would start passing out when standing up, I would exercise so much until I couldn't walk anymore, and in the end it helped! I lost a ton of weight, people stopped tormenting me, and I started to be perceived as quite normal. I even had my first real boyfriend, nobody even looked at me before. But I was still miserable and felt way more unhealthy, at that point I was underweight and eating one portion of rice a day, maybe with some vegetables. No snacks or sweets of any kind. What was essentially bullying did help me to lose weight, but it did not make me healthy. That's just my personal anecdote, I bet there are people who used people making fun of them to start a journey of healthy self-improvement and honestly that's great, but I know most overweight people can't take it well. This is kind of the issue with using shame to get people to improve (though most people who hate on fat people definitely do not have that as their goal), as that shame often messes with your mental health, and makes progress way harder. Many overweight people straight up turn to food to try to feel good, just making the issue way worse. Or they get better in a self-destructive way like me. Ironically I was definitely not healthier when I was underweight, I felt physically awful most of the time, but because I looked quite normal people thought I was more healthy! Weight isn't a perfect metric for health itself, and we shame overweight people disproportionately more than underweight people (especially for women, though I bet for men it's different).

And I think a lot of people who try to follow body positivity have a similar experience to mine (at least I think so, I don't really have proof!). They have endured a ton of meanness for their weight, and often started to hate themselves because of it, and then they turn to body positivity as a sort of "Fuck you!" to the people who made them feel subhuman for their weight. And it's obviously also not productive, it's just a heavy swing in the opposite direction. It's caused directly by the shame society places upon being overweight. It's just the opposite side of the same coin, where I believe both sides suck.

- "Being fat is morally bad!"

- "No, being fat is morally good actually!"

It's kind of tough to find a good solution for this, I think we all agree that we should try to prevent as many people being an unhealthy weight as possible for the good of the people themselves and society as a whole. And I 100% don't think we should encourage people to be and stay obese just because it's easier, but making fun of people who are overweight does not actually help them either. I don't really have a solution for this. I personally try to stay "body neutral" in a way, I try to avoid putting a moral value on unhealthy weight, and I try to view it as any other health issue. But as a society, I think it makes more sense to avoid bullying fat people in the hopes that they take the bullying and turn it into nice and productive improvement, and just make being a healthy weight easier, make healthy food the easiest food to access, put value in sports and walking, and just make it easier to live a healthy life by default.

Sorry if this response kind of turned into a sob story, I thought it was important to try to offer what my own experience was like when I was experiencing the pressure to lose weight, as I know a few people who were or still are overweight who felt similarly, even if it's not universal! :)

pixelatedindex3• 4 months ago

I feel horrible about "body positivity" - making you feel good about an objective problem that's incapacitating and killing you is a huge problem.

It’s also a huge problem when people shame you for being fat. Some of it might be their fault but some of it not. Either way, I think it’s better to accept the body for what it is and work towards improving it and that’s what the “positivity” is. Shaming or judging someone is not a solution, it makes things worse. Yeah it can fuel motivation for some, and be quite detrimental to others - either way it’s nobody else’s business.

PurpleRamen2• 4 months ago

Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

All the slim ghosts might think different here.

_wrhf• 4 months ago

Having been overweight my entire life until recently, this is accurate. The "it's just your newfound confidence" argument misses the mark completely.

The baseline level of basic respect you receive from strangers such as simply making eye contact, holding doors, or initiating small talk changes almost overnight. It is a very bitter reality to wake up to when you realize you were basically invisible before.

anal_reactor5• 4 months ago

I dress like a hobo so that everyone fucks off and nobody wants anything from me. Sometimes I go somewhere and people walk away, giving me personal space. It's amazing.

datsci_est_2015• 4 months ago

Height as a man is also a huge bonus, at least in the cultures to which I’ve been exposed. There are examples I can think of men not being conventionally attractive, but just in the top quintile of height, and receiving special attention in dating and leadership opportunities.

MyHonestOpinon• 4 months ago

I remember reading some study that (in men) height compared to your peers at 16-19 highly correlates with confidence.

nsxwolf• 4 months ago

Women maybe? I have lost weight and remained completely invisible to the world.

4gotunameagain• 4 months ago

It is the same with being accompanied by a very beautiful woman.

Without changing at all, the difference of how people treat you when you are accompanied by a very beautiful woman is staggering. People are more nice and polite even dare I say subservient. People low key treat you like you are some sort of important person.

Beauty, and proximity to it, was is and will be a social status symbol.

My pet theory is that it is a term in the objective function to limit the mutation rate; hence the theories that claim that beautiful faces are the "averaged" faces of a race/ethnic group

SV_BubbleTime2• 4 months ago

Among all the other reasons that people have explained that this isn’t exactly correct a probably isn’t entirely attributed to just weight… I’ll make an opposite proposition.

Perhaps we are evolutionarily programmed to avoid people with impulse control issues?

untrust• 4 months ago

I think there might be something here. I believe people flock to bigger, stronger and healthier people as some sort of evolutionary strategy for survival. If we were in a crisis and had to revert to tribes requiring everyone to pitch in to save humanity would you rather have the person who can resist impulses and keep a strict schedule (fit/healthy) or the person who looks like they lay around eating everything in sight. Using looks alone someone may assume the more healthy and fit person would be better to keep in their circle and thus prioritize being in their good graces.

I understand that it's not that simple, and someone's physical ability has nothing to do with intelligence in the real world. Unfortunately we're all subject to making split second judgements when interacting with strangers and as a result people don't think deeply about how that impacts those they deal with (or don't care).

fwip3• 4 months ago

Nope, it's cultural. If you look at cultures outside of your narrow window (in both time and space), you'll find that the perception of fatness has varied wildly over the millenia.

jimbokun37• 4 months ago

We are evolutionarily programmed to like attractive people, which excludes most visibly overweight people.

dominotw2• 4 months ago

random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

i am not fat, infact very fit, athlectic and in shape. This never happens to me. maybe if you are a woman, this happens.

yieldcrv3• 4 months ago

Alot of discussions from trans people have been very validating of gendered experiences as they get to objectively experience both and see the difference

willy_k2• 4 months ago

Do you believe that they get an unadulterated perspective of both experiences? That they would be getting the experience of a woman rather than that of a trans woman?

LightBug1• 4 months ago

On the flip side, there's nothing more valuable than being able to walk around as a "fat" and/or "unattractive" person to really hone your filter ...

Once things have "improved", the filter remains and I'd argue those solid friends/colleagues/etc are proven gold.

In my books, there's nothing worse than being rich, beautiful, attractive off the bat as you might never know if those close to you are hangers on or the real deal.

Lots of ""'s here to be respectful that my opinions on the matter may differ from others.

maxglute3• 4 months ago

step 1 be attractive

step 2 don't be unattractive

SilverElfin• 4 months ago

Race and gender also make a difference. People don’t want to say it. But back when dating apps put out more stats I remember this was well known.

etempleton• 4 months ago

When I was on antidepressants I noticed people were much more likely to approach me and start up a conversation. I think so might have been more at ease a confident an also more likely to smile and make eye contact with strangers myself. So I think self confidence and general openness play a big part too.

BurningFrog3• 4 months ago

This is a basic fact of "the human condition" that everyone needs to understand, and accept.

Evolution made us this way for survival reasons, and it's mostly pushing us towards being healthy. And whatever your opinion, it will not change.

libraryatnight• 4 months ago

I've experienced this personally while losing weight. Some people will argue for the confidence thing, and it's a factor I'm sure, but there's a palpable difference in treatment. Also the trauma/trust issues that come from being seen as 'less than' don't resolve over night, and it takes some time of that palpable change to help build the confidence.

kgwxd• 4 months ago

Interacting with anyone is a risk. They might take any form of attention to a level that forces you to set a boundary, or uncomfortably accepting the boundary already being crossed, turning a positive intent into a a net-negative interaction. If you're attracted to someone, there are a lot less boundaries. If you find someone unattractive, a lot of other people probably do to, increasing the risk they're attention starved, and more likely to make it awkward. Most people feel that risk, regardless of their own attractiveness. "Confidence" can help signal they're less likely to make it weird, but it's certainly no guarantee.

okr• 4 months ago

Or women vs. men, same.

hristov• 4 months ago

That is probably true. I remember I felt really bad when my high school teachers were openly flirting with students during class.

But there is another side to the coin. If you are attractive, a lot of the nastier people out there will try to manipulate you and gaslight you just to be closer to you all the time. Some people will be cruel and nasty to you just because they know you will sexually reject them. Some teachers will be mean or passive aggressive towards you because they are attracted to you and they know they can never be with you.

It is actually very dangerous to be attractive but not to have the social skills to handle the way people react to it. Many attractive people grow up with these social skills because they grown up as attractive children and they get used to it, but for some people that suddenly become attractive because they lose weight or another reason it can be very challenging. Similarly for people that are just born introverts and don't have the social skills.

lynx97• 4 months ago

You obviously have never had to deal with a disability. I would swap with a fat person every day. Reading your "complaint" makes me seriously sad, because what you perceive as a problem is just the tip of the iceberg. Its like someone complaining about the lack of icecream while others are being beaten up in brought daylight.

fwip3• 4 months ago

There's always somebody who has it worse. That doesn't mean their troubles don't matter.

kjkjadksj3• 4 months ago

I wonder how often it is unintentional or somewhat polite. As a kid I got into this habit of not really looking at obese or disabled people because I didn’t want to seem like I was staring at them like some of my slackjawed peers might. I think to an extent this bleeds over into adult life. Obese or disabled people might think it is malicious but the behavior might really come from good intentions at least to some degree. A boring dystopia sort of situation IMO.

jibal• 4 months ago

Also true of people who used to be young and then became old. And trans people also have a lot to say about this.

someguynamedq2• 4 months ago

The thing that interests me is how eager people are to find rationalizations explaining how this effect doesn't exist

arw0n• 4 months ago

People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.

This was my first thought about why the move to online works for men but not women. When I was attractive, people intuitively thought I was competent as well. I could speak with authority on topics not knowing more than the average and people would believe me.

Fo women this might sometimes even be the other way around - more beauty is associated with less intelligence.

pojzon• 4 months ago

Based on how we evolved attractiveness is still one of if not the most important traits you can have in life.

Its sad, but it is what it is. And why its sad? Because this uneven treatment is sometimes cause of big evil in the world.

rhubarbtree• 4 months ago

I don’t know how widely this observation has been made, but relatedly it is very hard to be a very attractive person. I’m very much glad to be average.

I’ve known a few very attractive people close up, and their lives are difficult. One example: you are presented with so many partners it can be very difficult to choose, and hard to discern who actually likes you as a person vs is just attracted to you. How can you pick a partner who is going to be a good match and faithful? And when you’re in a relationship, it’s harder to stay faithful when other people are throwing themselves at you and you suffer FOMO.

I could go on, but you get my point.

bjourne• 4 months ago

I remember this study! It caused huge controversy in Sweden.

The phd student who conducted it trawled through students' Facebook pages and took their profile photos (without consent). Then he had a jury of 74 teenagers rate the photos on a scale from 1 to 10. Then he tried to correlate beauty with grades for distance or in-class education. De-anonymizing the data was trivial so everyone could pretty much see how the jury had rated each profile photo. And research data is public.

It was a seriously weak study with questionable methodology and a too low effect-size to draw any conclusions anyway. So no reason to get alarmed if you are ugly. :)

bombcar15• 4 months ago

Wow - this is about the level of a grade-school science project.

creantum• 4 months ago

Once it’s all AI learning we’ll be set.

olalonde5• 4 months ago

I remember in college there were always small groups of students chatting with professors after class or going to office hours. Many profs would drop pretty big hints about upcoming exams. I guess it was a mix of enjoying the attention, pitying weaker students, and wanting to reward "participation". Always felt a bit unfair to me.

butILoveLife3• 4 months ago

While engineering school was hard, I did think quite a bit of it was pure participation testing.

I used to think this was wrong, until I got into engineering.. Sure there is the rare math problem, but most of the difficult part was: "Are you willing to fly to mexico and be awake at 3am when the parts are made?"

I might be downplaying though... I did calc 1 at a job.

kevinsync• 4 months ago

It's always said that a lot of success and opportunities are attributed to being in the right place at the right time (aka "luck"), but in a lot of cases, those folks had the tenacity to be in the right place ALL the time; when opportunities arise, they typically go to whoever's present and available.

Chatting with professors after class or attending office hours might be a grift, but it's not necessarily unfair. Specific circumstances aside, anybody can do it to get some leverage.

bombcar15• 4 months ago

What's the old saying? So much of success is up to luck, but you can make your own luck?

debatem1• 4 months ago

What's unfair about office hours? At least at my school they were posted in advance and available to any student at no charge.

olalonde5• 4 months ago

It's not the office hours themselves that felt unfair, but the way some students got privileged hints about upcoming exams.

buildbot5• 4 months ago

Every professor has their own style, most of the ones I had were very open that office hours were a pretty great way to get help/more targeted hints on what to study. This isn’t in my opinion, a problem. Their goal is to educate you as best as possible in theory, via classes, homework, and office hours. Students who take the time and effort to attend office hours clearly want to at least pretend to be putting in extra effort, so why wouldn’t they out more effort into helping them learn? I doubt that they are directly giving away test answers.

IncreasePosts3• 4 months ago

In an astrophysics class I had in college , the professor called on a student to solve a problem, he got it wrong, and the professor said "if you would come to my office hours you would know how to solve this" - the students response was something along the lines of "sorry, my parents are crackheads so I need to work two jobs to pay for school"

olalonde5• 4 months ago

The problem with targeted exam hints on what to study is that it can create situations where a student who understood the material better overall and put in more effort studying all the material equally, scores lower than someone who simply happened to get hints from the professor. If your actual goal is to educate, you shouldn't give exam hints, and especially not one-on-one.

zelphirkalt• 4 months ago

For many profs the goal is to spend as little as possible time with students, so that they can spend more time with their research career, than lectures for students or hours after the lectures. For that they employ students, who have passed the exams. Teaching is merely a necessary annoyance to them.

forgotaccount3• 4 months ago

I guess it was a mix of enjoying the attention, pitying weaker students, and wanting to reward "participation".

It probably wasn't intentional, just 'I have x minutes a day with the students to teach them the day's lesson. I have more than x minutes worth of content to convey. If you willingly spend more time with me, you may get information that was lower in importance and was missed during the day's classes.'

olalonde5• 4 months ago

I don't see a problem with that and is not what I had in mind with "pretty big hints". See my other reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47493450

johnbarron• 4 months ago

When you complain about having to interact with AI when applying for a job, remember that AI could be the most fair and unbiased recruiter...as long as companies want to...

simonask10• 4 months ago

AI has exactly the biases of its training data.

alpha_squared• 4 months ago

A couple things here:

1. This should have a 2022 tag

2. This is ripe "red pill" fodder and many of the comments here are "red pill" coded.

nemomarx3• 4 months ago

I was wondering about the year. Are schools still doing online course work and exams now? I would think ai concerns would drive even more in person oral test / notebook testing stuff?

Insanity2• 4 months ago

Only recently learned about the 'red pill' thing by watching the 'manosphere' documentary by Louis Theroux. For others unaware how it relates to the above comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manosphere.

The documentary was an interesting if somewhat unsettling thing to watch.

JollySharp04• 4 months ago

You gotta be careful about Louis Theroux. I watched one of his old documentaries (late 90s IIRC) about South Africa with a guy who is a Afrikaner that I speak to semi-regularly on the internet. He said that while the people that Louis presented did exist, they were considered loons by the rest of the community.

Most of the documentarians from the BBC even some of the better ones like Adam Curtis, tend to distort things.

The "Red Pill" thing was stolen by these guys back in ~2018 from smaller political communities online that used it to just mean "I've been sold on an idea" usually people who were agorists / libertarians / ancaps.

harperlee• 4 months ago

For the uninitiated like me:

The manosphere has its own distinct jargon.[31] A central tenet of the manosphere is the concept of the red pill, a metaphor borrowed from the film The Matrix. It concerns awakening men to the supposed reality that men are the oppressed gender in a society dominated by feminism

( From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manosphere#Jargon, I landed there from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_(disambiguation) )

JollySharp04• 4 months ago

They stole it from other groups online that simply used it to mean "I can see through the bullshit now". It got nothing particularly to do with the manosphere and the grifters in it.

azan_3• 4 months ago

2. This is ripe "red pill" fodder

So what? We should act like attractiveness is not a huge privilege because of that? As with other privileges, I think it's important that we are aware of that.

JollySharp04• 4 months ago

Almost all of the people in the Manosphere are grifters (moreoever almost any influencer online). If there was a study that said the complete opposite of what the study found, they would twist it to suit their agenda also.

Outside of social media these people effectively have very little if any influence and aren't worth worrying about.

randusername2• 4 months ago

I guess it all depends on your perspective, I found the findings to be anti-red pill. Women with attractive faces lost their grade advantage in remote learning and men with attractive faces did not.

It suggests to me that good-looking men are socially valued for several reasons that are robust to distance education, but good-looking women are socially valued for their bodies if they are in proximity, the same way we value objects. Very limiting and frustrating.

If anyone in the red pill camp is looking to reexamine their perspectives in good-faith, "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation" (Tannen) is a good start.

readthemanual• 4 months ago

Hi, sorry, what's a 'red pill'? Don't really keep up with the slang, sorry..

Izkata• 4 months ago

Its use here is a decade or more old. Originally referring to a movie over two decades old. The short version, seeing the world as it is instead of how it's fed to you.

pm90• 4 months ago

Our society has a lot of pretty privilege (and tall privilege for male identifying humans). Taking steps to address this is welcome.

busterarm4• 4 months ago

Why though?

Maybe the advantages are natural and our species is selecting for it.

simonask10• 4 months ago

Because we know better.

bell-cot2• 4 months ago

"Advantages" are often to the individual's benefit, but the species' detriment.

jimbokun37• 4 months ago

Maybe we’ll be happier overall if we select for other things.

vunderba• 4 months ago

I'm rather surprised not to see a single mention of the Halo effect in the article or ensuing comments. This is a relatively well-known phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

analog8374• 4 months ago

I was attractive and had a horrible personality (college sperg). Long flowing hair, rakish funk, striking. Like bees to honey.

cladopa• 4 months ago

As an attractive person myself that studied engineering in several countries of Europe and some years in the US I don't believe there are many opportunities for you to take advantage of your attractiveness. Most examinations were in written form.

I have huge doubts about the study. In cinema, theatre, sure, you need physical presence, but engineering... I don't believe Von Newman would have needed presence to impress other people.

Another very important thing is that there are very important differences between sexes. The most physically attractive man in the world without the proper attitude and without leadership and success is nobody.

I am what is called a sigma male. I was never interested in power, dominating others, being the boss. Women prefer ugly and short people if they are leaders to tall and beautiful man that are not social.

In fact, if you get uglier as you age but get more successful, you will receive way more attention. If you command a group of people, run a company or are a big boss, women will get in love.

Also, if you are tall and beautiful, men will get envious of you.

the_real_cher• 4 months ago

Billy Bob Thornton dating Angelina Jolie is the quintessential example of this. He had presence and charisma but was very average lookswise. Claviculars head would explode if he saw a picture of them together.

inaros• 4 months ago

Dont...Always stay below the Hot/Crazy line...

https://youtu.be/pInk1rV2VEg

littlecranky67• 4 months ago

I'm not sure what or why you use AI for this text (translation?) but even in foreign language universities, it is "von Neumann" - wouldn't be translated as your AI did.

IncreasePosts3• 4 months ago

The most physically attractive man in the world without the proper attitude and without leadership and success is nobody.

Tell that to the "hot felon". Because of his mug shot from stealing cars got a modeling deal and married a billionaire heiress

azan_3• 4 months ago

The most interesting results is that the title is true only for females - for males the beauty premium persisted!

bombcar15• 4 months ago

Male beauty is so powerful it can be transmitted over TCP/IP?

jimbokun37• 4 months ago

This feels like a Zoolander quote.

Jensson9• 4 months ago

Male beauty is mostly being fit, and being fit leads to better outcomes even without biased teachers. Female beauty doesn't correlate to real world performance in the same way, as women that are a bit thinner than optimal health gets rated as the most beautiful.

ozgrakkurt• 4 months ago

It is hard to believe research like this means anything while research in real science fields tends to be so nuanced and hard to make conclusions about.

This only serves as a tool for people who are trying to find a basis for their beliefs.

Aurornis6• 4 months ago

The HN submission title (EDIT: The title is “ Attractive students no longer receive better results as classes moved online ” as I write this, in case it gets updated) isn’t from the paper and isn’t entirely accurate. The paper actually found that male students who scored higher in the beauty ratings continued to get higher grades as well:

On the contrary, for male students, there was still a significant beauty premium even after the introduction of online teaching.

So the submission title’s claim that attractive students no longer receive better results when teachers can see their face isn’t true. The result was only detected for female students.

The fact that there is a discrepancy doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in the results. When you can only find a significant change after you start subdividing the group into different sub-groups it’s getting a little too close to p-hacking for my comfort. That’s not to say there isn’t a gender effect here, but the fact that males rating high on the beauty scores also got higher grades should suggest that this isn’t as simple as teachers biasing their grades based on what the students looked like.

mjh2539• 4 months ago

Perhaps there is a stronger causal relationship between attractiveness in males and intelligence/academic performance than in women.

jamilton2• 4 months ago

That seems like a pretty reasonable subdivision to me. Culturally there are differences in what it means to be attractive as a male or female, so it follows that the effects could be different.

jdthedisciple4• 4 months ago

Culturally

Surely you mean biologically

exoji2e• 4 months ago

This got a lot of headlines in local press when it was released (2022). The author was a PhD student, but also at the time teaching one of the 6 classes included in the study. https://www.sydsvenskan.se/lund/studenter-hojer-rosten-mot-s...

randusername2• 4 months ago

Science headlines are awful, but why must we suffer such vague abstracts. How about:

"We rated 307 Swedish industrial design students by facial attractiveness and after controlling for socieconomic factors found that males with attractive faces retained a statistically significant grade advantage before and during COVID remote learning whereas females with attractive faces lost their pre-pandemic grade advantage. The beauty premium is only visible in qualitative subjects, not quantitative ones. We don't quantify the extent of the beauty premium in this report."

HPsquared3• 4 months ago

A "good voice" could become more important. I could see people doing speech and voice training. Also things like lighting, mic and camera setup, and background. Everyone is a streamer now.

Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

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