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Why Are Smart People Usually Ugly?
An answer to the Explainer's 2011 Question of the Year.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Socrates were known for their
brains and not their looks—at least not the good kind.
Illlustration by
Charlie Powell.
It's been a few
weeks since we posted the questions that the Explainer was either unwilling
or unable to answer in 2011. Among this year's batch of imponderables were
inquiries like, Are the blind sleepy all the time? and Does anyone ever get a
sex change back? We asked our readers to pick the question that most deserved
an answer in the Explainer column. Some 10,000 of you were able to register a
vote, and the winning question is presented below. But first, the runners-up:
In third place,
with 6.6 percent of the total votes, a bit of speculative evolutionary
biology: Let's say that a meteor never hits the earth, and dinosaurs continue
evolving over all the years human beings have grown into what we are today.
What would they be like?
In second place,
with 7.5 percent, an inquiry into pharmacokinetics: Why does it take 45
minutes for the pharmacy to get your prescription ready—even when no one else
is waiting?
And in first
place, with the support of 9.4 percent of our readers, the winner by a
landslide and Explainer Question of the Year for 2011:
Why are smart
people usually ugly? I get this isn't always the case, but there does seem to
be a correlation. Attractiveness doesn't predict intelligence (not all ugly
people are smart), but it seems like intelligence can be a good predictor for
attractiveness (smart people are usually on the ugly side). Keep in mind, I
have nothing against people who are really brilliant, I've just always wondered.
The answer:
They’re not.
Oh, how the
Explainer loves a false premise. When it comes time to assemble the year-end
list, he'll always give extra credit to questions that are predicated on
blatant untruths. In 2010, for example, someone wanted to know why athletes
never sneeze. In 2009, a reader asked, Why is it always funny to put
something on your head as a pretend hat? But this year's winning question
isn't merely ill-posed; it gets the truth exactly backward.
The idea that an
ugly face might hide a subtle mind has attracted scientific inquiries for
many years. At first, scientists wanted to know whether it was possible to
read someone's intelligence from the shape of his face. In 1918, a researcher
in Ohio showed a dozen photographic portraits of well-dressed children to a
group of physicians and teachers, and asked the adults to rank the kids from
smartest to dumbest. A couple of years later, a Pittsburgh psychologist ran a
similar experiment using headshots of 69 employees from a department store. In
both studies, seemingly naive guesses were compared to actual test scores to
see if they were ever accurate.*
Many such
studies followed, and with consistent results: You can learn something about
how smart someone is just by looking at a picture. But scientists couldn't
figure out where that information might have been hiding in the photographs.
The Ohio researcher said that some of his subjects were "greatly
influenced by the pleasant appearance or smile, but for some the smile
denotes intelligence and for others it denotes feeble-mindedness." The
author of the follow-up in Pittsburgh wondered if the secret of intelligence
might not be lurking in "the lustre of the eye."
While some
researchers pondered this question, a Columbia University psychologist named
Edward Thorndike made another, related discovery. In 1920, Thorndike
published his theory of the "halo effect," according to which
subjects, when asked to describe someone's various qualities, tend to
"[suffuse] ratings of special features with a halo belonging to the
individual as a whole." If they were describing the person's physique,
for example, along with his bearing, intelligence, and tact, they would
assign high or low ratings across the board. Later studies confirmed that the
halo effect could arise from a simple photograph: If someone looks handsome,
people tend to assume that he's smarter, more sociable, and better-adjusted,
too.
Now there were
two findings: First, scientists knew that it was possible to gauge someone's
intelligence just by sizing him up; second, they knew that people tend to
assume that beauty and brains go together. So they asked the next question:
Could it be that good-looking people really are more intelligent?
Here the data
were less clear, but several reviews of the literature have concluded that
there is indeed a small, positive relationship between beauty and brains.
Most recently, the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa pulled huge
datasets from two sources—the National Child Development Study in the United
Kingdom (including 17,000 people born in 1958), and the National Longitudinal
Study of Adolescent Health in the United States (including 21,000 people born
around 1980)—both of which included ratings of physical attractiveness and
scores on standard intelligence tests. When Kanazawa analyzed the numbers, he
found the two were related: In the U.K., for example, attractive children
have an additional 12.4 points of IQ, on average. The relationship held even
when he controlled for family background, race, and body size.
From this,
Kanazawa concluded that the famous halo effect is not a cognitive illusion,
as so many academics had assumed, but rather an accurate reading of the
world: We assume that beautiful people are smart, he argues, because they
are.
The story does
have some caveats and complications. First, a few other studies have come up
with different results. A recent look at yearbook photos from a Wisconsin
high school in 1957 found no link between IQ and attractiveness among the
boys, but a positive correlation for the girls. Another researcher, Leslie
Zebrowitz of Brandeis University, noticed that the looks-smarts relationship
applies only to the ugly side of the spectrum. It's not that beautiful people
are especially smart, she says, so much as that ugly people are especially
dumb. Then there's the fact of Kanazawa's having gotten into trouble last
spring for asserting—using the same dataset and similar methods to those
described above—that African-American women are objectively "far less
attractive" than whites, Asians, or Native Americans. (He later
acknowledged some flaws in his analysis.)
So, getting back
to the original question, the bulk of the evidence suggests that smart people
are not "usually ugly." In fact, the opposite seems to be true:
Either smart people are more beautiful than average, or dumb people are more
ugly (or both). And while no facial features within the normal range could
ever be that useful as a predictor of intelligence, people can perform better
than you’d expect from random chance using nothing more than a head shot.
All of which
leaves one great, unanswered question. If smart people tend to be
good-looking, that might explain the halo effect. But what led our questioner
to get things backward and assume that smart people were ugly? And why are
there so many like-minded others, asking the same question—or its
inverse—around the Internet? (Here's one, and one more.) Aren't we all
familiar with the archetypical nerd, who is both ugly and smart? At the
opposite end, what about all those beautiful, airheaded women and beefy,
brainless men we see on television? Could the person who wrote in with the
2011 Question of the Year be succumbing to a bias that hasn't yet been
documented in the lab—a sort of halo effect in reverse, a "horns effect,"
perhaps?
Ugly geniuses
aren't uncommon in history, of course, and while these anecdotes tell us
nothing about the population as a whole, the memory of people who were
famously hideous and brilliant might have an outsize influence on our
judgments. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, was short, bespectacled, and
wall-eyed. ("I cannot even decide whether [my face] is handsome or
ugly," says one of his characters in Nausea. "I think it is ugly because
I have been told so.") Ancient sources tell us that the great
philosopher Socrates had thinning hair, flared nostrils, widely-spaced eyes,
a thick neck, slobby shoulders, and a pot belly. Ludwig van Beethoven was
ugly and smelled bad; Abraham Lincoln's face struck the poet Walt Whitman as
being "so awful ugly it becomes beautiful."
In addition,
Kanazawa points out that a closer look at the data reveals an interesting
fact: The very ugliest people in his dataset are dumber on average, but they
also tend to be the most diverse when it comes to intelligence. That means
that if you're at the low end of the spectrum for looks, you're more likely
than anyone else to be at one extreme end for IQ (either very dumb or very
smart). If that's the case, then it might provide another reason why Sartre
and Socrates types stick out in our minds. We know (consciously or not) that
ugly people tend to be a little dim; but at the same time, there are more
brilliant brutes running around than we might expect.
For his part,
Kanazawa rejects the notion of the horns effect—he doesn't believe the
smart-and-ugly stereotype exists at all. (Indeed, it has never been shown in
the lab.) Instead, he says, we may be assuming that smart people are nerdy,
and that nerdy people tend to lack social skills. Since people with social
skills are attractive, there could be an indirect link between at least one
kind of "attractiveness" and intelligence. But if you're looking at
pure "beauty," as measured by rating photographs or measured facial
features, then intelligence and looks go hand-in-hand.
Bonus Explainer:
Why might intelligence and looks go hand-in-hand? There are a few different
theories. First, it might be that some common genetic factor produces both
smarts and beauty. Or maybe there's a combination of genes that make people
both dumb and ugly. Kanazawa thinks it's the former, arguing that intelligent
men have tended to rise to the top of the social hierarchy and select
beautiful women as their mates. Their offspring, contra George Bernard Shaw's
supposed quip, would have had both traits together.
Another theory
holds that certain environmental factors in the womb or just after birth can
produce both facial disfigurements and cognitive impairments on one side, or
facial symmetry and high intelligence on the other. A third suggests that
attractive children are treated better, and receive more attention from their
caretakers and teachers, which helps to nurture a sharper mind. It's also
possible that smart people are better able to take care of themselves and
their looks.
Explainer thanks
Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics, Joshua Knobe of Yale
University, Alina Simone, author of You Must Go and Win, and Leslie Zebrowitz
of Brandeis University.
* * *
Good news: After
years of hiding out in the Explainatorium like a banished superhero,
answering submitted questions from deep inside the fortress, the Explainer
has decided to soar out into the world, pen in hand, to spread peace and
understanding among the column's faithful.
And so we
present a new, occasional feature on Slate: the Explainer House Call. Do you
have a family disagreement over some fact or pseudo-fact? Are you stuck in an
endless argument with an annoying co-worker or a friend? Have your attempts
to Google your way out of it only pushed you both into the filter bubbles of
the Internet? Worry no more: The Explainer will be your arbiter and your
savior, an avenging angel of argument, slinging thunderbolts of pure reason
and drenching your squabbles in the heavy rain of explanation.
How does one
qualify for this personal Explainer service? To get a house call, and have
the Explainer resolve your special beef in Slate, you must first gain the
support of your peers. What factual matter has been driving you and your friend/spouse/coworker
bonkers in recent weeks? Post a short summary on or with the hashtag
#ExplainerHouseCall. Then we'll ask the members of Explainer Nation to vote
for the dispute that's most deserving of the Explainer's attention. (Winners: Please note that the
Explainer will not actually visit your house.)
Correction, Jan. 12, 2012: The original overstated the magnitude of the results of the Ohio and Pittsburgh studies. |
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Showing posts with label views. Show all posts
Showing posts with label views. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
Views: Why Are SMart People Usually Ugly?
Monday, October 3, 2011
News: Malaysia Tries to Rein in Private Education Institutions
Malaysia Tries to Rein In Private Education Institutions
By LIZ GOOCH
Having expanded rapidly in the last 15 years, the private sector is widely credited with increasing access to higher education in Malaysia, but education experts say standards vary greatly.
While some view the increasing number of fines issued to private providers as cause for concern, others say that they are an indication that regulators are doing a more effective job weeding out inferior companies. And some analysts say the government’s actions are an attempt to safeguard the reputation of the industry.
In a statement, the Ministry of Higher Education said that while it hoped that the private sector would continue to grow, ensuring that providers offered quality education was crucial.
“The challenges are in striking the right balance between promoting growth in higher education in Malaysia and providing quality education,” the ministry said. “This is important because Malaysia is progressing toward becoming a developed nation where knowledge workers are an important element in the agenda for growth and at the same time, Malaysia is also aspiring to become the hub of higher education in the region.”
The statement added that while the government hoped that the private sector would expand further, applications for new institutions would be determined based on whether the institution met the application criteria and whether its proposed programs were “aligned to the critical area needed by the country.”
The ministry issued fines to 47 private education institutions from January to March this year, following regular audits, inspections and complaints from the public. Last year, 48 institutions received fines throughout the year, compared to 9 in 2009. Institutions were fined for a range of infractions, from making false or misleading statements promoting their institutions to offering unaccredited courses and violating registration regulations such as operating on unregistered premises.
Malaysia’s private higher-education sector has expanded rapidly since the government introduced legislation in 1996 to allow the establishment of private universities. Prior to the sector’s liberalization, local private institutions offered programs in conjunction with overseas universities but were unable to award their own degrees.
Since 1996, the number of private universities and colleges that offer degree and nondegree courses has grown substantially, with Malaysia now home to 26 private universities, which offer degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate level.
An additional 23 private “university colleges” offer bachelor’s degrees only, 5 foreign universities from countries like Australia and Britain have established branch campuses and there are more than 400 private colleges that offer diploma and certificate courses.
Part of the aim of liberalizing the higher-education sector was to help increase access to postsecondary education and bolster Malaysia’s “human capital,” said Tham Siew Yean, a professor at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies at the National University of Malaysia. She said the postsecondary enrollment rate for Malaysians aged 18 to 23 rose to 44 percent in 2010 from 29 percent in 2003, or students enrolled in any type of higher education.
There are now more students studying in the private sector than in public institutions, with private institutions accounting for almost 54 percent.
Ms. Tham said that there was a “tremendous diversity” of programs and that the provision of government loans for private courses had helped increase the number of students studying in the private sector.
Lee Hock Guan, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said: “For an average student, it’s not too difficult to get into higher education nowadays in Malaysia. There are so many places competing for them.”
Yet analysts say standards at some private institutions are insufficient while some accuse the government of playing catch-up in its attempt to weed out inferior providers.
“The Ministry of Education does have a problem of quality control,” Mr. Lee said, adding that standards varied greatly between private universities. “There are some that are decent but some that are pretty weak.”
Employers have long complained that graduates from Malaysian universities, public and private, lack vital talents like communication skills.
“We are getting more and more complaints from employers that they are getting students who are not up to the mark,” Mr. Lee said, adding that some institutions enroll students who may not be qualified. “For many of the private universities, they are quite lax because their main thing is they have to enroll as many students as possible in order to generate revenue.”
Mr. Lee contends that the government is monitoring the private sector more closely to ensure that Malaysia’s reputation does not suffer among prospective international students. Malaysia has set the goal of attracting 200,000 international students by 2020.
“Fearing that there will be a drop in foreign students, that has pressured the government to better regulate the private sector,” he said.
Others view the increasing number of fines as a sign that the regulators are doing their job more effectively.
“More fines means they are controlling people who are not doing the right thing,” said Molly Lee, a senior program specialist in higher education at Unesco Asia Pacific in Bangkok. “To me it’s a good sign from the regulatory perspective.”
Ms. Lee, who described Malaysia’s private higher-education sector as “dynamic, innovative and competitive,” said the country was well equipped to monitor private providers.
“I am sure the concern of quality of private institutions is always there,” she said. “I think over time the better ones are gaining a good reputation while the bad ones are being identified by the authorities.”
Ms. Tham, the professor, said that stringent regulations governed the private sector but that before the last two years, there had been little information available about private colleges being fined.
“I would say the ministry perhaps may have had problems being able to monitor the large number of providers,” she said. “I think that it’s good that they are acting on it, that they are able to be more effective in their monitoring.”
Hassan Said, vice chancellor and president of Taylor’s University, one of Malaysia’s oldest private higher-education institutions, which was not among the fined institutions, estimated that only 5 percent of private providers did not comply with government regulations.
“Although the number is small, its impact to the other private providers is pretty bad,” he said in an e-mail. “Hence the move by the ministry to impose stricter monitoring of the private sector is timely and should be supported.”
Taylor’s University, which has 11,700 students, began offering nondegree courses in 1969 and was upgraded to university status last year. The institution began offering degree programs in the 1990s via programs with other universities, before offering its own bachelor degrees in 2006, followed by master’s and doctorate programs last year.
Mr. Hassan said that while the lesser-quality providers could make it more difficult for reputable private institutions because “ the negative perception by stakeholders will be generalized to the whole industry,” students and parents were becoming better equipped to select the quality providers because information about the institutions was widely available.
Parmjit Singh, president of the Malaysian Association of Private Colleges and Universities, said he supported the government’s moves to be more vigilant.
“It will bring integrity to the industry,” he said. “Over the years, there have been colleges that have popped up. My view is some of them should not have been allowed to be registered.”
But Mr. Parmjit said some institutions had made “innocent mistakes” that could result in fines, like not listing the correct course approval code on a brochure.
“One could not generalize and say that all those who have been fined are bad players,” he said.
Mr. Parmjit said that the increase in fines was not indicative of any broader trend within the sector and that “market forces” would force poor-quality providers out of business.
“The bottom line is that market forces are in play,” he said. “If anyone does a poor job, their time will be limited.”
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