UGLY PEOPLES OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
DAVID
Why beautiful people are more intelligent
Satoshi Kanazawa, a, , and Jody L. Kovarb
a Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, London School of Economics
and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK
b Department of Sociology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA
Received 22 September 2003; Revised 20 March 2004; accepted 26 March
2004. Available online 1 June 2004.
Abstract
Empirical studies demonstrate that individuals perceive physically
attractive others to be more intelligent than physically unattractive
others. While most researchers dismiss this perception as a "bias"
or "stereotype," we contend that individuals have this perception
because beautiful people indeed are more intelligent. The conclusion
that beautiful people are more intelligent follows from four
assumptions. (1) Men who are more intelligent are more likely to attain
higher status than men who are less intelligent. (2) Higher-status men
are more likely to mate with more beautiful women than lower-status
men. (3) Intelligence is heritable. (4) Beauty is heritable. If all
four assumptions are empirically true, then the conclusion that
beautiful people are more intelligent is logically true, making it a
proven theorem. We present empirical evidence for each of the four
assumptions. While we concentrate on the relationship between beauty
and intelligence in this paper, our evolutionary psychological
explanation can account for a correlation between physical
attractiveness and any other heritable trait that helps men attain
higher status (such as aggression and social skills).
Author Keywords: Intelligence; Physical attractiveness; Stereotypes;
Correlation
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