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Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

61–70 of 143 posts

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#61

My intuition is that reserve causality is playing a huge role in these numbers which is acknowledged by the authors: "Why physical attractiveness should matter for intergenerational social mobility is an underexplored research question. Theoretical links between the two are complex, and the possibility of reverse causation cannot be ruled out. Prosperous economic conditions likely allow individuals to improve and mai…

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Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#62

Being someone who was both conventionally unattractive and conventionally attractive (I had a digestive disorder for years that made me terrifyingly skinny and sickly looking), I can say that the difference is astronomical. Once I figured out what was wrong with me, fixed my diet and got in shape, the way people treated me in general shifted dramatically towards positive. Rather than starting from a unreceptive low w…

> It's mind blowing to me how there is so much focus on whatever -ism, but no one talks about "looksism". Regardless of your gender or race, if you look good, people will default treat you well. If you look bad, every encounter is an uphill battle.

This is the equivalent of the universal standard in xkcd¹. Situation: We have 13 -isms, but nobody talks about the real ism, so we need to promote it. Situation: We have 14 -isms.

All these isms were reduced to buzzwords and have no meaning anymore.

¹: https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#63
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're engaging in a bit of humor, here, but Trump was born at the top of the socioeconomic ladder. There's nowhere for him to go but down . I don't think this study applies to people like him.

Was he actually ever considered attractive when he got "on the scene", so to speak?

If you ever found his daughter Ivana attractive well then she came from ...

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#64
post #51

There's a saying (which could be specific to my country) about men approaching women. If you're handsome it's called flirting, if you're ugly it's sexual harassment. Joking aside, I do notice that successful men (again, maybe specific to my country) tend to be attractive and they usually have an attractive and smart partner. Successful but not attractive men can still have either attractive or smart partner (or both,…

This has gotta be one of my favorite parts of HN, it's an odd glimpse into how men view the world. You've got it backwards. In both cases what makes it harassment is continuing to push when it's unwanted. Why you seem to see a difference in results based on attractiveness is because your average guy can't take a hint no matter how attractive they are. So "success" becomes literally stochastic because guys never back…

What you said there is exactly what they mean though. Hot guys acting like assholes and not asking typically doesn't get issues due to the effects you talked about.

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#65

There's a saying (which could be specific to my country) about men approaching women. If you're handsome it's called flirting, if you're ugly it's sexual harassment. Joking aside, I do notice that successful men (again, maybe specific to my country) tend to be attractive and they usually have an attractive and smart partner. Successful but not attractive men can still have either attractive or smart partner (or both,…

This notion (step 1: be attractive, step 2: don't be unattractive) comes up a lot in male-dominated online spaces.

It's a fallacy, and actually a self defeating one since it causes guys to ascribe their failures to something out of their control (looks) instead of what is actually in their control (behavior.)

Here's a pretty good deconstruction of the concept IMO: https://www.doctornerdlove.com/understanding-the-hot-creepy-...

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#66

Interesting that the effect was stronger in males. It looks like the outcomes tracked were education, income, and occupation. I wonder if this is tracking the wrong things; e.g. women can marry into a higher wealth+prestige class without themselves needing to attain education, income, or a job.

Could be evidence of matriarchy. If women outnumber men in HR departments and at school, being pleasing to a woman's eye would be helpful in advancing through life more so than being pleasing to men.

Structural sexism

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#67

This relates to a criticism I have for woke and SJW people: Do they follow the same tendency? Most SJW people I know tend to be critical of the idea of a beauty standard at all, which is an interesting initiative if they can actually pull it off. And I do agree that it would be nice to stop being biased towards conventionally attractive people. Then, with that logic, we should be seeing "woke couples" who don't follo…

There is an absurd tendency to deny and reject the presence of certain traits and behaviors that are common to animals and humans. The fact that we are aware of certain tendencies doesn't make us free from them. There is a clash between how we would like the world to look like and how it is. In the real world, women in general are physically weaker than men, most of them menstruate and so on. We can consider these things unfair but we can't change it, just like we can't change the fact that we feel physically attracted to attractive people, even though in some cases we might find them mentally/morally etc. repulsive. This constant denial is creating only problems for everyone, not just the people that have these beliefs.

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got SO many downvotes on Reddit for suggesting that.

Are there real people on Reddit on anymore? I’m not sure how the hell they’re going to IPO. The app is horrible and the users are too.

They are going to IPO cause capital has no other ideas about where to put their money and they will show a line going up and to the right in terms of user base.

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#69

Being someone who was both conventionally unattractive and conventionally attractive (I had a digestive disorder for years that made me terrifyingly skinny and sickly looking), I can say that the difference is astronomical. Once I figured out what was wrong with me, fixed my diet and got in shape, the way people treated me in general shifted dramatically towards positive. Rather than starting from a unreceptive low w…

Can second this. Over the last few years I fixed some hormonal, dietary, and stress issues which resulted in much clearer skin, better hair, and more toned/muscular body; taking me from average to conventionally attractive based on commentary from friends/family.

There is a clear boost in first impressions generally being much more positive, my ideas being regarded more highly, and coworkers/leaders wanting to promote me. I don't think my intellect has changed much over that time.

I will say looking good also has a clear boost on self esteem and boldness which I'm sure at least partially contributes to the social changes.

Re: Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility

#70

Being someone who was both conventionally unattractive and conventionally attractive (I had a digestive disorder for years that made me terrifyingly skinny and sickly looking), I can say that the difference is astronomical. Once I figured out what was wrong with me, fixed my diet and got in shape, the way people treated me in general shifted dramatically towards positive. Rather than starting from a unreceptive low w…

And it can compound sort of. If everyone tends to be nice to you, you go into situations expecting to become friends, which produces a good attitude that people respond to positively. (It can also lead to blind spots of course, but overall I’ll take it).
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