Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.
Look, those of us with Clooney-esque features always have suspected we've paid a price for our rugged good looks, smoldering eyes, inviting smile and other physical attributes.
Now we have research that bears out the ugly truth.
Turns out there is a bias against hiring and promoting handsome men for positions within competitive workplaces, such as sales departments, according to a study co-authored by Sun Young Lee of University College London's School of Management.
The reason runs counter to actor Rob Lowe's complaint last year in The New York Times about "this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people" in which he noted he "was so goddamn pretty" as a teen idol, "I wouldn't have taken myself seriously."
Rather, Lee and colleagues from the University of Maryland, London Business School and the multinational business school INSEAD found attractiveness in men is read as competence.
And apparently competence can be seen as a problem.
Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal asks you not hold his good looks against him.
(Bill Hogan)
Seems the Goslings and Bardems of the world are perceived as a threat by would-be managers whose skin-deep rationale is that they're reluctant to bring in someone who could threaten them.
In more collaborative workplaces that reward team performance, this Beefcake Bias swings the other way, and fellows who look like Idris Elba or Matthew McConaughey do enjoy an edge over those equally qualified but less conventionally handsome.
You know, like the late Ernest Borgnine. A fine actor. Not exactly pinup material. And I know about these things from that time I strutted around in swim trunks for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit cover model Vendela Kirsebom, but we'll revisit that another day.
The silver lining for gorgeous men like myself, besides all the other benefits that accrue from being so devastating to gaze upon, is that whole perception of competence thing.
Attractive women apparently get no such boost, and the lack of similar association across gender lines — even if it too would be superficial and misguided — is troubling.
Investors were found to be more likely to get behind ventures pitched by men than women in findings published last year by researchers from Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Good-looking men were particularly effective, the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found, while the relative attractiveness of the women made no difference in how their presentations went over.
One might hope people would be past this by now. But this "profound and consistent gender gap in entrepreneurship, a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity," as the abstract put it, casts everyone in an unflattering light.
It's particularly worrisome when coupled with the newer study in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, which found how biases regarding superficial qualities shape decisions in potentially counterproductive ways.
"Managers are affected by stereotypes and make hiring decisions to serve their own self-interests so organizations may not get the most competent candidates," Lee, the head researcher, said through her school.
"Awareness that hiring is affected by potential work relationships and stereotyping tendencies can help organizations improve their selection processes," she said, urging that managers be made more accountable so "they'll be less motivated to pursue self-interests at the expense of the company."
Because charm is deceptive and looks fade in time, but bad hires seem to stick around forever.
So don't hate me and Lowe because we're beautiful. There are surely many more valid criteria by which to judge us. The superficial ones ultimately make you look bad, not us.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...hal-im-too-sexy-1215-biz-20151214-column.html
Look, those of us with Clooney-esque features always have suspected we've paid a price for our rugged good looks, smoldering eyes, inviting smile and other physical attributes.
Now we have research that bears out the ugly truth.
Turns out there is a bias against hiring and promoting handsome men for positions within competitive workplaces, such as sales departments, according to a study co-authored by Sun Young Lee of University College London's School of Management.
The reason runs counter to actor Rob Lowe's complaint last year in The New York Times about "this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people" in which he noted he "was so goddamn pretty" as a teen idol, "I wouldn't have taken myself seriously."
Rather, Lee and colleagues from the University of Maryland, London Business School and the multinational business school INSEAD found attractiveness in men is read as competence.
And apparently competence can be seen as a problem.
Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal asks you not hold his good looks against him.
(Bill Hogan)
Seems the Goslings and Bardems of the world are perceived as a threat by would-be managers whose skin-deep rationale is that they're reluctant to bring in someone who could threaten them.
In more collaborative workplaces that reward team performance, this Beefcake Bias swings the other way, and fellows who look like Idris Elba or Matthew McConaughey do enjoy an edge over those equally qualified but less conventionally handsome.
You know, like the late Ernest Borgnine. A fine actor. Not exactly pinup material. And I know about these things from that time I strutted around in swim trunks for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit cover model Vendela Kirsebom, but we'll revisit that another day.
The silver lining for gorgeous men like myself, besides all the other benefits that accrue from being so devastating to gaze upon, is that whole perception of competence thing.
Attractive women apparently get no such boost, and the lack of similar association across gender lines — even if it too would be superficial and misguided — is troubling.
Investors were found to be more likely to get behind ventures pitched by men than women in findings published last year by researchers from Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Good-looking men were particularly effective, the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found, while the relative attractiveness of the women made no difference in how their presentations went over.
One might hope people would be past this by now. But this "profound and consistent gender gap in entrepreneurship, a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity," as the abstract put it, casts everyone in an unflattering light.
It's particularly worrisome when coupled with the newer study in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, which found how biases regarding superficial qualities shape decisions in potentially counterproductive ways.
"Managers are affected by stereotypes and make hiring decisions to serve their own self-interests so organizations may not get the most competent candidates," Lee, the head researcher, said through her school.
"Awareness that hiring is affected by potential work relationships and stereotyping tendencies can help organizations improve their selection processes," she said, urging that managers be made more accountable so "they'll be less motivated to pursue self-interests at the expense of the company."
Because charm is deceptive and looks fade in time, but bad hires seem to stick around forever.
So don't hate me and Lowe because we're beautiful. There are surely many more valid criteria by which to judge us. The superficial ones ultimately make you look bad, not us.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...hal-im-too-sexy-1215-biz-20151214-column.html
