Do attractive people really have higher IQs?

mauve

mauve

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http://kotaku.com/5735711/attractive-people-are-smarter-than-you-too

Above's the link.
My personal opinion? So many things wrong with the study eg. beauty is subjective and varies in different races and nationalities, do they take someone's natural beauty or loaded with tons of makeup so in this case anybody can be 'attractive'. Many more thoughts in the comments. I also have my doubts on the accuracy of IQ tests.

What do you think?
 
I wonder what their criteria for attractiveness is. In my experience, this is rather true, but then again, I naturally find intelligence very sexy.

In all seriousness though, this is bullshit.
 
I'd be interested to see how they measure physical attractiveness.

For example, if being relatively thin is a sign of physical attractiveness in the study, being thin is also a designator of social class. Higher social class means better education, and IQ tests are biased toward those whom have had more access to higher education. IQ tests are biased toward the literate (this isn't as much of an issue as it used to be).

There are a million factors at work here, but I really don't think it is anything innate. Beautiful persons are generally assumed to be more intelligent (in addition to nicer, etc. etc.) than relatively non-beautiful persons (a good book for this is The Physical Attractiveness Phenomena), and this might give them more confidence and help them perform better- in the same way that an attractive person who knows they are attractive will perform better in certain social situations than someone perceived as unattractive.

While beauty is subjective, it is usually possible to get a group of people to come to a general agreement on a person. It is inter-subjective.
 
The most intelligent people I personally know happen to be the most attractive. I wouldn't say there's a direct correlation, but there is some truth to it.

You can get ugly smart people, and good looking morons though.
 
I can easily think lots of models who are dump... I mean they do bad life choices...

On the other hand, there are some people who are objectively or subjectively ugly and they think all the time how to overcome this problem, so they spend all their brains to come up with a silly conclusion like : "it's ok, since I am in fashion I can do as Lady Gaga". They have to be dump.

I really don't know.
 
Okay I once watched this trashy reality show about attractive people. The premise was, you got a bunch of people in a house who think they're attractive, and they vote out the least attractive every week. Not saying it's a good show but bear with me...

One week they were focusing on intelligence. There was this one guy who prided himself on being intelligent, and saying intelligence is the most attractive quality. As I can't remember his name let's call him Mr. Smarmy-douchebag. He had a rival, a guy who focused on purely physical attractiveness, didn't seem intelligent at all, and was just as much of a dick. I'll call him Mr. Bimbo.

Now this week seemed to be all Mr. Smarmy-douchebag was waiting for. He had a spring in his step. They were set with an I.Q. test developed by MENSA, and during the dinner were told to share stories of how their intelligence helped them. He came out with a story of getting this major university grade and one of the highest scores in the country. Then the results came through. He got a pretty decent score of 150+ and boy did he look smug. His smug look was wiped off his face when it came to Mr. Bimbo though. He managed to get a score of over 170 even though he didn't actually give a damn!

Before those results sound made up, they were the 2 highest results. Everyone else got around 100 as you'd expect.
 
mauve said:
What do you think?
Click to expand...

My only thought on this that ~might~ support the premise is that people who are better educated are more likely to know how to properly take care of themselves which translates both into proper diet, proper exercise, and proper personal care, all of which translate very directly into increasing the odds so and so will be fit, healthy, and therefore attractive.

So I think it's more the reverse... intelligent people are probably more likely to maintain their attractiveness, not that attractive people are somehow more intelligent.
 
~jet said:
My only thought on this that ~might~ support the premise is that people who are better educated are more likely to know how to properly take care of themselves which translates both into proper diet, proper exercise, and proper personal care, all of which translate very directly into increasing the odds so and so will be fit, healthy, and therefore attractive.

So I think it's more the reverse... intelligent people are probably more likely to maintain their attractiveness, not that attractive people are somehow more intelligent.
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You beat me to it. That's what i was going to say
 
~jet said:
My only thought on this that ~might~ support the premise is that people who are better educated are more likely to know how to properly take care of themselves which translates both into proper diet, proper exercise, and proper personal care, all of which translate very directly into increasing the odds so and so will be fit, healthy, and therefore attractive.

So I think it's more the reverse... intelligent people are probably more likely to maintain their attractiveness, not that attractive people are somehow more intelligent.
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
If you include outliers, then attractive people probably are more likely to be intelligent. But if you disregard those surviving with mental and/or physical defects and only look at the healthy population, then I doubt there's any correlation worth noticing.
 
On average the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to have more money. The more money you have (mainly if you're a man) the more likely you are to attract a good looking partner. We all know women like rich men. Therefore your kids are likely to inherit clever and attractive genes.

On average (and that's the key point here) this probably means that the more attractive you are the more likely you are to be intelligent
 
I think the op's article was referring to physical attractiveness aka hotness based on looks.
 
I might take into consideration that attractive people are more confident and such because they're generally treated as valuable right off the bat - as far as guys go. Less attractive and normal people can tend to doubt themselves and feel self-conscious, and then doubt their answers on the tests. Then mark down different answers. I'd say that pure intelligence probably doesn't have any major correlation with attractiveness, but confidence does - and confidence affects how we act. Get a normal person in a room full of attractives and they'll feel pressured. Get a normal person in a room full of uggos and they'll feel amazingly confident.

It's a cycle, isn't it?

88chaz88 said:
Okay I once watched this trashy reality show about attractive people. The premise was, you got a bunch of people in a house who think they're attractive, and they vote out the least attractive every week. Not saying it's a good show but bear with me...

One week they were focusing on intelligence. There was this one guy who prided himself on being intelligent, and saying intelligence is the most attractive quality. As I can't remember his name let's call him Mr. Smarmy-douchebag. He had a rival, a guy who focused on purely physical attractiveness, didn't seem intelligent at all, and was just as much of a dick. I'll call him Mr. Bimbo.

Now this week seemed to be all Mr. Smarmy-douchebag was waiting for. He had a spring in his step. They were set with an I.Q. test developed by MENSA, and during the dinner were told to share stories of how their intelligence helped them. He came out with a story of getting this major university grade and one of the highest scores in the country. Then the results came through. He got a pretty decent score of 150+ and boy did he look smug. His smug look was wiped off his face when it came to Mr. Bimbo though. He managed to get a score of over 170 even though he didn't actually give a damn!

Before those results sound made up, they were the 2 highest results. Everyone else got around 100 as you'd expect.
Click to expand...

ALL of those shows are scripted drama factories, I'd bet it was made up.
 
Handsome is as handsome does.

What is attractiveness, really? Personally, I don't care about what the outside holds as long as I can hold a long, intelligent, and enlightening conversation.

Behold, Chris Langan, "smartest man in the US". Is he beautiful? You be the judge.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD3sVYZgkRA&feature=related"]YouTube - Chris Langan Part 2[/ame]
 
TheLastMohican said:
If you include outliers, then attractive people probably are more likely to be intelligent. But if you disregard those surviving with mental and/or physical defects and only look at the healthy population, then I doubt there's any correlation worth noticing.
Click to expand...
+1.

Also, agreed with ~jet's post. More intelligent people have more capacity to improve or take care of their personal beauty and grooming, thus increasing their attractiveness.

Albeit really, attractiveness themselves really is relative. :| Even physical appearances can be slightly changed with makeups and haircuts and fashion choices. Or are we talking about composition of the face, the golden ratio, that kind of thing?
 
I think this study is full of s**t. If you are in college, look around your higher classes. Look at the people at the top of the class. Sure, there will be some pretty people but there will also be some incredibly ugly people. I don't think there is a correlation between beauty and intelligence but there is a correlation between beauty and annual earnings that I've heard of.

As far as measuring beauty, there is an actual way to do it. There was a plastic surgeon who was struggling with doing consistent facial reconstructing on burn victims and stuff. I don't remember the name of the doctor but John Cleese interviewed him in his 4 part documentary "Faces" (on netflix on-demand watch). The doctor did like 10 years of research to find a map that would consistently let him make more beautiful facial reconstructions. He ended up with a facial map based on the "Golden Ratio" that shows roughly what an ideal face would look like.

So, beauty could be measured on how much one's face fits into the map. Some of the people that matched perfectly were Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie.
 
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