New research finds that `Good-looking` pupils get better grades

Would you rather be good looking or intelligent? This is the kind of question, facile though it may be, that is guaranteed to engender a friendly debate amongst a group of friends. The last time I (reluctantly) took part in a discussion of this subject, I recall being somewhat dismayed at the responses given by my friends. With most of the group being in their late 30`s or early 40`s, I assumed that we were all far too sober and sensible to be chasing dreams of an eternal youth, and everyone would certainly opt for an increase in intellect.

I was however completely mistaken: the vast majority of my friends, who were on that evening both male and female in equal number, answered that they would choose to be good looking over intelligent. Most explained that they believed attractive people had more opportunities in life - that they were more likely to be promoted at work, and that their social lives were simply better, and that many people judged good looking people to be more intelligent anyway!

While this might sound like a naive philosophy, there happens to be an abundance of supporting evidence. An extensive study conducted by the University of St Andrews clearly showed that test subjects rated attractive people as being more intelligent. Sean Talamas, a researcher at the university who devised the test, created a set of hundreds of `standardised` faces, and then asked participants to rate them according to their attractiveness and intelligence. The results showed a clear correlation: the more good looking someone was, the higher intelligence rating they received.

I`ve heard that similar tests have been conducted in other countries, with the same results; and though it`s somewhat relieving that such vain judgement is not a sole characteristic of this country, it is equally dismaying that, as a species, we place such a high value on ascetic beauty. Is it characteristic of the times we live in, that we care so much for the surface, and so little for the substance beneath? Our culture certainly does seem to place an egregiously high value on youth and beauty, be it with the impossibly thin and glamorous models adorning the covers of so many magazines and billboards, to the endless TV shows about physical make overs and plastic surgery. It may be that, instinctually, we see physical attractiveness as a marker for health and fertility - though this doesn`t explain why we subliminally conflate good looks with intelligence.

A new study carried out by Barnard College economist Daniel Hamermesh has recently brought this subject to the forefront of public debate. Mr Hamermesh`s results suggest that good looking children perform better in school than their less attractive peers. His research found that pupils whose looks are `one standard deviation above average` attain almost five extra months of schooling than an `otherwise identical average-looking individual.`

In order to conduct the study two separate data sets were consulted, each of which tracked the academic performance of children over a number of years. The UK National Child Development Study (NCDS) was the first, which tracked 17,000 Britons born in a single week of 1958; and an American Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, incorporating more than 1,300 children aged from just 6 months to 15 years old.

These 2 vast data archives contained the academic information, which then had to be correlated with an assessment of each child`s looks. A panel of 10 undergraduates were used as aesthetic judges for the American study, who watched video interviews of each child, giving each a score out of 5. In the UK study the children`s teachers were consulted, who assigned the categories attractive, unattractive, `abnormal feature` or `underfed or scruffy and dirty` to each. One can only wonder if the children`s parents were consulted over this study.

The results found a clear correlation: better looking children preformed better academically. In such a simple study a set of control procedures, whose purpose is to minimise the effects of variables other than the two independent variables, are paramount. Mr Hamermesh has stated that accounting for gender, ethnicity, and parents` education and income were taken into consideration in the test.

The exact reasons for the results are unclear, but Mr Hamermesh explored a number of theories, finding evidence that teachers have a better relationship with more attractive students; and also found that pupils rated as being less attractive reported more incidents of being bullied, which could certainly lead to a poorer academic performance. Ultimately bi-variable analyses are an extremely simplistic form of statistical testing ; - if there is indeed a link between looks and academic performance, the mechanism behind the correlation remains unknown.