Douglas_Knight comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong

86 Post author: lionhearted 01 December 2010 08:25AM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 01 December 2010 09:40:30PM *  32 points [-]

I have a theory about "dumb blonde syndrome", the idea that beautiful women are dumb. Folk psychology says that everybody gets the same number of character points to distribute among their attributes, so some people get intelligence while others get beauty. But reality says that beauty is correlated with <edit>health</edit>, which is correlated with intelligence. Beautiful people should tend to be smart. I think there is some positive beauty/intelligence correlation.

But I remember taking a class with a stunningly beautiful woman, who every week would loudly make some inane comment or question, and not realize it was inane because no one would tell her so. And I developed the theory that beautiful people don't learn to self-censor, because they don't need to. Anybody else would get ridiculed when they said something stupid, and learn to be more shy.

Maybe this also applies to smart people. They're more likely to be correct, and so less likely to be made fun of when speaking their mind, and so less needful of learning how to phrase a question in a way that reduces their chances of being made fun of.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 04 December 2010 03:36:13PM *  4 points [-]

Just the other day, Robin Hanson quoted a paper that showed a 0.3 correlation between people's judgements from photos of beauty and intelligence. So people seem to not believe in dumb blonde syndrome. It cited a survey [broken link] that, if I read the abstract correctly, also observes this correlated judgement, but denies that there is an actual correlation between beauty and intelligence. RH also linked to a study which not only claims that beauty and intelligence are correlated, but that this explains the wage premium for beauty. You may recall the study a few years ago that intelligence explains the wage premium for height.

I am surprised that there is disagreement in the psychological literature about whether beauty and intelligence are correlated.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 04 January 2011 02:22:55AM 0 points [-]

The most surprising thing to me about that link is that it indicates beautiful women are disadvantaged when seeking employment.

Comment author: orthonormal 04 January 2011 03:44:22AM 2 points [-]

Robin also mentioned an interesting recent study on that counterintuitive finding.