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→A man's looks are significantly correlated with his popularity and peer status
(→Women who have tattoos or piercings or wear chokers are more promiscuous: fixed grammar/wrong homophone use) |
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Anderson et al. conducted three studies | Anderson et al. conducted three studies focusing on the factors influencing peer status among college students. These studies cross-examined peer popularity ratings, the Big Five personality dimensions, and observer-assessed physical attractiveness.<br>'''Fraternity Study''' (N = 48, average age 20): The first study, conducted at a Midwestern state university, discovered that extroversion (r = .40, adjusted for physical attractiveness), physical attractiveness (r = .39), and a negative correlation with neuroticism (r = -.26) significantly influenced social status within the fraternity. Agreeableness showed no significant correlation with status.<br>'''Sorority Study''' (N = 45): Mirroring the first study’s methods, this research on sorority members revealed a significant correlation between extroversion (r = .43, adjusted for physical attractiveness) and peer status.<br>'''Longitudinal Dormitory Study''' (N = 74): This study spanned a year and included a mixed-gender dormitory sample. Peer status was evaluated thrice during the year. The findings indicated a high consistency in peer status among men, established within the first two weeks, while women’s status hierarchy took around four months to solidify but was eventually as stable as men’s. By the end of the study, the significant factors correlated with peer status were extroversion (r = .40) and physical attractiveness (r = .43), with neuroticism negatively correlated (r = -.38). | ||
Interestingly, the student’s beliefs about which personality traits would aid in achieving peer status were largely incorrect. They overestimated the importance of conscientiousness, which showed no relation to status. The researchers suggested that physical attractiveness might play a more crucial role in men’s popularity due to societal norms valuing men’s sexual success, a factor less influential for women’s peer acceptance. Additionally, agreeableness was not significantly related to peer status in either gender, so ‘nice’ people were not punished or rewarded in terms of peer status. | |||
Key findings included: | |||
*Men’s higher status was significantly associated with physical attractiveness in fraternity and dormitory contexts (mean r = .42). | |||
*For sorority and dormitory women, physical attractiveness did not significantly correlate with status (mean r = .10). | |||
*The study suggests societal norms around emotional expression affect men’s status; showing emotions like fear, sadness, or vulnerability contradicts the stereotypical image of “real” men, impacting their social standing. | |||
*In these social groups, status was unrelated to Conscientiousness or Openness to Experience, contrasting with professional and organizational settings where these traits are more valued for task performance and achievement. | |||
Further supporting the link between looks and social status, Palomares (2018) found that attractiveness assessments are made rapidly, impacting social status judgments. | |||
Another study by Alt et al. (2021) examined the influence people’s perceptions of facial traits had on individuals’ actual social popularity and influence, building on a social network characterization study comprising a sample of undergraduate students. Of the perceptions of people’s character that people inferred from their facial appearance, attractiveness correlated with the number of people who endorsed an individual as a friend (r = 0.212). However, more attractive individuals were no more likely to endorse others as friends than less attractive people. Perceptions of dominance, warmth, and competence were positively correlated with people endorsing a photo subject as a friend, though interesting perceived trustworthiness was weakly but negatively correlated with this metric (r= -0.14). This study used a cross-sex group of subjects and raters, which is a drawback given that the association between physical attractiveness may vary by sex. Additionally, likability and status may not be wholly linked, as status speaks more to who has social influence and power than who is liked or popular. | |||
<span style="font-size:125%">'''Quotes:'''</span> | |||
* “Physically attractive men tended to attain higher status in both the fraternity and dormitory samples with substantial effect sizes (mean r = .42).” | |||
* “One surprise in our data was that we did not find any evidence for this relation in either the sorority or the dormitory women (mean r = .10).” | |||
* “In combination, these findings offer considerable support for the hypothesis that gender norms about negative emotion are involved: “Real” men are not supposed to feel and act afraid, sad, guilty, or vulnerable, and men who violate these gender expectations are less likely to be granted high status in face-to-face groups.” | |||
* “Status was not related to either Conscientiousness or Openness to Experience in any of our studies. These replicated null effects reinforce the view that in the informal social groups we have studies here, status functions differently than in organizational and professional groups, where task performance and achievement play a central role.” | |||
<span style="font-size:125%">''' | <span style="font-size:125%">'''Discussion:'''</span> | ||
The findings that physical attractiveness was more important in determining social status among men may be surprising in light of common cultural stereotypes that tie a woman’s social status more to her physical appearance than a man’s. The explanation for this counter-intuitive finding may involve female intrasexual competition. Historically, women were denied direct control over resources and relied on men’s provision. In addition to the limitations imposed by women’s relative lack of physical strength compared to men, they were incentivized to compete indirectly with other women by enhancing the traits that men find desirable, such as physical attractiveness. However, as physically attractive women threaten other women, this can result in women reacting with hostility to women who are more attractive than themselves (Reynolds, 2019, p. 3228). This hostility may become particularly apparent when attractive women adopt a sexually provocative demeanor. Vaillancourt & Sharma (2011) conducted an experiment that indicated that a large portion (72%) of female research subjects viewed a provocatively dressed research confederate negatively, seeing her as "bitchy" (p. 572). Many other women reacted to the physically attractive confederate by engaging in a socially exclusionary manner towards her, such as negative gossip, laughing at her, or openly verbally aggressing against her (ibid, p. 573). So female intrasexual competition based on looks may explain why some studies show that physically attractive men benefit more in the workforce than attractive women. Female hirers would tend to privilege attractive men while being neutral towards or even discriminatory towards physically attractive women as they view them as rivals (Ruffle & Shtudiner, 2011, Gugushvili & Bulczak, 2023). On the other hand, male hirers could tend to be influenced by the halo effect and prefer more attractive candidates in advance of other information, or see physically attractive men more as potential partners who will boost their own status as opposed to rivals. Physically attractive men may also actually possess more desirable traits, either due to possessing good genes or due to benefiting from a lifetime of positive social reinforcement due to their looks. Therefore, increased female intrasexual hostility directed towards physically attractive women may counteract the social benefits women receive from being physically attractive in the context of all-female environments. | |||
Another explanation may be that women lose status for being sexually promiscuous while men face less of a penalty for this (Buss et al., 2020, p. 11). Men likely gain even status from engaging in promiscuous behavior in contexts such as fraternities where pursuing a promiscuous mating strategy is valued, as social status within a group is tied to accepting the norms of a group (Renshaw & Asher, 1982, p. 379) and displaying competence at achieving group goals that are often reflective of those norms (ibid, p. 381). Thus, being physically attractive and extraverted could favor men in attaining short-term mating status, increasing their status in a group where this outcome is particularly valued. In contrast, traits that make women more attractive to men could be neutral or deleterious towards their status in all-female groups. | |||
In terms of the non-physical attractiveness traits that influenced peer status for men in this study, extraversion is broadly associated with both social status and inclusion cross-culturally, while agreeableness (being nice) is associated with social inclusion but not status allocation, aligning with the results of Anderson et al. (Connolly & Sevä, 2021, p. 753). This link between extraversion and social success is likely because extraverts are generally seen as likable, more motivated to attain status, and more assertive and agentic in social interactions in general (ibid, p. 354). However, extraversion may be related to lower social status in environments where competence and task orientation are more valued, as extraverts may be perceived as more easily distracted by social frivolities, and some data shows a weak negative link between extraversion and things such as academic and career attainment (Bucciol et al. 2015., p. 253). | |||
Extraversion may also be linked to social status via social reinforcement. That is, high-status people who act extraverted are socially rewarded for this and, therefore, are likelier to continue being extraverted. In contrast, lower-status people who attempt to act more extraverted may receive negative social reinforcement. Extraversion is linked to status-seeking behaviors such as attention-seeking and monopolizing conversations. Thus, low-status individuals who exhibit such behaviors could be perceived as acting ‘above their station,’ leading to social punishment, eventually reducing their expression of extraverted behavior (Ilmarinen et al., 2019, p. 3). | |||
Neuroticism, on the other hand, is likely linked to lower social status among men because neurotic behaviors are seen as feminine, while low neuroticism is seen as masculine. This perception is likely because women are generally more neurotic than men, making neuroticism have effeminate connotations, and because neuroticism is linked to physical weakness (Kerry & Murray, 2021), which also reduces men’s social status (Lukaszewski et al., 2016). Cross-culturally, conformance with masculine norms enhances male status and popularity, while behaviors associated with higher neuroticism, such as crying, lower men’s status (Buss et al., 2020, pp. 11-12). | |||
Another reason for the link between high neuroticism and status may be due to the tendency of men to be socially rewarded for competing more directly for social status than women (Williams & Tiedens, 2016). A relative male preference for open-status competition may hinder neurotic men’s status attainment, hindering their ability to compete directly in this matter, as neuroticism is associated with anxiety and higher emotional reactivity. | |||
Like with extraversion, as mentioned above, neuroticism is highly linked with shyness, which may be both a cause and a result of neurotic men’s lower social status. The sociometric hypothesis of social anxiety argues in favor of this process of reverse causation, positing that it is potentially adaptive for socially excluded and undesired individuals to develop social anxiety in response to peer rejection. However, one study that examined this hypothesis using a longitudinal design indicated that this response to social exclusion may be more commonly observed among females than males (Henricks et al., 2021, pp. 473-474), perhaps because females place more weight on social acceptance and ties than males and because low-status males are less likely to be entirely socially excluded than lower status females, as females are more likely to use total ostracization as a form of social aggression than males (Benenson et al., 2013). | |||
Another study by Metts et al. (2021), using a cross-lagged design and hierarchical latent factor modeling, examined selection (neurotic people have worse relationships) and socialization effects (bad relationships increase neuroticism) for trait neuroticism and adverse social and life outcomes among adolescents. This study found evidence for both hypotheses: neuroticism predicted chronic interpersonal stress and chronic interpersonal stress increased neuroticism over time. However, the latter effect was not found for episodic interpersonal stress, implying that neuroticism is mainly associated with poorer social inclusion and attachment overall (Metts et al., 2021, p. 252). | |||
This bidirectional relationship between neuroticism and social adversity may imply that low-status individuals risk falling into a negative [[Matthew effect]] related spiral where interpersonal failures initially caused by socially undesirable traits further cement these traits over time. | |||
However, social exclusion and lower group status and popularity negatively affect males. One of these particularly salient negative consequences of low status is a lack of access to opportunities to attain opposite-sex mates. Although the Anderson et al. study was conducted on a sample of fraternity men, who would all be expected to have a decent level of social popularity and status (leading to restriction of range in this sample), it is interesting to note that other research has indicated that the big five personality traits linked to lower peer status in that study have been linked to self-perceptions of experiencing involuntary celibacy. Granau et al. (2022) found a positive correlation between reporting experiencing “unwanted celibacy” and neuroticism and a negative correlation between this in extraversion in a sample of self-identified incels and control males. Together with desirability-related traits such as physical attractiveness, the status-predicting traits in Anderson et al. may represent a syndrome of traits associated with low-peer status and resultant involuntary celibacy when one lacks those traits, especially when manifested in extremes. This association may vary by social context, depending on the traits associated with status in a particular (sub)cultural milieu. However, likely, many or all of the traits examined by Anderson et al. are broadly beneficial in promoting group popularity among men, even cross-culturally, perhaps for evolutionary reasons such as adaptions for hunting and inter-group warfare. | |||
<span style="font-size:125%">'''References:'''</span> | <span style="font-size:125%">'''References:'''</span> | ||
*Anderson C, John OP, Keltner D, Kring AM. 2001. | *Alt, N. P., Parkinson, C., Kleinbaum, A. M., & Johnson, K. L. (2022). "The Face of Social Networks: Naive Observers’ Accurate Assessment of Others’ Social Network Positions From Faces." ''Social Psychological and Personality Science'', 13(1), 118-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211003723 | ||
*Anderson C, John OP, Keltner D, Kring AM. 2001. “Who Attains Social Status? Effects of Personality and Physical Attractiveness in Social Groups.” ''Journal of Personality and Social Psychology''. 81(1): 116-132. [[https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.81.1.116 Abstract]] | |||
*Benenson, J. F., Markovits, H., Hultgren, B., Nguyen, T., Bullock, G., & Wrangham, R. (2013). "Social Exclusion: More Important to Human Females Than Males." ''PLOS ONE'', 8(2), e55851. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055851 | |||
*Bucciol, A., Cavasso, B., & Zarri, L. (2015). "Social status and personality traits." ''Journal of Economic Psychology'', 51, 245-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2015.10.002 | |||
*Connolly, F. F., & Sevä, I. J. (2021). "Agreeableness, extraversion and life satisfaction: Investigating the mediating roles of social inclusion and status." ''Scandinavian Journal of Psychology'', 62(5), 639-773. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12725 | |||
*Grunau, K., Bieselt, H. E., Gul, P., & Kupfer, T. R. (2022). "Unwanted celibacy is associated with misogynistic attitudes even after controlling for personality." ''Personality and Individual Differences'', 199, 111860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2022.111860 | |||
*Gugushvili, A., & Bulczak, G. (2023). Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility. ''Social Science Quarterly''. [Advance online publication]. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13320 | |||
*Henricks, L. A., Pouwels, J. L., Lansu, T. A. M., Lange, W.-G., Becker, E. S., & Klein, A. M. (2021). "Prospective associations between social status and social anxiety in early adolescence." ''British Journal of Developmental Psychology'', 39, 462–480. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12359 | |||
*Ilmarinen, V., Vainikainen, M., Verkasalo, M., & Lönnqvist, J. (2019). "Peer Sociometric Status and Personality Development from Middle Childhood to Preadolescence." ''European Journal of Personality'', 33(5), 606-626. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2219 | |||
*Kerry, N., & Murray, D. R. (2021). "Physical Strength Partly Explains Sex Differences in Trait Anxiety in Young Americans." ''Psychological Science'', 32(5), 645-654. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620971298 | |||
*Lukaszewski, A. W., Simmons, Z. L., Anderson, C., & Roney, J. R. (2016). "The role of physical formidability in human social status allocation." ''Journal of Personality and Social Psychology'', 110(3), 385-406. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000042 | |||
*Metts, A., Yarrington, J., Enders, C., Hammen, C., Mineka, S., Zinbarg, R., & Craske, M. G. (2021). "Reciprocal effects of neuroticism and life stress in adolescence." ''Journal of Affective Disorders'', 281, 247-255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.12.016 | |||
*Reynolds, T. A. (2022). "Our Grandmothers’ Legacy: Challenges Faced by Female Ancestors Leave Traces in Modern Women’s Same-Sex Relationships." ''Archives of Sexual Behavior'', 51, 3225–3256. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01888-8 | |||
*Renshaw, P. D., & Asher, S. R. (1982). "Social Competence and Peer Status: The Distinction Between Goals and Strategies." In K. H. Rubin & H. S. Ross (Eds.), ''Peer Relationships and Social Skills in Childhood'' (pp. 375-395). Springer. | |||
*Ruffle, B. J., & Shtudiner, Z. (2011). "Are Good-Looking People More Employable?" ''Management Science'', 61(8). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1705244 | |||
*Vaillancourt, T., & Sharma, A. (2011). "Intolerance of sexy peers: intrasexual competition among women." ''Aggressive Behavior'', 37(6), 569–577. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20413 | |||
*Williams, M. J., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2016). "The subtle suspension of backlash: A meta-analysis of penalties for women’s implicit and explicit dominance behavior." ''Psychological Bulletin'', 142(2), 165–197. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000039 | |||
==<span style="font-family:'Linux Libertine, Georgia, Times, serif'; font-size:40px; font-weight: normal;">''Looks (Love)''</span>== | ==<span style="font-family:'Linux Libertine, Georgia, Times, serif'; font-size:40px; font-weight: normal;">''Looks (Love)''</span>== | ||